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The Black Album, Load, and Reload


Vincent Vega

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Black album is the album that had the most commercial appeal. Every song on that album is Gold.

Front to back. Anyone who dislikes Of wolf and man & Holier than thou clearly doesn't like

Rock music. Death magnetic is a great album too.

Black Album has 4 great songs, then an abysmal drop in quality to pure shit. Any other song is horrible. You name it. Horrible. Dreadful. But yes, Death Magnetic has less fillers than the Black album. Much less.

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I completely disagree: the Black Album for me remains a remarkably tight album. The big singles (Sandman; Nothing Else Matters) are of course overplayed on radio, MTV and live; consequentially they tend to be 'skippers' when listening to the album. Nonetheless, these were all exceptional songs when heard for the first time in 1991, but it is Of Wolf and Man, Holier than Thou and Through the Never which demonstrate this records consistency. Full of big crunching riffs.

MOP and RTL are Metallicas masterpieces of course. I gave a slight nod to Puppets but there is virtually nothing between these two albums. And Justice is a sort of flawed masterpiece, flawed but perfectly admirable in its boldness. Kill em All is merely a drunken thrash around but a thoroughly groundbreaking record for its time.

From the remainder, Load is best; a bluesy, psychedelic hard rock record. Death Magnetic, an attempt to return to the spirit of 1986, almost succeeded. The two clangers are Reload and St Anger. Reload is patchy, b-sidey but with one or two stand out songs (Fixer, Fuel). St Anger is risible garbage which should be erased from the face of the earth.

Edited by DieselDaisy
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Load and Reload have some fantastic songs, but as others have stated, here's the problem: There's 27 songs there, and lots of them are mediocre-to-instantly-forgettable. Still, there are gems like The House that Jack Built, Until it Sleeps, Bleeding Me, Mama Said (yes, I went there), and The Unforgiven II.

The Black Album I've honestly never really dug - the production feels very flat compared to the earlier albums and the ones that came after. That being said, My Friend of Misery is one of my favorite Metallica songs and I never seem to tire of Sad But True.

Slightly off topic, but I've always felt the most overrated Metallica album is And Justice For All - Holy shit most those songs are long and not interesting, the production is paper-thin and the album just seems to go on forever.

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  • 4 years later...

The Black Album is a great rock record, from beginning to end. It's one of Metallica's most consistent albums, with nary a filler in sight. Only song I'm not too fussed on is Don't Treat On Me, but even that's passable, and doesn't reach Get In The Ring levels of badness. My Friend of Misery, Of Wolf & Man, Sandman, Unforgiven, The God That Failed, Wherever I May Roam, Sad But True... so many great songs.

Between Load and Reload there is one great album. Fuel, King Nothing, Until It Sleeps, Outlaw Torn, Better Than You, Low Mans Lyric, Unforgiven II, Fixxxer, Bleeding Me... those songs would've made one hell of a single album. I really fucking despise The Memory Remains though, that song is utter dogshit... what the fuck were they thinking getting Marianne Faithful to wail over one of their songs like an inebriated, mentally unstable pensioner?

St Anger was shit.

DM had a couple of keepers, especially like the opening trio of That Was Just You Life, The End Of The Line and The Day That Never Comes. But the album becomes very samey after that point.

Can't argue with MOP or RTL. Those records are something else. MOP title track is practically a religious experience. Fade To Black, Creeping Death, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Ride The Lightning.... you can't deny the greatness of these songs.

New albums their best since Black imho.

Edited by Towelie
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I love the black album, and while it's true that load and reload would've made a decent disc had they been chopped down to just one record, I still feel like fans would've rejected it cause it strays way too far from the band's roots, whereas the black album still kept at least some of their thrash aspects (keyword: some).

and yeah the new record is pretty rad (sans a few filler tracks)!

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