re: Until It Sleeps by Metallica

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A neutral listener cannot, in good faith, listen to their first 4 albums and make any sane plea that anything that followed after comes even somewhat close to their earlier output.

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This is true.

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They didn't mature, they didn't evolve. They got, by all accounts, really fricking lazy as songwriters & musicians...and it shows.

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I don't agree with that at all. "Lazy" would constitute pumping out thrash metal album after thrash metal album in perpetuity. You (or I) may not have been completely on board with what they evolved into, but they certainly didn't stay stagnant either.

I was almost in high school when the Black Album came out. I was too young to know anything from Kill 'Em All to Master of Puppets as MTV had no videos, radio did not play them, and certainly no access to music like there is today. I was not introduced to the first big 3 albums until after I listened to the Black Album. I had heard and owned And Justice For All... and loved it, but not accustomed to that sound, the Black Album was still, at that time, my favorite.

When Metallica released Live shite Binge and Purge, I discovered Fade to Black and For Whom the Bell Tolls, along with other classics. I bought the first three albums and then realized that I had missed out on something very raw and dynamic...an all out assault and it was pretty special. I loved James's voice and Cliff's bass. By the time I was almost in college and heard "Until it Sleeps", I was bitterly disappointed. Again, the riff sounded like "Push IT" by Salt and Peppa and the chorus was just not even close to being what their other great songs contained. There was forced energy and plastic production -- a victimization of the 1990's and cleaning up what need not cleaning. That Metallica noise that sounded like it was coming from a 10x14 basement straight to your eardrums was replaced with what might as well have been an alternative fly by night band.

I wonder if Metallica thought 1994 and 1995, as special as those years were in indie rock and alternative rock, needed to be their platform for sound. While the Black Album was a drastic change, there was still a great lineup of tracks and the ballad did work for them. By 1996-97, they might as well have toured with Marcy Playground and Soul Coughing or some bands of the like. That's what they ended up sounding like -- pure 90's one-album wonder.

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Until It Sleeps

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It's better than Memory Remains with that obnoxious old bitch

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By 1996-97, they might as well have toured with Marcy Playground and Soul Coughing or some bands of the like.

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They did actually tour with Days of the New and Jerry Cantrell. Later on with Summer Sanitarium they had bands like Powerman 5000, Linkin Park, and Kid Rock. Not to mention they headlined Lollapalooza, though I think that was more of a case of Lolla trying to change than Metallica changing. Nothing wrong with expanding your audience. Thrash was over by the mid 90s and alternative and nu rock were taking over.