Metallica Falters: The Story of Load and Reload

Metallica began the 1990s already on top of the world despite an egregious and now infamous Grammy snub in 1989. Metallica's momentum was already so well built that the follow-up album might as well have been certified platinum before hitting the charts. stores, but in truth, Metallica saw an opportunity to To optimize their musical approach, they headed into the studios one on one with producer Bob Rock and in October 1990 worked on their fifth album, although some may disagree, it is Of course the band turned to Bob Rock to expand their sound and eliminate some of the Fat not just to sell records, although I'm sure they had no problem capitalizing on his growing popularity after all, the band was introduced to rock for the first time thanks to their work on Motley Crew's hit album, Dr Feelgood, a band whose spirit meant everything they hated. rock in the '80s The problem with the creative jury and executioners of Field and rri Metallica is that the two were unwilling or unable to take creative direction from anyone else.

This type of overbearing control over the writing and recording process had already proven to have damaging effects on their lives. The previous effort and Justice for All was an intricate thrash metal album that bordered on progressive, it was very sharp in its bold musical attack but terribly locked in from an arrangement and production point of view, of course, with Hetfield and Alri having the last word on the mix. and the contributions of then-new point guard Jason Newstead were completely unlistenable, plus, while touring in support of Justice Metallica, he had noticed the crowd's bored reaction to some of their twistier, Bloated cuts, even a song like Ends of Sanity It wouldn't be played in its entirety until 2014 and that was due to a fan-voted tracklist, however, Metallica realized the fatal flaws of Injustice for All and saw an opportunity to allow creative input from an outside voice. on producer Bob Rock.

His year in the studio with rock was one. which was marked by constant disputes between the band and their new producer, but its completion proved extremely fruitful. Dubbed The Black Album, the eponymous 1991 release sold just over half a million copies in its first week in stores and is currently at a sales figure. Of nearly 165 million sold, Enter Sandman's single was not only a radio hit and a classic, it stands the test of time as a staple song for beginning guitarists since, truth be told, the album would have sold millions with Sandman alone. . but subsequent singles The Unforgiven Nothing Else Matters Where I May Roam and Sad But True put Metallica over the edge as the new faces of the music world, metal music was now part of the mainstream and although Metallica's brand of metal Metallica at that time could not be considered diluted by the standards of most metal fans and early Metallica fans, there is no doubt that they had conquered the world and introduced a generation to metal music, the band was in high and raking in tons of cash with their live shows.

Even performing to what is estimated to be over a million attendees in Moscow, Russia, for the 1991 Monsters of Rock Festival, although the show was headlined by ACDC and opened by The Black Crows on stage, this historic night will belong forever. to Metallica for their incredible T. However, not everything went so well, as the band had embarked on a now infamous and terribly ill-fated co-headlining tour with Guns and Roses in the summer of 1992. I'll do this relatively quickly now. Most of you have heard this

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. dozens of times already on August 8, 1992 at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, frontman James Hetfield stepped directly into the firing line of the pyate Technics stage at the opening of his power ballad Ride the Lightning Fade to Black, resulting in burns. third degree on the face, hands and arms. and legs Hetfield was quickly rushed to the emergency room with the Metallica set cut out.

Fans, of course, were disappointed, but eager to see the knight's main lines. Guns and Roses saved the day as fans would wait for what was supposed to be over 2 hours when Guns and Roses finally took the stage, playing a meager 55 minute set before G&R frontman and notorious rock diva, Axel Rose, will announce the premature end of the show. Axel and his crew partied backstage and the chaos outside was sure to follow as frustrated audience members rioted. in and around the stadium, setting fires and overturning cars, racking up damage in the hundreds of thousands, interestingly, although fans demanded a refund for GNR's half-hearted and disappointing performance and time set, there was no contractual obligation on the promoter nor the band of honor.

For any specific duration on stage, Metallica made Soldier with guitar technician John Marshall stepping up on rhythm guitar duties, giving Hetfield the time to physically recover from his injuries while delivering a non-energetic performance on lead vocals. I can't blame him, he literally got burned. by searing pyrotechnics, but it's unfortunate that we never got to see him do more than stand with the microphone in his face. One could imagine that at this point the money was so good that the band had not thought about stopping touring despite the tension clearly visible. I had accepted the band members, let me quickly show you a clip of the band debuting with The Unforgiven during their Wherewhere We May Roome tour in the fall of 1991.

Now here is the band near the end of their Nowhere else to Rome tour. In the summer of 1993, whether or not this was just a bad day or the common cold is mostly irrelevant, doing 300+ shows in 2 years is going to exhaust you mentally and physically to an extreme degree, it was clearly time for Metalica to recover. out of the mental space of the tour, rest and get back to creativity and, while they got a head start in April 1994, of course, the band couldn't help but do another, albeit much shorter, tour of the hits from the tour.

Sheds. From June to August of that year and included a performance at Woodstock 94 in which the band showcased a piece of new music they were working on. This particular tour was most notable for the trash talk hurled at grunge and alternative heavyweights Nirvana and Allison Chains Hetfield. sporting a strange Backwoods mullet and drummer Lars Olich mocked the recently deceased Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain in the state of occupation of the rest of the band in light of Cobain's death, what color were the eyes Kurt Cobain? This one has four arms, four legs and is the work of McDonald's.

The remaining members of Nana later on the tour, Hetfield gleefully mocked Allison Chain frontman Lane Staley for his drug addiction in light of the band's last-minute co-headlining cancellation, as was wait, fans and attendance called a couple. shoes to the unfriendly leader of Metallica, I can't, I can't do it, but this here is a why did you throw that at me? I have a question, why did you throw that at me? I thought you guys want to throw us away. You will leave the stage, you can throw as much as you want, here to play some music, not look for garbage like this man, once the tour was over and Hetfield and rri had been dusted off, they got together again like they did so many times to continue fiercely writing the black album. demanded a follow-up in early 1995.

Hetfield and Alri had prepared 13 new demo tracks, but the massive accumulation of song ideas and riffs that had been recorded in the four years since the release of The Black Album gave the two even more reasons to continue investigating. Rift tapes into two fully developed songs. This writing and demo process took place in rri's home studio, called The Dungon, in Marin County, California. At the end of this enormous undertaking, they came out with 30 songs that were mostly mapped and ready to be incorporated. In the studio where Metallica's mindset for the Black album was to create a collection of more concise and powerful tracks with a strong focus on Groove and Rhythm, their next album was going to take that idea even further with the intention of creating something much more organic and much more. less rigid than anything previously released by the band and they had the right timing for it, so you can call this out of print if you want, but heavy metal had begun to gradually fall out of favor with music listeners in light of Smashing . success of alternative artists like Nirvana Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins and whether it was a hit of great timing or an intentional play on relevance, it would seem that Metallica had no intention of reiterating any formula they had established on previous records that Hetfield had heavily leveraged. to his bluesy country routes, drawing inspiration from artists like whan Jennings and zezy top, while occasionally channeling it through the edge and grit of southern-flavored stoner rock gods.

Corrosion of Conformity Lars at the time was hooked on British poppers Manchester Oasis and was looking to bring some of those influences to the table in more subtle ways to help balance out some of the harsher edges of the new records. Hard Rock's biker bar styles are interesting, while all this creativity was bubbling beneath the surface, thus conflicting with their previous label. 10 years after Electra Records, Metallica had incredible influence in the recording industry with Grammy Awards won and millions upon millions of units sold and therefore felt it was time to restructure their record deal in a big way.

This new proposal would generate personal advances. of the label in favor of a profit-sharing agreement Having the band officially partner with the record label as opposed to the traditional structure where bands are signed to the label. In this deal, Metallica would earn much more in terms of royalties and would have much more power. about creative and business matters than ever before, while initial prospects were bright for the band, these talks would be abruptly derailed after Warner Music Group took over Electra, resulting in the departure of the mighty Ally of Metallica and the Former Electra president Robert Kau in In late September 1994, Metallica's lawyer filed a lawsuit against Electra citing a California law that was primarily used to free actors from signing strict long-term agreements with movie studios. .

This statute allowed artists the freedom to be released from their contracts after 7 years, while the statute had been used as a threat by artists against their label, it had never before been taken to court in this way for the music industry. music. This groundbreaking case moved many forward in the music world as there was obvious potential that this case could set a precedent for any artist. signed a recording contract for over 7 years, fortunately for Warner and the industry at large, Lars Metallica's management in Peter Mench and Cliff Burns and Warner Music president Doug Morris were ultimately able to reach a joint agreement , while all the details of this agreement are available.

To this day, not fully revealed, Metallica got what they wanted in a significantly higher royalty rate and control over their master recordings and matters were declared officially resolved on January 6, 1995 with record label hell and Lawyers in rear view. Metallica would finally address. entered the studio with enough song to fill the entire length of a live show to record their follow-up to The Black Album. Instead of returning to the individual North Hollywood studios, the band opted to spend their recording time on the floor at the adjacent area of ​​San Francisco. California Metallica also approached Bob Rock to come back and produce the new album, which he agreed to despite the band and producers' experience recording The Black Album, which could certainly be described as a break from the conflict.

It would seem that, in retrospect, Metallica had made a strong sense. of respect for rock as a producer that pushed the band to serve the songs instead of any bandmate. Sense of pride or ego. The rock approach to recording on this new outing was much more open and relaxed than the typically fastidious band had once been. Experimented rather than rigorous, scheduled recording sessions, the band members were encouraged to improvise and rehearse together to create a spontaneous, loose, and organic feel to the songs. When Rock felt the band had warmed up and felt comfortable, he would begin recording.

This is a process. that's a strange thing for most hard rock or heavy metal musicians in the studio, while in most cases you warm up a little and then work hard to get the right take in the shortest timepossible, time is money, am I right in this level of freedom? and the flexibility that Metallica had achieved can only really be afforded to big money makers at the top of their game when you have millions to spend on recording an album. Time is not a problem for you and yet surprisingly the recording process took only 1 month longer. to finish that the Black Album, but more on this later in the plant there was a stronger sense of experimentation within the band than they had ever experienced before, this collection of material would be the first to be recorded strictly in E-flat tuning , which is a half step below Metallica's usual standard E tuning.

Hammet had recorded many of his riffs in E-flat tuning while trying to learn guitar solos from his favorite artists. Hetfield liked this sound and although he really enjoyed playing a full sound. He went down from standard E tuning, that is, standard D. He felt that tuning to standard D might make the record sound a little muddy; However, the E-flat tuning had two notable advantages for Hetfield: one was that E-flat was softer for his voice and the second was that the blues-style string bends scattered throughout the new material were much easier to achieve with a lower tuning.

In August 1995, the band embarked on the three-show Escape from the Studio 95 tour, headlining twice in the UK, once at the atoria and once at Downington Park. and a final show in Canada's big igloo, the three performances included the live debut of new tracks 2x4 and Devil's dance, as well as an instrumental champion of what would become Re

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s Fixer in November. James would be informed that his father Virgil was suffering from late-onset cancer and was expected to have only a few months to live, seeking in Solitude a place to clear his thoughts and a means to contemplate his past and his father's impending tragedy, from whom he had been separated for a long time.

Hetfield decided to embark on a hunting trip in Wyoming on his Trip in the Rain. and Snow James alone, with only his thoughts, began to form lyrical themes and ideas for upcoming material, although he was not equipped with a writing utensil. Hetfield used lead-tipped bullets to write these new lyrics upon his return to the plant's recording studio. would discover that his bandmates and producer had broken an unspoken cardinal rule of Metallica's recording process in Hetfield's absence and suggested that Kirk asked Tred to record some rhythm guitar tracks for the first time in Metallica's recording hi

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. , whereas in the past Hetfield would probably have seen this as a major violation of the prevailing trust.

Cooler heads prevailed and Rock in the band assured James that he had the final say on whether the Kirk's Rhythm tracks could remain on the record at first. Hetfield was unhappy with what Hamet's Rhythm tracks added to the album afterwards. James was used to going into the studio to record more than six solo rhythm tracks and making them as tight as possible on new material. He knew that he wanted a looser, denser sound than what appeared on The Black Album, but he wasn't sure how to record rhythm tracks. which felt distinctly different from each other over time and subsequent listens, James eventually discovered that Kirk's addition to the rhythm guitars was what he needed to form the beefier, dirtier guitar sound he was looking for.

Metallica were thriving creatively at the plant, but it began to seem as if the openness with which they explored their new compositions had begun to affect their productivity; After all, managing the recording, mixing and mastering of 27 songs is really no easy task and every second spent working on one track meant there were 26 others that weren't getting the proper attention, clearly the band had to Accepting the fact that the work

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they so enthusiastically accepted was too daunting, with many songs nearing completion, the original idea of ​​a double album had to be scrapped so that the quartet could focus their efforts on developing material that felt they could complete in a timely manner, this also posed a songwriting dilemma in itself.

Metallica was not the type of band to throw away or reject any written material, in fact, up to this point in time there was not a single fully written song of theirs that did not appear on an official Al Alica release. Unfortunately, this rigid mentality meant that the band would work their way through songs that might have served better as encores or bonus tracks. James mentions this years later. during the making of 2003's San Angro and it seems quite revealing when I hear Lars talk about how we can put anything into a decent shape. I agree and we did it by loading and

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ing and it's us trying to choose before we take it to those extremes. exactly Electra Records had set the deadline for mastering the new album on May 1, 1996, a full year after their first sessions for the record, and the official release date was now set for June 4, the final sessions. recording and mixing would now take place.

At the recording of the right track and quad recording in New York City on March 9, 1996, The Rock Kang magazine released its 587th issue with an exclusive look at the new album, so Kang got right to the point: Metallica's new release was a clear departure from the already more toned-down styles of The Black Album. While Kang posted the first photos of Metallica's new look, gone were the long, raggedy locks that were so intrinsically linked to the band's image. for the last 15 years. Metallica practically on the first day of this change were already forced to defend their new aesthetic more on this later, in addition, it was also announced that Metallica would join the successful alternative rock tour laala palooza for their fifth annual outing starting on January 27.

June, with this announcement it sparked some controversy as many pretentious alternative purists focused on the notion of having to share the same air with those they saw as beer-drinking brain-dead Metallica fans, that being said, laap paloa, founded by Perry Ferell of alt-rock giants Jane's Addiction, had a reputation for giving his main stage to artists a little more off the beaten path than a corporate institution like Metallica in years past when he was headlined by acts like Ice Cube Ministry Pearl Jam Primus and fishbone, among others, it's not necessarily wrong for alternative purists to feel that their beloved Fest era is now being invaded by the likes of Metallica, but it does beg the question that if Metallica were so mainstream, what were the alternative acts of the decade?

Nirvana wasn't a mainstream act after the release of never mind, if Pearl Jam didn't sweep the charts, Smashing Pumpkins did. a small thing and not selling out. It's safe to say that Arenas believed that critics and fans within the Alternative Circle simply didn't like metal music or anything within its orbit, but in 1996, two full years after Kurt Cobain's death. Grunge and alternative were starting to lose momentum, surely if Laa Palooza was intended to be a mainstream music festival it would have to change with the times and appeal to a wider audience. Metallica's sixth studio album, titled Load, was released on June 4, 1996, and was an instant commercial success, selling 680,000 copies in its first week.

It also stands as Metallica's longest release up to that point, clocking in at 78 minutes and 59 seconds. The final track, The Outlaw Torn, had to be shortened by almost a minute in length as the album was completed. so long that it originally exceeded the maximum running time for compact discs at the time, CDs longer than 78 minutes and 59 seconds were at risk of skipping, while the music itself was already a sharp departure from what came before, which raised the doubts of lifelong listeners. Most of the discussion centered on Metallica's image, even within the band. The release of Load marked the first time that Metallica publicly disagreed with the band's direction, while James at the time found the change in musical direction clearly organic for a more mature person.

Heavy metal band rri was quick to discard the heavy metal label but was cautious in accepting the alternative label. It would also seem that Lars and Kirk Hammet had a greater sense of control over the group's image where the two seemed to shed the visual immaturity of the black leather vests and metal t-shirts with cut-off sleeves struck fans as an appeal. to wealth and status in Hollywood. Rich kids who forgot where they came from. Load's cover image is an abstract piece made from a fusion of cow's blood and seen between plexiglass by controversial artist Andrés Serrano, plus photos of the band in pimp outfits and posing contemplatively in shots that would never have appeared in a Unfortunately, the new, simpler logo design is a direct consequence of all this visual change is that the discourse on the charge focused more on cuts of Metallica. hair and expensive outfits than on any actual album content, resulting in a case of too much at once for Most listeners and fans who put them on the map in the first place does not necessarily mean that everything would have been fine if If they had cut their hair but tried to repeat The Black Album even if they had released this new experimental material while dressing like they did in their early 20s, the burden is largely a case of damned if you do, damned if dont do it.

Hetfield, although defensive at the beginning of the album's new material, did not like the Hammet and ol' approach to the image and began to accept that. The band's New Look had as much or more to do with alienating their fan base than the southern rock and country-flavored approach of the new records. These were the subtle seeds of discord planted and that would eventually sprout into outright resentment between band members over the next decade. Creatively, the production in charge is nothing short of daring, if not downright daring, an obvious decision from the perspective of the band. music business is to take the model presented on the Black Album and simply repeat it for another 10 songs for the band. continuing to evolve is a much more respectable measure and it is unfortunate how many people did not realize that the fact of the matter is that this burden is not weighed by haircuts, fashion, money, country or southern rock, but The lack of quality control hampering its full potential load has solid, well-written songs but sometimes fails to stand out among a group of unimaginative filler tracks, as I said above it would have greatly benefited the band to calm down, think about a bigger picture and try to compile. their best material and leave the rest as expected, while the blame for this lack of proper editing can be laid absolutely at the foot of the band, it was also part of Bob Rock's responsibility as a producer to help guide and even remake the artistic. vision of the album in this single aspect Rock certainly failed on the positive side, it carried sores in ways that Metallica had never reached before and never reached since Hetfield's voice has never been stronger or more studied, the already relaxed approach of The drums on this release have much more swing and rhythmic weight than ever before, Jason's bass here has more nuance and praise than on the Black Album and Hammet's rhythm guitar playing adds color and vibe that would be greatly missed. less without your contribution.

Ultimately, Charge was a financial success, however, it remained a mark against the band's credibility. People who enjoyed Metallica's previous work weren't exactly ready to embrace alternative-tinged blues boogie rock, and alternative fans in general weren't exactly ready to embrace something under the Metallica name with the release's heavy press run. of singles and music videos and the laala paloa tour behind them there was still more work to do and more touring too Metallica embarked on their new tour in promotion of load dubbed poor turning me a play on the song title poor Twisted me from the album Poor ing Me spanned Europe and North America and lasted 139 shows from early September 1996 to late May 1997.

On this tour, Metallica filmed their two nights in Fort Worth, Texas, with an accident at the stage skillfully realized to add an air of excitement and intrigue to your live performance. this performance would be released in 1998 on VHS and DVD as awesome. Sorry, sneaky tricks after Poor toured me, there were still 13 more songs left from his sessionsrecording that had not yet been completed, it was time for the band to return. At the plant in Saelo to polish the last of the 13 unfinished tracks that were first tested in the charging sessions, the process went smoothly and on November 18, 1997 the recharge hit the stores.

This album was another instant hit on the charts, although it sold a reduced 436,000 copies in its first week of release in keeping with the transgressive visual aesthetic of load

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s, the cover features another Andrés Serrano piece, this time a fusion of cow blood and artist urine, unfortunately all the problems with load seem to come back with a vengeance on reload One of the benefits of retaining material is that you can take into account some of the criticism leveled against your previous work and revise it based on some of the more constructive comments that you have received.

Metallica could have easily weighed the positives and negatives of the uploaded material and took more time to restructure some of the new songs that might not be on target; however, this would have resulted in a delay of the album that I'm sure was not even considered by the band or Electra. Reload once again suffers from being an overly bloated experience, at 76 minutes it is just 2 minutes away from Load's mammoth runtime, although it is a more rock-based outing than its predecessor and therefore It should have been better received by Metallica's increasingly jaded fan base. Reload in execution fails to adequately stand out from a braver creative direction, while singles The Memory Remains and Fuel shine as exceptional works in the discography and deep cuts.

The lyrics and arrangement of Low Man are as strong as any mid-period Metallica track, songs like Attitude. and Bad Seed bog down the pace of the album and feel less inspired than even some of the duller loaded songs. Additionally, Hetfield's vocals on this album tend to be nastier and more whiny than the powerful Uber melodic approach he used starting with the Black Album. J tends to sing This Way live quite a bit in 1997, almost as if he's trying to combine his intensely masculine voice with the sound of singers like Billy Corgan or Lane Staley, but James is James and this experimentation results, at best. , ill-conceived. and insincere at worst, plus Lara's drumming starts to feel a little too syyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy on reload, as if the softer songwriting leads to the drummer running out of ideas to convince Phil and drum beats.

That being said, Jason Newstead comes out of the reload as the MVP even if it's for nothing. Plus, he adds depth to songs like Devil's Dance that otherwise wouldn't be as good without his groovy, heavy style. Additionally, Newad gets another songwriting credit, his third and last in the band with Where the Wild Things Are, a song that, while overlong and overly repetitive, is saved by the fact that the main hook is the trippy riff from Jason. Fans and critics naturally saw Reload as a sister album to The Load, which basically did no favors in quelling concerns that Metallica might be losing steam while The Load came as a shock to many listeners.

Sadly, Reload remains a footnote in Metallica's overall discography, failing what could have been an easy victory lap in Reload and Reload. Metallica's next moves despite being solid business decisions and seemingly being the easy path the band should have taken after the Black Album signaled to many a sort of creative malaise or confusion on the band's part. 1998's Garage Inc was a double-disc celebration of all the covers of the quartet's roots and influences with their first album. a collection of new covers and their second album which compiles all the covers the band had previously recorded between 1984 and 1995.

In 1999, Metallica collaborated with composer Michael Cayman and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra on SNM, an album in live featuring songs from their entire catalog with two new tracks from minus human and No Leaf Clover Metallica, although they had indelibly etched their name into the record books as the world's most powerful heavy metal monster in the previous decade, had Entering the 2000s on shakier ground than expected, all of the aforementioned albums performed well, but the fanbase was beginning to grow increasingly concerned that Metallica's latest outings were the result of a band too indulgent with too much money and too much time on his hands.

If everything a band does is an instant success, how do they grow if they saw Metallica in the mid-90s? Expanding into blues and radio-friendly rock, where would a former thrash metal band now heading into middle age find their creative spark? The band would test his ability to stay together and dedicated to his legacy and his life's work more than ever.