Black Album

I consider myself lucky. I didn't discover Metallica until after Load came out. I got to hear Load and TBA basically at the same time with zero knowledge of what the band had done beforehand, which was great. Can't be disappointed if you have zero expectations!

Then after that I discovered Puppets and AJFA, both of which blew me away. AJFA is still my favorite Metallica record and one of my favorite metal albums of all time.

And I don't care what anybody says, Load is still one of the best sounding rock albums ever made, and TBA is one of the best sounding metal albums ever made.

This was exactly how my entry to Metallica went. I was in 7th grade when the “Until It Sleep” video came out, had been playing for 2 years and the clean guitar part grabbed me, I just thought it sounded cool as fuck. I knew Metallica was a huge band, I had zero concept of “thrash metal” or the genres, I loved Alice In Chains already and Metallica just seemed adjacent to them to me at the time.

It wasn’t until around 2 years later that I joined my first high school band and they did a bunch of Metallica covers and thats how I got introduced to “Creeping Death”, “Bells”, “Seek And Destroy”, “Fade To Black” and all the albums as a result. I was a massive Dream Theater fan by that point, so once I heard MoP and AJFA and recognized the prog elements, I was well hooked.
 
I like the album for what it is. I prefer the less popular tracks though: Through the Never, Don't Tread on Me, Holier Than Though, Of Wolf and Man...World class production and performances. On Spotify Enter Sandman is their most played track, followed by Nothing Else Matters,then MOP, FWTBT, and One.
 
I kind of like it. The tones are great. The songs are catchy.

I don't feel as strongly as some of you do. Yeah, it does sound more Pop-y than the earlier Metallica stuff, but at the same time, it's not like Metallica was an underground thing either for like three albums prior at this point.
 
I'm like many of you guys, it was a massive WTF moment hearing Sandman for the first time. 'Sad But True' debut had some redeeming features of heaviness, but the foundations had shifted for me. I could see the crash coming. After AJFA and MOP it was a seismic shift to the OG fans.
It sounded great production wise and sonically, but it's exactly as expected by using Bob, it sounds like Metallica playing their stuff on the Dr Feelgood set up. Lars just cut 'n pasted Tommy Lee's sound, or 'Soul Asylum" by The Cult on Sonic Temple, exact same snare and reverb.

I persevered through it and tried to accept it for what it was, then Countdown To Extinction hit and it was a 'Et tu Brute?" moment. Following RIP it was another brutal change of direction.
It felt at the time like they willingly handed they baton over to Korn, Sepultura and Pantera etc to carry on with the heavy stuff into the 90's.
Then Load came out and put another huge nail in the coffin. There was further proof they were on a set path to Dad Metal.

Time passed and I'd accepted and enjoy it for what it is and got my heavy fix els
Agreed 💯
 
I remember having a hard time getting it to jam.. Save for a few songs, it wasn't epic like AJFA..
BUT, they toured the fuck out of it and by like 92 they were playing it on the radio. Before that it was unheard of to hear METAL on the radio.. It broke ground for the new metal to come. Then they kinda fagged out and went from jeans and t-shirts to makeup and feather boas and shit.. I kinda moved on since.
 
Nothing else matters would be her favorite metallica tune, and she likes the foo fighters. Throw in some robbie Williams and you get the picture.
Oh my... this is more serious than I imagined... she's good... nation-state good... I recommend running in zig-zags, screaming and shouting, until you're sure no one is following.
 
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