So what exactly is the problem with this album?

As fas as I can tell, it's essentially a perfect album. The sound, the songs, the performances.

People can wish it was "heavier" or faster or more complex. But as it stands, it seems like a pretty perfect hard rock/heavy metal album.

Because they already wrote the perfect metal album right before this
>inb4 but muh mix

That's exactly it though. The album is too generic/predictable hard rock.

Ever heard the idea that the sitcom Friends introduced so many cliches that it is cliche even though it was original for its time? That's Metallica's black album.

It's a matter of what came before it for a lot of fans. It was seen as a "betrayal" by hard cores due to the melodic nature of many of the songs. In a word, it seemed like a sell out.

It's a good hard rock album, nothing more. After the 80s Metallica decided to cash in. At least they did it right and went diamond. Still, it's the definition of selling out. Totally watered down their style.

The "sell-out" argument is always super silly to me. It seems more of a sellout to make an album just to please your pre-existing fan base. I just mean judging it on it's own merit.

Well, what's the definition of selling out? Changing your style to sell more records. Metallica definitely did that with this album.

This

I think more specifically, it's changing your style to appeal to a wider audience.

The biggest problem is that it got super popular. A lot of people still liked it until "Nothing Else Matters" was on MTV every 20 minutes.

Mealfags who only like the first few albums are the whiniest little crybabies ever. "WAH! This album isn't like those earlier albums! I want them to play the kind of music they were playing in 1984 until the end of time!"

I was 18 when this album came out, when I saw the adults and MTV loving it I knew something was wrong.

I think the main problem with that albun is the fanbase, everybody liked/likes it. Even those who are not metal fans.

It brought in people that didn't listens to or didn't have a clue about hard rock/metal.

That's why we all feel a little bit betrayed by it. Metallica fans used to be D&D nerds, stoners, and skateboarders. After TBA came out, girls and 40 year old auto mechanics started listening to them.

I find the stuff they put out before it pretty good, but I've never been able to make it through the entirety of Black Album, it just bores me to death. That's honestly about it, I find all the songs to be super boring and sterile.

Overproduced and under-delivers on the songs.

Too full of Hetfield-isms in the vocal department.

Overall the beginning of their self-indulgent era that continues.

Fleming Rasmussen ran a tighter ship.

WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! OTHER PEOPLE LIKE SOMETHING I LIKE!!!! ONLY I CAN LIKE THINGS OR THEY'RE NOT GOOD, WAAAAAAAAA!!!!

And there in a nutshell is why many Metallica fans started to so dislike that album; they weren't 'their' band anymore, but now belonged to the world and its cousin, all of whom seemingly jumped on the bandwagon. I understand the sentiment even if I don't agree with it, Metallica were never anyone's band but their own. Some fans complained about 'Fade to Black' being a "sell out" on it's initial release, so what are you gonna do?

The album had a newfound depth and maturity to the songwriting, the band were concentrating on getting a strong groove going rather than mere complexity, the bass was finally audible, and Bob Rock's production was utterly immaculate. Did they 'sell out' on that album? Yes and no. The musical direction was genuine and organic, but the big-budget videos and innumerable singles were, I suspect, Ulrich's idea more than Hetfield's... it's no secret the former went on a major rock-star trip during that time; limos and coke and strippers and even a white leather jacket ala Axl Rose... he wanted to be in the biggest rock band on the planet and flaunt it for all he was worth, they were and he did, but he's always been something of an insufferable tit-head anyway so nothing new there, but the music was sound and still is.

The downside is that TBA was so horribly overplayed back when it came out and Metallica were so ridiculously overexposed that it got annoying, result being Metallica fatigue that has never wore off.

It's just a pity the gargantuan success of that album destroyed that band in the long-run; they went from plucky underdogs to establishment overlords, losing much of what made them special to begin with and that, I suspect, is what turned many longtime fans off, I see their point.

this album would receive less bullshit if it wasnt made by metallica, you cant compare it to their previous, wich are much better. for me, the problem with it is that it's boring and overproduced, it lacks the raw energy that thrash needs

Is kind of generic for hard rock
But yeah it's not bad, Cliff fags as always exagerate

This was the next logical step for Metallica after the complexity of AJFA. I think the biggest problem with it is the songs aren't nearly as good. Simplified, doesn't thrash, doesn't have the complex prog-style songwriting. Enter Sandman is the perfect example, you could learn the opening riff to it the first day you learned guitar. It's not a bad song, it's just a pop metal song. When I play the album I get bored, whereas if I play any of the first four albums I don't want to stop and want to listen to every note. The Black Album I want to listen to something else. Depends on taste I guess, but to me the music is not interesting compared to the predecessors.

I liken it a bit to Judas Priest when they moved away from prog-style songs to simplified midtempo rockers starting with Hell Bent For Leather, except that they turned out to be really good at midtempo rockers. But I prefer Sin After Sin and Stained Class over British Steel. If I am going to listen to an album repeatedly I need to discover new elements, find the brilliance over time. The Black Album doesn't reveal anything new the more i listen to it.

FWIW I think it might be the best production on a metal record ever.

It has too many 'meh' songs. Holier Than Thou, The Struggle Within, Through The Never, all nothing songs. No Metallica album before it had three songs of that low quality. Then there's My Friend Of Misery, The God That Failed, Don't Tread On Me. Just not good songs. Six out of 12 songs are inferior.

Well, you should buy glasses in that case. It isn't like people expected them to stay exactly the same. But Metallica did more than change their sound. They basically went and changed genres, from being a progressive thrash metal to an alt metal band, so don't blame people who liked the progressive elements in the music for not liking stuff that they never signed up for. The songs were just not as good.

that is a distinction without a difference.

>kings of a genre abruptly abandon their genre
>DURR METAL FAGS COMPLAIN TOO MUCH

Soooo,basically the problem is about being cock-sucking hipsters ?

Now why would you seriously expect them to keep remaking MOP over and over? Thrash metal was finished, Rust In Peace was its swansong. A lot of the lesser thrash bands were being cut from record labels by 1990 and the biggies all changed their sound to be more like alternative rock.

I can't imagine guys in their 30s and beyond still trying to make the same music they did when they were 21.

The problem was they had no more of Mustaine’s ideas to steal

Nothing.The Black Album is one of the best produced rock albums of the 1990's. I prefer listening to the 2008 vinyl for this album. I have yet to hear a good sounding Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, or And Justice for All.

were metallica the beatles of metal

I spent my teen years listening to the first four Metallica albums and we always hung our hat on the fact that they were heavy, fast, complex, intelligent and metal. TBA seemed like a much simpler version of what we had come to love. When confornted with this, the band said AJFA's songs were too unwieldly and complicated for live performances so they wanted to simplify things. At least that's what they claimed, anyway. I suspect that the lack of Cliff Burton to help with the songwriting had something to do with it.

Yeah but what about the fucking songs.

I was also 18 back then and when my 13 year old cousin and his friends started getting into Metallica, I knew something was amiss.

>literally defending metallica
wow

They explicitly said in interviews that AJFA got out of hand with the song lengths so the next album was going to have shorter, simpler songs. It sounded at the time like they wanted to go in a NWOBM direction, unfortunately the result were some really vacuous, lightweight songs.

I was 13 when Justice came out. Me and my friends spent hours learning how to play those songs--I knew them note for note.

TBA was such a disappointment especially Enter Sandman, the guitar licks were so rudimentary. It sounded cool and all but the songs were just too basic and boring.

I don't hate the album and I do have a certain nostalgia for it, but it sounded like a record a bunch of content millionaires would make. The fire was gone.

And I'll close with this lyric.

"No more, the crap rolls out your mouth again..."

>I was 13 when Justice came out
Fuck are you doing here old man

I have no problem with an artist changing their sound, and, indeed, thrash had run its course by 91, but to change it in a way that it's not as heavy or watered down is another thing. They may not have sold 10 million copies, but they still would have been platinum--their sales were increasing with each album to that point. It comes down to the songs in the end, and they didn't have them. hell, they could have put out a pop album if the songs were good. Death could have been the new standard bearer in the early 90s--loud, fast, complicated, brutal, heavy--Like what Metallica used to be. Death, of course didn't sell in droves, though they should have--They should have gotten the old Metallica audience.

First off, it was the first record where a lot of effort went into James Hetfield's vocals. All of a sudden, he was a "singer". That took away some of the raw energy of the previous records. I think for all the criticisms that I might have about Metallica, I miss the raw quality of Hetfield's vocals from the first few records the most. They sounded perfect set back in the mix a bit. With the Black Album, they were front and center, and would remain there from that point onward.

In addition to the vocal performance, the raw energy was missing from this album because it was beautifully produced and polished to the last note. There is no question that sonically, it sounds fantastic. It was so impeccably recorded that it was jarring for longtime fans to hear them sounding that good, clean and inevitably, radio-friendly. Metallica had always been the opposite – a rebellious, cathartic sonic alternative to the "friendly" music that you heard on rock radio. Therefore, many fans felt betrayed when they arrived with such a polished album. This was supposed to be Metallica, not Journey.

So what was "wrong" with it? Nothing really. But I think those pivotal albums exist for many bands with a cult following - the ones that propel them in to superstardom while simultaneously alienating the core fanbase. Achtung Baby, Nevermind, Out of Time, Mellon Collie..., etc. The fans who had been there from the beginning feel the simultaneous betrayal of having championed these bands to people who didn't want to listen until THAT record came along, as well as having THAT record not sound as much like the records that made you recognize their greatness before everybody else. So now "your" band was making music for THEM.

To anyone who'd been a fan of Metallica since the Cliff days, TBA may as well have been a Barry Manilow album.

^This. They had to grow up eventually. I find bands like Slayer who still act like they're 25 in their 50s to be totally cringy.

Probably the most direly front-loaded album in rock history.

I can fully understand the popularity of the singles (Sandman, Sad, Wherever, Unforgiven). They have the clinical precision and impressive sonic grandeur of Zeppelin's Kashmir (without the elegance or musical artistry), are lyrically inoffensive (indeed, pointless) and sound huge on the radio.

What I don't get is the perpetual fan apologism for the second half of the album - which is an utterly disposable excursion into mediocrity. By Metallica's standards circa 1991, those are just terrible songs. 'Nothing Else Matters' through to 'The Struggle Within' is a shocking downward slide.

It's overpolished. It didn't have the same genuine anger in it as their previous stuff. It's prettified music that panders to the masses.

If you like it that's fine. But it's essentially not trve thrash anymore and bummed out a lot of fans.

You're putting it on the fans for "apologizing" rather than just admitting you don't like it or don't get it and stopping there. It's not them, it's you. I don't apologize for those songs and I think they're all good songs.

By Metallica's own standards circa 1991 (as I noted), the songs on the second half of the Metallica album are mediocre in the extreme. How does that side compare with any second half of their previous albums? It fails miserably. They never play any of them live either, at least not until that "The Black Album Live 2012" tour in Europe which justified another quick payday.

^This. Metallica fans in the 80s were skateboard punks and people who played dungeon crawler games on an Amiga. You got beaten up by football jocks for being a fan. After TBA came out, the jocks were all pumping their fists to Enter Sandman.

It's funny how Christgau accused them of being a muscled jock band even though that wasn't the case pre-'91.

Geez, some of you are acting like The Black Album is the second coming of St. Anger or something.

With the only point being to sell more albums. Trying to apply to a wider audience is just one method of selling out

You can't fault the band for relentless touring to support the album and then reaping the rewards. The approach is different than the previous albums, but it's by no means as bad as diehard fans make it out to be. People forget they actually had a video on MTV for One, off of Justice, which many feel is their last good album.

It's the stuff that came long after The Black Album that I have a real issue with, that in my opinion damaged their credibility beyond repair.

My uncle DJ-ed in a strip club in the early 90s. He learned to hate TBA with a passion.

^This. Enter Sandman got loads of rotation in bars and clubs back then. Metallica's 80s stuff sure didn't.

As far as I'm concerned the band peaked early with Ride the Lightning. Master of Puppets tried a little to hard to copy Ride the Lightning and sounds soulless to me. Same goes with all the following albums. The black album is just another example for Micromanagement and over production. NO rock band should take 8 months of studio time to record a record. If it takes that long then you're doing rock wrong.

You knew Metallica had sold out when 12 year old girls who normally only listened to New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson, and Color Me Badd suddenly start buying cassettes of Nothing Else Matters.

It wasn't as good as CFH, Fight me.

I mean, I never got too into them because I discovered underground thrash bands who were doing much heavier and more technical stuff.

You ever seen the movie Ghost World? There's this one scene with a tough guy mullethead with nunchucks outside of a convenience store. Anyway, that would be pretty much the kind of people who picked up Metallica after TBA came out. I was there and I saw how quickly their fanbase changed from longhairs and skateboarders to meathead AC/DC fans. TBA lacked all of the Lovecraftian horror and doom of their 80s albums and went instead for generic tough guy barroom posturing.

It was kind of the same way with REM, RHCP, and a bunch of other alternative 80s acts who blew up into stadium rock in the 90s. They picked up a mountain of casual normalfags, dadrockers, jocks, and girls as fans.

I blame it on Pantera for introducing their bullshit biker tough guy posturing into the metal world. It used to be that metal concerts were chill places where everyone got along and wanted to enjoy the music. After Pantera happened, suddenly every concert was full of idiots trying to start fights.

Yeah overall there was this rise of faux toughness in the 90s, this was right around when EVERYONE started getting tattoos as well. Stone Cold Steve Austin-looking types popping up everywhere. Metal got pretty meatheaded in that sense.

That seems a little overblown because Metallica had plenty of tough guy aggressive songs like Battery and pretty much all of KEA.

Kind of, but I was there and I can tell you that Metallica fans in the 80s were very different from the 90s fans. Football jocks and fratboys didn't listen to RTL and AJFA. They beat you up if you listened to thrash metal. Jock/dudebro bands in the 80s were stuff like Motley Crue and AC/DC.

Flash forward to 1992 and Metallica concerts were full of dudebros pumping their fists in the air and chanting "EEEEEXXIIIT LIIIIGHT. EEEENNTEERRR NIIIIGHTTT. WE'RE OOFFF TO NEEEVVER NEVVVERR LAAAAND!!!"

The transition began when they did that dual show with Guns'n'Roses and TBA simply completed the process. By the 90s, the thrasher/skater punk audience had moved on to other bands.

There is nothing wrong with the album. Metal fans are just weirdly protective of their favourite bands and genres. Any sort of deviation is looked down upon.

Wha...you don't think anyone moshed at thrash metal shows? There are stories about how you could get your ass kicked for wearing the wrong band T-shirt at some of those concerts. I grant that Exhorder and Slayer probably had more hardcore pits than Metallica.

Still, Metallica concerts post-1990 were very much the last place you'd see any moshing. Not with all the preps, dudebros, and their girlfriends there. The whole thing became very safe and corporate. Now, Pantera shows in the 90s would definitely have had a lot of moshing and fighting going on.

Christgau has demonstrated repeatedly that he's clueless about metal fans beyond the narrow stereotype he has for them. Pay him no heed.

metallicas best album was Ride and that's really all there is to say about it.

At least the second half has The God That Failed.

I also really like My Friend of Misery, although that's probably an unpopular opinion.

>unironically listening to soyboy p4k approved bands
wow lol

There is nothing wrong with it. It was the right album at the right time and Its a great bookend to 5 excellent albums from one of the Best Rock/Metal bands of all time. Nothing they do now changes how good they were. They became a massive success and it changed them but that's normal. Only autists expect everything to stay the same.

Get off of Sup Forums, Lars.

Good as a rock album
Sucks as a Metallica album

There isnt a single good Metallica album. They've always been shit.

>muh Bay Area Thrash
>muh Big Four

80s American thrash is the gayest bullshit ever.

>mfw almost all of the criticism is aimed at what it did to the scene, not the music itself

I guess it really is the best metal album ever, then.

>Slayer in their prime
>Gay bullshit

Pick uno and only uno

There is plenty of criticism to be aimed at the music. It's bland, slick, overproduced, and faceless stadium rock. The second half of the album is also awful filler.

^This.

FWIW I'd argue that Vulgar Display of Power did far more damage to the metal scene than TBA.