Metallica was formed in 1981 when, as I said, Ulrich posted an ad in a local newspaper asking for a guitarist he could jam with. There were two candidates, and Hetfield made it (the other candidate having faded out of the Who’s Who of history books). Their next step was to look for a bassist. While in a club one fine night, they sat in the audience with their minds blown away, while Clifford Lee Burton performed onstage; his use of the wah-wah pedal, they said later, was the deciding factor. So Cliff made it. Their last addition was Dave Mustaine, whose inclusion was based on one look at all of his costly equipment. And thus was born Metallica. Well, almost born. A few jamming sessions and recording hours later, the band made the unfortunate discovery of Dave Mustaine’s drug habits, and also his monomania. Mustaine was made to leave the band and Kirk Hammett, a student of the legendary Joe Satriani, was brought in the same afternoon to patch the vacancy up. The rest, as they say, is history. The success of the band as the quadruplet stood only for 6 years when Cliff Burton died in a bus accident near Malmo, Sweden, in 1986. He was replaced two months later by Jason Newsted. The next big change happened in 2003, when Newsted also was sent out and substituted with Robert Trujillo.
The moral and qualitative range of songs that Metallica spans is overwhelming, and their mastery of the instruments is also something to take note of. They started off as saplings in the thrash metal genre, but as the other three of the Great Four (Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer) began to get phased out with the advent of hard rock and speed metal, Metallica found it easy to stay in the loop. The … And Justice For All album portrayed a noticeable metamorphosis in that they began to embrace the other aspects of life (and not just the emotions) in their lyrics, and their instrumental solos and the acoustic devices also adapted to the audience’s desires. Althought this lost them a section of their fan base, who accused the band of not staying loyal to their roots, they would later woo them again through their Black Album, Load and ReLoad albums. Their latest studio album, Death Magnetic, has a lot of elements of power and speed metal whilst still sticking to the fundamentals of thrash. No other band in the history of rock music has achieved such success as Metallica, with their last 5 studio albums debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200.
Although some songs have no moral bearing and were created just to fill up silent space, some songs come in at the other extreme. For example, Nothing Else Matters and The Unforgiven II are two of the most covered songs worldwide. Before Burton’s unfortunate demise, the songs had a feel of old school towards them; the period that came post-Burton, with Jason Newsted, saw the aquiescing of improved audio recording equipment for the band – as is seen with the difference Master of Puppets and … And Justice For All. Although Hetfield as been criticised at times for his voice and the apparent lack of control and modulation, you will notice that no one else can fit in as perfectly as him as a singer for the band, none of whose songs bear a resemblance to each other – a common phenomenon in Lamb of God‘s tracks. Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammet, of course, stay as the top innovators within the band. Ulrich’s percussioning skills has always seen improvement, a fact observed form the progression of albums. Hammett’s guitaring skills speak for themselves of course, with a variety of solos in every single album. In fact, his work in Death Magnetic has been lauded with the band receiving a Grammy nomination in the Best Rock Instrumental category for the song ‘Suicide and Redemption‘.
Ex-Black Sabbath vocalist Ronnie James Dio once said that “if you didn’t feel the hair raise on the back of your neck, if you didn’t feel goosebumps on your skin, if you didn’t feel your stomach churn while listening to metal, then it isn’t for you”. The rhythmic progression of the drum beats, the occasional pounding of the bass, the lilts of the guitars, the carrying voice of the vocalist, all these come together in the right proportions and avalanche down on your ears as a cascade of power, and no one does it better than Metallica. Even if my statement – “the greatest band in the world is Metallica” – is disputed by one of my readers, I will still rest assured in the knowledge that the name of the band will always remain on the lips of the fellows having that discussion. It is hard to leave the band out. They have constantly improvised on their creations, while at the same time upholding the superiority of the thrash metal genre when it comes to the madness of metal. Many musical groups start off with jazz, move on to glam rock, and then speed/power metal, climax with melodic death, and finally decline as alternative or jazz again. The evolution of music is complete, whereas the sound of music is but a cycle: as the times change, so will the audience. To cater to all of them is beyond mastery: that skill stems from an ability to understand one’s listeners and to give them what they think they need, while remaining as something they will always need. That, for you, is Metallica!
Clathration Therapy 