Deep Album Cuts Vol. 297: Metallica
My brother suggested to me recently that I should do a Metallica playlist, and they're definitely one of the big names that I've always had on the backburner for this series, and it sounded like a good idea to finally put it together.
2. (Anesthesia)--Pulling Teeth
3. Trapped Under Ice
4. Escape
5. Leper Messiah
6. Damage, Inc.
7. Blackened
8. Dyers Eve
9. Of Wolf And Man
10. Through The Never
11. Wasting My Hate
12. Devil's Dance
13. Sweet Amber
14. That Was Just Your Life
15. Brandenburg Gate (with Lou Reed)
16. Murder One
Tracks 1 and 2 from Kill 'Em All (1983)
Tracks 1 and 2 from Kill 'Em All (1983)
Tracks 3 and 4 from Ride The Lightning (1984)
Tracks 5 and 6 from Master Of Puppets (1986)
Tracks 7 and 8 from ...And Justice For All (1988)
Tracks 9 and 10 from Metallica aka The Black Album (1991)
Track 11 from Load (1996)
Track 12 from Reload (1997)
Track 13 from St. Anger (2003)
Track 14 from Death Magnetic (2008)
Track 15 from Lulu with Lou Reed (2011)
Track 16 from Hardwired... To Self-Destruct (2016)
With most deep cuts playlists, I feel that anything that wasn't a single or chart hit is fair game. But for some artists like The Beatles or Jay-Z where so many album cuts are famous or foundational to an entire genre, I tend to avoid the more well non-singles and go a little deeper. And in Metallica's case, they were barely on the radio or the singles charts for most of the '80s when they made their most revered and influential work. And it wouldn't have made sense to call "Master of Puppets" a deep cut even before "Stranger Things" made it into a Hot 100 hit for the first time earlier this year. So I tried to avoid the really big songs, although this is Metallica, so they're kind of all big.
I've always thought Kirk Hammett is a genius, one of metal's best lead guitarists, I particularly love his "Leper Messiah," "Dyers Eve," and "Devil's Dance" solos. And the bass solo on "(Anesthesia)--Pulling Teeth" is amazing, Cliff Burton's loss will always hang over this band as a sad 'what if.' I was amused to find that "Escape" is widely reviled as the worst song of the band's '80s output, a non-single that was created out of label pressure to make something radio-friendly. It was played only once in the band's entire history, at a 2012 when they played the entire Ride The Lightning album. I've never noticed the song as being substandard or aesthetically out of step when I've played the album, it's certainly not their fastest or heaviest song but I think it still kicks ass, would've made an excellent Judas Priest song.
I've gone through periods of being kind of a crank about heavy metal or saying things like I love hard rock right up to the point where it becomes metal (Thin Lizzy or Led Zeppelin, for instance), and then I start to lose interest. And I came of age in the '90s when The Black Album was ubiquitous, so that was always Metallica to me and I never became a snob about only liking '80s Metallica. And I admire their two most divisive late period albums -- I think the drum sound on St. Anger is cool (the biggest problem with that album in my opinon, is the lack of solos, imagine Kirk letting loose on some of those songs). And I think Lulu with Lou Reed is a masterpiece. It felt perverse putting "Brandenburg Gate" on here but I had to, I love that song. I'm not gonna troll and say those records are as good as Lightning or Puppets, but I think they're cool and add interesting dimensions to the band's legacy.
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on Friday, November 25, 2022 at 11:30 AM.
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