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Metallica, Star Wars and the Dangers of Brand-Hype
by Rikk Wolf on 03/17/11
A retrospective review of Death Magnetic and how blind fanaticism is a danger to sane, quality-appreciating people everywhere.
He’s that friend of yours that loves something simply to tears. For the sake of this musing, let’s say it’s Metallica or maybe Star Wars? Yeah, lets. The guy knows all the lyrics off every album and/or can lip-sync along with The Phantom Menace through Return of the Jedi.
Both the (former) metal band and the film franchise gave us some incredible and timeless entertainment in the past. But this guy… this guy loves what he loves so much out of nostalgia drunkenness, he’ll defend its jaw-droppingly terrible contemporary efforts tooth and nail. I think guys like this dude are dangerous. Here’s why:
I was recently cringing at some behind the scenes footage on YouTube of my once favorite band recording their latest release, Death Magnetic (2008). In these studio videos, the band is enthusiastic once again, recovering from their St. Anger (2003) malaise, but there’s still a haunting lack of good musical material. Nevertheless, the hogwash songs they’re composing make up the disastrous, why-bother album called Death Magnetic.
However, the usually bizarre and out of touch cavalcade of YouTube comments were mostly penned by Metallica fan-boys that simply will not remotely consider the notion that maybe Death Magnetic isn’t the “return to form” it was hyped as, that maybe Metallica doesn’t deserve our attention any longer.
One nut-bag in particular had managed to make a very popular comment on a live video of the band performing Kill ‘Em All (1982) track, “Phantom Lord” from a 2009 concert. Frontman James Hetfield makes an unsuccessful attempt to emulate his shrill and piercing voice from so long ago upon the song’s ending. I was embarrassed for the man. Yet, someone posted, “JAMES HETFIELD’S 80’S VOICE IS BACK!!”, or some such slop. Of course, other commenters supported this fellow’s dementia heavily, mostly I assume to fuel their own sad denial.
It’s sort of what I imagine it’s like when you get a group of alcoholics together. I’m sure it seems like there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing to themselves and others because their immediate company is doing it too. There’s this brainless mob mentality where the normal, sane world has no power.
However, if someone honestly does dig Death Magnetic or St. Anger (I'm assuming you're either twelve years old or forty-two years old), then that's all well and groovy and by all means enjoy. Although, I recommend you stop reading at this point.
Like many angry and lonely young men in high school during the 90’s, I ate, slept and breathed Metallica. Kill ‘Em All was set to “repeat” on my CD player through most of sophomore year. I didn’t even mind Load (1996) and Re-Load (1997) as much as most people (Hetfield hated the album art and the experimental/flamboyant photos of the band included in Load's booklet). I thought they were good albums, just not good Metallica albums. The lyrics, in my opinion, were more imaginative and introspective than the trite Hetfield offered on Metallica (1991).
It was inarguably not metal, however. It was a butchy, bluesy hard rock sound. The classic albums were of course my favorites, but I could hang with Load and Re-Load. I even learned to play most of the guitar riffs on those albums. Fellow ICWXP cast member, Gregory Wyatt Tinnen and myself even covered “Fuel” and “Seek & Destroy” in front of an unreceptive crowd of our high school peers at the school’s annual talent show (in our defense, they would’ve hated us no matter how not-bad we were because we weren’t playing rap music).
Metallica then served up a fun but rather worthless collection of semi-enjoyable new covers (Garage Inc. - 1998) and that album with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra I don’t think I’ve listened to since it came out (S&M - 1999).
Metallica then didn’t return until the humiliating release of their 8th studio album, St. Anger. I don’t think I need to get into what a catastrophic failure that album is in every regard. Metallica picked an odd time to become a slacker, quasi-nu-metal band.
Still – it was a total Billboard topper. Why? Because it had the Metallica logo on it. It’s Metallica. Even if it sucks, people are going to buy it (or at least download it, much to Ulrich’s chagrin). The laughable title track off St. Anger even won a Grammy for "Best Metal Performance" (which is quite revealing of how out of touch and farcical the industry is).
At this point, I hung up my support for the band’s new music and stood beside myself in the puzzling realization that the crappy local band I was in at the time of St. Anger’s release actually had a better sounding home-recorded album. I stopped making excuses for their “evolving” (regressing) musical changes and moved on to listening to bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, The Agony Scene, The Black Dahlia Murder, Within the Ruins, August Burns Red, etc. I pretty much forgot about Metallica.
Flash-forward to 2008 and we’re given Death Magnetic, along with a lot of insidious hype about how great it was going to be. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t read a word of any press blurbs without a skeptical scowl painting its way across my mug. They wanted us thinking Death Magnetic was Darth Vader tossing The Emporer down the reactor shaft of The Death Star and redeeming himself to become Anakin Skywalker once more.
“This is the missing link between And Justice for All (1988) and Metallica”, “Metallica is going back to their trash roots!”, “There’s a heavy Middle-Eastern influence on this album”. What mind-altering drugs were the people who said these things on? The denial (or dishonesty) of these horrendously irresponsible statements made by the press and other Metallica supporters is honestly kind of scary. If you think Metallica’s Death Magnetic sounds even remotely like the “album between And Justice for All and Metallica”, I’d recommend you see a otolaryngologist immediately. You may be able to enter into a class action lawsuit against the persons responsible.
Death Magnetic seemed like an attempt to craft a new thrash-epic that was retarded through the filter of the band’s 90’s rock phase and the garbage-bin metal outing of St. Anger. The band’s writing had not recovered from its simplifications suffered over the past two decades. There isn’t a single riff or lyric on the album that sticks with you after you’re done listening.
For a struggling musician still in his twenties like myself that plays in a melodic tech-metal band, I can't help but notice the painfully obvious devolution on all fronts that still plagues Metallica on Death Magnetic.
As on St. Anger, the production is just as terrible as the musical content. How does a band so bloody rich manage to release such terribly produced sounding music? It's not "raw", it's unlistenable, peaked out garbage.
Many Metallica fans explain (make excuses for) this and other shortcomings with the dismissive, “Metallica does their own thing. They don't give a f**k what you think".
Maybe they should start. Or better yet, then why should I listen to them?
"Not giving a f**k", is all well and good and you can get away with it if you're a young band with a half-decent sounding album, but Metallica isn't young anymore and their last two albums are dwarfed in quality by many penniless local bands I know of. It's become a sad excuse for a terrible decline in quality, not an endearing modus operandi that makes me respect them anymore. “Not giving a f**k” is an incalculably stupid conflict-of-interest-mentality for any artist that releases commercial albums. Anyone that buys into that excuse is also incalculably stupid. Futhermore, it's not even as if they subsribe to their own rebellious ideal anymore. Solos are on Death Magnetic mostly because of overwhelming fan disapproval of their absence on St. Anger. The fact is, Metallica (and George Lucas, to tie this write-up together finally) can afford to not to give a crap. Sadly, there are infinitely more talented and more deserving bands and directors that can’t we’ll never hear of.
On Death Magnetic, instead of melodically genius overtures of aggression, Metallica offers outright goofy, circus-inspired guitar licks with twanky tone and solos we've already heard. This band is so hopelessly out of touch with the genre they helped found it would evoke pity if they weren't so utterly rude to their fans.
Anyone that thinks millionaires in their late forties that can't write a decent new riff to save their life are "not caring what people think" because they have integrity is instantly proven wrong by the Picard face-palm evoking effort on Death Magnetic, "The Unforgiven III".
This song has no connection at all to its prequels musically and is an obvious marketing ploy to trick fans into listening. Metallica is the abusive boyfriend begging to be let back in the house by attempting to reference earlier good behavior.
Personally, I chose not to fall for it anymore and Metalli-fans that do have battered wife syndrome.
But back to that insane Metallica fan-boy you know (hell, my teenage self would probably qualify as that guy to most people that knew me then).
This guy loves Death Magnetic and probably listens to St. Anger when no one’s around. He gets online and writes half-retarded, expletive-filled, physically threatening defenses of the band wherever he finds someone questioning his heroes.
People like this help to ruin franchises of all kinds. Unconditional support like that forces quality down the proverbial crapper. Bands like Metallica and directors like George Lucas can put out anything they want and see it a financial success due to former glory.
There's enough guys like our friend here that will buy absolutely anything with the Metallica or Star Wars label on it, that those properties will never have to try again. Makes one think of the lyrics to "Leper Messiah", hey?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, folks. Fans don't challenge Metallica because they're Metallica. Just like no one challenged George Lucas on the Star Wars prequels. The result is the same: commercialized, soulless, uninspired, even goofy, sub-standard bile that makes money simply because of brand identity and press outlets willing to hype it regardless of quality.
When underground projects become so utterly bloated with success that quality is no longer an issue to the creators, that’s when we all need to tune out and send the message loud and clear that we’re not going to hand over our hard-earned cash for a turd with a pretty, nostalgic label on it. When our input no longer matters, neither should that particular work.
Now, I'm not one of those closed-minded 80's purists that instantly hates anything modern-produced (I loved the new Tron film). I'd still be a Metallica fan-boy if the music was good and all harshness aside, I do slightly feel for the guys. To be under such a microscopic lens musically can't be fun. It's probably why they've withdrawn and they're out of touch with modern metal. They don't have to write the next "greatest metal album of all time" ever again. They have families and other things going on now. The NEED to write ground breaking music simply doesn't exsist for them anymore. There's no need to put in the effort their former selves would (which is why I wish they would hang it up already). No matter how much is said to the contrary, I imagine at the end of the day, Metallica just doesn't matter like it did to them twenty years ago. Of course, I stop feeling sorry for them as soon as I remember none of them ever have to work another day in their lives and Hetfield boasts he doesn't care what we think or want.
Now, please don’t think I’m putting Incognito Cinema Warriors XP in the same league as Metallica or Star Wars, but I think it nightmarish to imagine us years down the line putting out sub-standard poppycock and still being successful (we'd have to become successful first at some point, mind you). I’d rather hang it up and go out on a high note than bleed it dry and turn our still-supportive fans into laughingstocks.
But you know, despite my earlier points, maybe those crazy fan-boys are right. Maybe Metallica actually doesn’t care what you think. Now, stick with me here… maybe… just maybe, they DO care about your money.
...or the record companies do... or the film studios... or... look, just don't spend any money on St. Anger, Death Magnetic or the Star Wars prequels.
They stink like three week old tuna surprise.
Here's some vintage Metallica goofiness from yours truly:
