The House That Zelmo Built

Why does Metallica suck in the eyes of so many people nowadays?

Well, for starters, Metallica gave birth to Nu Metal, which is a crappy, preppy, dumbed-down-for-the-masses pretty-boy version of the true heavy metal that we had come to know and love during the 1980s. Nu Metal is, in essence, glam rock revisited.

And Metallica was the cause of it all.

A lot of that credit might go to Nirvana circa 1991 with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", but Metallica put hard and heavy music on the Top 40 map to begin with. Remember when "One" first appeared on the Top 40 in 1989? I don't know how far back you go with Metallica, dude. But believe me, there was NOTHING like the song "One" on the Top 40 radio charts back in 1989. Metallica pioneered the whole Nu Metal/emo thing that is flooding the radio stations nowadays.

And while a lot of people (myself included) don't necessarily see that as a good thing, since there are way too many bands on the radio that sound alike right now (Staind, Default, Nickelback...what's the difference? Might as well all be the same fucking band), Metallica still spearheaded the whole heavy rock movement of the '90s and the present day. They pioneered it with "One", and perfected it with The Black Album two years later. Which paved the way for Nirvana to ride in and popularize the whole Seattle grunge scene of the early '90s.

Metallica raised the bar on what is deemed heavy rock on the radio and what is acceptable in regards to heavy music. Try getting songs like "Chop Suey!" from System Of A Down on to circa 1988 Top 40 radio, and radio stations back then would've shit their pants when they heard that song.

Yeah, Load/Reload was not the same Metallica that gifted our ears back in the '80s. But those were self-indulgent interludes for the band more than anything, and I forgive them. Hell, Neil Young has been doing the self-indulgent thing for the past 30 years, and you don't hear any of his fans calling him a fucking sell-out, and he was doing the grunge thing before a lot of us were even born.

To me, Metallica's new St. Anger album is no different. It is Metallica indulging in their own musical talent, for their own personal enjoyment. You may not like the album, but the album wasn't made for you, it was made for them. Read the interviews that the band has put out recently, and you will see that the entire album was done in almost one take; just the band ad-libbing off of each other and playing whatever the fuck came out of their fingers. Which is the reason why Kirk didn't contribute soloes to the album, because the band didn't want to lose touch with the "one take" atmosphere of the album by having Kirk go back and have his soloes mixed over what was already recorded, which would have made the album sound fake.

St. Anger is raw, unadulterated Metallica. And yeah, it ain't pretty. Hell, I don't even like the album in general. But I do respect Metallica for doing it, if only for their own sakes instead of doing it for the sake of appeasing the conformist fans whining for Master Of Puppets Part Deux or ...And Justice For All Of You Again.