That clip is pretty much the only personal thing about Metallica that I like. I’m in love with their first 4 albums, I can take a couple of songs off the following ones, but the band themselves.. they’re assholes. I realize that complaining about Metallica isn’t exactly nerdy, but I’m a music geek too so I’d like to blow some steam off and at some point, praise the one good thing that I think they’ll present since their “…And Justice For All” tour: a tour with the rest of the “Big Four” of thrash, whom they’ve essentially either ignored or insulted over the years.
First off, besides that clip, there is nothing good about these guys. Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield don’t run the band like it’s their child, they run it like it’s their political cabinet, and until recently they wouldn’t even give their lead guitarist much of a say. Every shitty album they release, they’re immensely proud of, they may have single-handedly coined the “lie about your upcoming album” craze, in which bands would say one of two things. “It’s heavier than anything we’ve ever done before!” means that they thought it was heavy, and turns out to be mindless instead, or “it’s more of a concept than anything else”, and concept albums are famous for being… well, bad.
However, despite all of this douchebaggery, ‘tallica has a lot of influence. Their first four releases, along with Slayer’s, Megadeth’s and Anthrax’s early releases, invented Thrash Metal, and in the Metal world, that’s a pretty big honor, especially considering that they’ve garnered more fame than Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath combined.
A lot of Metallica songs, and Metallica-influence bands contributed to the soundtrack and atmosphere for Doom, in which composer Bobby Prince was presented with a mix-tape of metal and managed to change the riffs that he liked JUST enough to avoid being sued.
So, yes, Metallica downed Napster, nearly sued a guy for posting a review prerelease of Death Magnetic, because it was negative, still give Dave Mustaine the cold shoulder, without whom they’d never have existed really, and haven’t released an impressive album since the 1980s, but the creativity that they’ve inspired both in and outside of music will live on.. even if (hopefully) Lars Ulrich gets hit by a bus.
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Metallica nearly became its own game, long before guitar hero (and it sounds like it might’ve been pretty awesome!)
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Doom music was all inspired by metal from the previous 6 or 7 years.
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Some people REALLY know how to mash-up songs, here’s Michael Jackson alongside Enter Sandman.
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Apocalyptica, a band that plays metal only with cellos, soared into popularity with release of their album, “Apocalyptica plays Metallica by four cellos”. Guess what it’s about.
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Beatallica – a band inspired by both the Beatles and Metallica
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Don’t even get me started about all of the a capella recordings of Metallica songs, either, a lot of which are made of 100% win.
–Jeff “DanyLektro”