On Saturday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum welcomes Metallica to the ranks of popular music’s all-time greats. The band did as much as any group to establish and define thrash metal, then gradually slowed down and became one of the world’s biggest rock bands.
To celebrate the Frisco phenoms’ hard-won recognition, Scene presents The Great Metallica Debate. D.X. Ferris, the paper’s designated metalhead, is moderating. He’ll introduce topics, which will be answered by Chris Akin, Classic Metal Show host and webmaster of Pitriff.com, and Matt Wardlaw, former Metal Show host, Radio 92.3 Inner Sanctum host and proprietor of music blog AddictedToVinyl.com. Stay tuned for more.
Today’s topic: Rank the Metallica albums, best to not-so-best
Wardlaw:
1) …And Justice For All
2) Ride The Lightning
3) Master of Puppets
4) Kill ‘Em All
5) The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited
6) Metallica (“The Black Album”)
7) Death Magnetic
8) Live Sh*t: Binge & Purge (There was no rule about not including compilations/live albums, and I think that many teens in the ‘90s wore out a copy or two of this live record, even if there are questions about how “live” it really is.)
9) St. Anger
10) Garage Inc.
11) Load
12) Re-Load
13) S&M
This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2009.
The guy who has “Master Of Puppets” at the top of the list wins automatically no matter how the rest of the list is arranged.
Cliff Burton’s death and the theft of precious early equipment didn’t radically change the sound of Metallica. That creep Bob Rock did. Flemming Rasmussen should be on the stage with Metallica when they are inducted. Rick Rubin gets honorable mention for recent rehabilitation, but I will always think Bob Rock should be drawn and quartered for making my Metallica into palatable pandering ‘hard rock.’ God I miss Metallithrash.
Totally agree MikeBrooklyn. The only possible consolation is in those years at least you had Slayer, Exodus, and Testament doing their thing…well, come to think of it. in the 90’s the Exodus albums were kinda weak. and Slayer had mediocre albums from 98-01 while Testament’s 97-99 were experimentations in death metal…eh, The German thrash bands were still killing…