re: Mark Tremonti should be Metallica's new front man

This thread is a poor troll but people do realize that Metallica is Metallica because of their diversity right? Nothing is more irritating than listening to the "everything after the first 4 suck because it's not thrash!!!" crowd. Lars has even said they quickly realized that a bunch of nerds wanted them to write Master of Puppets over and over again for 30 years and they didn't want to be boxed in. Metallica consists of James Hetfield plus guests, simple as that. All of those songwriting credits for Lars are for arrangements, and while Kirk has written some legendary solos he's rarely contributed to the real songwriting. He came up with the Sandman riff but even that had to be molded. Trujillo will always be the sweepstakes dude to me and he still doesn't fit. Hetfield is underappreciated because he isn't a flaming a-hole that has overdosed 12 times and kept his name in the news. He is one of the most charismatic frontmen ever in rock and really outside of Guitar World type circles he doesn't get the credit he deserves.

quote:

---

But saying James is the reason for the band's success is absolutely preposterous in and of itself.

---

It's not preposterous when it's absolutely true. Was Cliff a great bassist? Sure - maybe one of the best ever. Ditto for Dave and 6-string. Both of those guys were top tier talent for the genre they helped forge.

But Hetfield's songwriting and vision are the cornerstones of Metallica - and that would be true if he only sang and did not play as much guitar as he has. It's even more true when you consider his guitar work.

Just as there is no Led Zeppelin without Page and Plant (and I rank them #3 and #4 on a pure talent basis for the members of that band) there is no Metallica without James Hetfield - I'm not sure how this even became a question.