As a teenager I was in the crowd for Metallica Master of Puppets tour. Small playhouse in RI. Plywood cross cutouts up on stage.Almost called off the show because they thought the crowd was going to tear the place up. As far as metal there is Metallica’s first 3 albums then everything else falls in behind it. I eventually mellowed a bit with age and settled in with RUSH. Still love early Metallica though.

Laughable statement. Metallica was way more dynamic as a band than Megadeath. The only reason people pick on Metallica( me included) is because of the direction they went after Master Of Puppets. Let’s not forget the fact that METALLICA lost there bass player Cliff Burton. He died in a bus accident after completion of Master of Puppets.Cliff was the one who taught the band about arranging and actually taught them a lot about music. After he was gone seems some of that early magic died with him. They go on to become more mainstream and actually get rich. No I didn’t like that. No offense but Megadeath and others were just trying to duplicate what Metallica had already done. No band ever succeeded in making better albums than the first 3 Metallica albums.OK maybe their 2nd and 3rd albums. Way off.....lol. Dave From Megadeath was a great guitarist but terrible singer and the rest of Megadeath was just solid. Too funny.

He said I was way off.....as in the Megadeath album he mentioned was way better than the first three Metallica albums. That’s rough man. I would have been fine with he prefers Megadeath but no I was WAY off. Funny actually living through that time what I said was kind of accepted opinion. And thanks for telling me Dave Mustaine was actually in Metallica..lol. Sorry. He was also kicked out for being an out of control drunk. And back in the 80s when we heard his replacement for the first time Kirk Hammett no one was complaining cause Kirk was better. Wikipedia page? I,m 47 I was actually there at the time and have a pretty good grasp on the metal of the time. I loved Maiden, Slayer, Pantera and the rest but still go back to at least Metallica’s 2 and 3rd albums even now. Not overdistored and tight as hell. Even though Metallica had its influence from some bands before them Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets defined metal for many years.... heck still. I,m WAY off. Sorry if I ruffled any feathers but to say I,m way off just isn’t close to the truth. Oh well maybe I should just turn in my flannel and work boots then.

Back in the 80s a lot of metal bands that had less skill cranked the distortion way up so as not to hear everything they were playing. Tight as hell meaning keeping in time and not sloppy or muddy sounding. I probably shouldn’t have said laughable statement but back in the mid 80s we would have laughed. Again no offense to Hazoff or any other metal heads in here.

Not confused. Justice was post Cliff Burton and you could tell right away they missed his music knowledge and bass playing. One and another one or two songs were great but it wasn’t like RTL and MOP where every track was great. Dave Mustaine was a great technical player but no one complained about him being replaced at the time. How is that possible if he was soooo much better than Kirk. It’s not. Sorry I,m not the confused one on this. There are two Metallica IMO. With Cliff and without. If you can look at them that way then you may understand what I,m trying to tell you. Early Metallica defined metal because it was so much better and dynamic than everything else out there. This was the feeling in the 80s and looking back I feel the same.

Happy to have the discussion with you guys and glad to see those passionate about metal. I will say one more thing about Metallica. They became a hard band to like. Let me explain. I liked Justice but could hear a drop in quality after Cliff was gone. OK I said makes sense. They are just adjusting to losing Cliff and the next album should be back to top quality. What comes next shocks the metal heads. Metallica waters down their sound to the point that now it is more like hard rock. The Black album was a great ROCK album IMO but we wanted metal. A lot of us into real metal walked away from Metallica at this point. Then they cut their hair trying to improve their mainstream mission. Yuck. Then then sue Napster and Lars in well just kind of a tool. So as far as full metal career I can see picking a band who stayed true to their metal roots throughout and didn’t sell out metal like I believe Metallica did. So yes they are hard to like overall at times and I think that can affect people saying they were the best at true metal but put RTL and MOP as stand alone albums and I have yet to hear a more complete product.

Agree with most of this. Burton was the best overall musician in the band especially in arranging and music theory. He taught them a lot of what they knew of music at the time. Dave Mustaine could really shred I just think the music Kirk wrote was more dynamic and better at mood setting and the like. And who are we kidding here Kirk rips it up on RTL and MOP.

So I have read through the entire thread and didn’t see Shadows Fall. They are probably in there somewhere but just in case.

pasted_image (resized).jpeg

One more from Shadows Fall...for y’all

pasted_image (resized).jpeg

Napster was just the icing on the cake for me. I left them long before the Napster thing mostly because they went from metal to hard rock. I just wanted more of their original formula musically but I can’t blame them for going mainstream. Just wasn’t for me.

Mustaine can definitely shred but I like the guitar parts Kirk writes better. More dynamic and mood setting plus Kirk sheds pretty fucking good. To me Megadeath was always a great guitarist in a so so overall band. I just think there is more overall talent in early Metallica. As a whole they are a lot better to me than Megadeath. But this is mostly just my taste.

Speaking of shredding. This girl was 17 at the time of this cover.

pasted_image (resized).jpeg