![]() ![]() A couple of years ago they released Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, its most “Old Metallica”-sounding album since …And Justice for All. The 1998 release of Garage, Inc., a batch of slightly more mainstream-oriented covers (that still included two Discharge songs) that included the original EP as a bonus feature, was a thinly disguised acknowledgement that the Rocktallica era was as bad as fans had complained, and that everyone may have been better off if Metallica had stuck to being just a really fantastic metal band.Įventually Metallica got around to not just admitting how far off track they’d gone, but actually doing something about it. Anger that was about how much it sucked to be in Metallica.Īlong the way, Garage Days had become a totem among fans for the days when Metallica was still simply a metal band–not just for the fans, but apparently for the band itself. Anger, and then a movie about the making of St. The relationships within the band frayed. ![]() By the end of the 90s, the band found suddenly found itself to be one of the biggest in the universe-almost by accident-and they seemed to hate it. That kind of joy was a lot harder to find in subsequent Metallica albums. It was an act of ironically brash commercialism, but also an act of pure nerdy love for the genres.Īnd hearing the (arguably) best metal band in the world giving themselves a break from their increasingly complex artistic ambition-not to mention the trauma of losing a bandmate and friend-to geek out as hard as possible on incredible songs by obscure bands like Killing Joke and Budgie, it’s hard not to get caught up in the sheer joy of it. ![]() They had a sound that seemed to have sucked up every good idea metal had had since the New Wave of British Heavy Metal cohered in the late 70s, they were tight as fuck, and their vision was ambitious enough to have already started to draw suspicion from the metal scene’s anti-sellout watch dogs.īefore they got around to executing that vision, the band banged out five covers of songs of bands that only devoted metalheads and punks knew about in 1987. Or actually three: to coattail off the success of the Diamond Head and Blitzkrieg covers on the B-side of the “Creeping Death” single (aka Garage Days Revisited), to introduce the world to the band’s new bassist Jason Newsted, and to give them something new to sell at the Monsters of Rock festival merch table without having to write new songs.ĭespite these humble intentions, Garage Days Re-Revisited would become one of the most symbolically profound releases of Metallica’s career a symbol for how things might have gone if they’d taken the other fork in the road.Įven with the recent loss of Cliff Burton, Metallica was arguably the best metal band in existence when they turned Lars Ulrich’s garage into a recording studio and cranked out the five covers that would make up the EP. When every other big rock band of the ‘90s besides U2 imploded before the turn of the millennium, James, Jason, Kirk, and Lars found themselves suddenly the biggest band in the world (besides U2) at the peak of the old school record industry’s commercial peak.īefore making …And Justice For All–and that fateful decision–Metallica recorded a collection of cover songs called The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited (Which is being reissued this Friday on their own label, Blackened Recordings).Īs the workmanlike name suggests, Garage Days Re-Revisited was a record with a job to do. The self-titled “black album” and diamond-selling success followed. In the late 80s, after …And Justice for All became a surprise hit and the mainstream record industry started paying the kind of attention to Metallica that metalheads had for years, the band was basically presented with a decision: to continue on being the world’s biggest and best metal band, or to put on their rock star pants and start competing with the big kids in the upper echelons of the Billboard charts. It’s much rarer to find ones who dream about how good life might be if they hadn’t. The world is full of musicians past their prime, holding heads full of elaborate fantasies about what life would have been like had they received the break they deserved. ![]()
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