this album sucking is what bonded my dad with my boyfriend when I took him to meet my parents after a month of so of dating, i got to sit back and watch them go to town on how much they hated St Anger. they resumed the chat at our wedding reception 6 months ago - it is their favourite subject and is way more entertaining than the album itself.
Y'know how people tell you that sometimes when you're angry you should type up a letter to someone but then never actually send it, just throw it away instead? Yeah....
I just remember a local DJ announcing, "Here's the new song from Metallica" and they played the song's debut, and then he came back on and said, "That was a bag of suck!"
The DJs in my area definitely still have balls. Corey & Patrick. When Volbeat - Last Day Under the Sun premiered, after it finished, Corey was all "Can I make a point? I really like Volbeat. They always have big riffs, driving solos, & are just generally fun to listen to. This song sounds like it's made for little kindergartners to all hold hands to. Yeah. I guess it's a "song", but unless my kids specifically ask to hear it, I wont be playing this bullshit anymore." & i swear to god they never played it again.
8:14 As a drummer, I can explain the sound: Lars turned the snare off. It’s not DETUNED, it’s just off. It has been used well in songs like “I Disappear,” it’s just mixed SO LOUDLY and the reverb is BALLS!
@@stevencoffin328precussions, unlike normal pitched instruments (basically anything that is NOT a drum), when referred to as tuning it means to change the timbre of that particular piece (the ACTUAL pitch happens on the overtones, aka the "ring", thinks Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit's drums, where the snare's RING is in the key of F)
@ryujinvtubecs Think you mean "percussion". I have been a percussionist since 1986. Percussion refers to any instrument that requires "striking" to produce a sound. That includes piano, BTW. Only drum I ever tuned to match a pitch is the timpani (the kettle drums most commonly used in symphonies). Like the person already commented, Lars just turned his snare off.
I saw Metallica at the Download Festival in 2006. At the end of the set, Lars said "Thanks everybody and sorry about that fuck-up two years ago" (referring to him being too sick to play at the 2004 event). Three separate people around me simultaneously turned to their friends and said "What, St Anger?"
I saw them at Sonisphere in 2010 - it was apparently Hetfield's birthday and the overall a cool atmosphere between the band and the crowd... except when Lars addressed the audience. Real 'fuck off' vibes then 🤣
I love Kirk to death, but the funniest Metallica-related comment I have ever read was someone saying "If you ever feel useless, just remember that Kirk Hammett sang background vocals to Creeping Death opposite Jason Newstead." Kirk is a fantastic guitarist and has written so many beautiful rifts and he clearly has his place in the band. I fully understand why it's sacrilege to take that one thing away from him in his eyes.
I once read a comment describing the behind-the-scenes stuff as Kirk going to the bathroom while everyone else is recording, and when he comes back the album's finished.
Kinda weird how even Todd doesn't seem to agree with him on that even though he'd just spent several minutes complaining about how the lack of solos on the album was one of the big contributing factors in it tanking, because Kirk was fucking right.
@@Aleph3575i think he agrees with the fact that the way solos were handled sucks, but that he thinks that it's not the absence of solos per se that makes the album terrible, but the lack of hooks. In esdence, trend chasing itself wasn't the problem, it was the sheer absence of willingness to make a good album
When I was on the editorial staff for a small local literary magazine, we used to use the acronym "GTBP," which stands for Good Therapy, Bad Poetry. "Yes, this poem sounds like it represents an enormous personal emotional breakthrough for you, and I want to make sure I acknowledge that when I inform you that it is very, very bad." From what I can hear, St. Anger sounds like GTBP hooked up to a Marshall stack.
one problem with the lack of solos is metallica always writes their songs around kirk's solo, and during the solo, there's this cool jam happening behind kirk with james, cliff/jason/robert, and lars playing something bad ass. which is one reason the songs go nowhere.
Yep. It's kinda hard to explain now, but Avenged Sevenfold hitting with Bat Country with a stated goal of bringing back guitar solos and dual harmonies was actually a big deal. They were viewed as "uncool" for a loooong time.
My whole family loved Metallica, especially my mom, and I convinced her to buy this album right when it came out. We left the mall for the hour long drive down country roads, with St. Anger playing. We just kept saying um... okay... well... and now it's actually one of the things I most regret doing to her. As a teen, I didn't do drugs, get bad grades, or get brought home by the cops, but I got her to buy this album. Mom, I'm sorry.
This is genuinely funny and sad at the same time. I feel your pain. Artists might do something that fans don't like, musically, whatever.. that's their right. But this album is just objectively *terrible* and the audio engineering choices are physically painful. Just a big oof all around.
As someone who did drugs and got brought home by the cops, I’m pretty sure mom would’ve been a lot more disappointed if I brought this piece of garbage home
@@Phantom_Mountain_Art objectivity tends to refer to a standard being achieved, or simply remaining at a consistent quality. St. Anger fails at both. So with the finite amount of source material to analyze within the album itself, and seeing how it stands on its own merits, one can conclude that it is of objectively poor quality. Lots of people seem to think objective means "100% correct and universally agreed upon" when it's really not. The evidence used should be held up to scrutiny and if said evidence holds up, a conclusion can be made based on the information present. The conclusion is purely based on how well researched the information is, but simply working to analyze a piece of media with its own contents is engaging in objective critique. Stuff that would not qualify as objective would lend to personal feeling, or having to come up with your own personal explanation for a choice being made. For example, choosing to have the snare sound like someone smacking a bat against a trash can makes for an awful sound, not only on its own, but within the context of the rest of the composition; it sounds superbly out of place, even with them going for an "edgier" and "rougher" sound. Anyone can use objectivity to analyze a piece of art. It just comes down to the facts you use, and the assessment of said facts.
I love the part of the documentary where Lars is trying to be all philosophical like "The idea of the guitar solo is outdated" and Kirks just like "Dude! This is my JOB!"
When I was at Marine Combat Training in 2003 someone wrote "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" inside one of the stalls in the bathroom. So I guess it was a big hit with 18 year old Marines right out of boot camp, at least.
That movie extended my marriage by at least a few years. Whenever my ex or I would blow up over nothing instead of addressing the real thing that was bothering us we called it "Suing Napster", then we'd bond over how ridiculous we were being and make up. Our eventual divorce was amicable, and our other divorced friends are all weirdly jealous, like "yeah, they really got divorce right, they don't blame each other, they don't hate each other, it just didn't work out" "Some Kind of Monster" is always going to be one of my favorite movies for that reason.
Their live performance stream on Twitch getting replaced with 8bit folk tunes to avoid copyright infringement for their _own music_ felt like very delayed karma.
@@battlion507 It's awful for all the other musicians getting screwed over but for those who were Metallica fans back when Lars went on his copyright striking tirade and getting Napster shut down, it's finally getting the last laugh.
every time i hear people use that royalty free song in videos now i always comment "so cool you used metallicas for whom the bell tolls live at blizzcon"
@@mezzb I think the lack of bass on that album also helped worsen the drum sound, since often the bass helps the tone of drums by the parts often being similar rhythmically. And Justice is actually by far my favorite Metallica album as I think the songs themselves are almost all excellent there, but there’s always been something weird sonically about it (which is also partially why I love it so much).
@@FragmentedR_YT exactly, taking Newsteds work out of the mix ruined the drum sound, too. It's also my favorite Metallica album, vut I gotta honest, It would be much more fun and I would listen to it more often, if it had the powerful sound it deserved. I wish they would have fixed that in the remaster (as far as possible), but I understand the difficult circumstances under which tge album was made, the very personal decision to mix it that way and even though I disagree with their decision, I can see why they don't want to. I can imagine that changing it would feel like betraying their former selfs and their history to them.
That shot of the music video to St. Anger, where they're playing in what seems to be a parking lot, washed out with sunlight and with a slightly yellow cast to it? That's 2003. That's what 2003 looked like.
It is a good analogy. I reached a similar conclusion myself when listening to it back in the day. At the time I remember saying it sounded like they were banging on Teflon pans.
@@olliep8117 My punk rock singer friend played this for me when it came out. I said the drums sounded like Lars ran them through the Pye limiter Hendrix used on the piano in Crosstown Traffic. He agreed. Then I said "Fuck this shit, put on Kill'Em All, I need to clean out my brain." So he did, and it worked.
Watching this right after the Will Smith episode has me wondering how many of these things feature Chris Rock hosting a show right before a career-ending event occurs.
It's uncanny how I was literally about to post a comment to the effect of "Isn't it funny how Chris Rock was indirectly tied to two career-killing moments, both times at an award show?" And then I saw this comment.
@@drygnfyre "If I had a nickel for every time Chris Rock was indirectly tired to a career-killing moment, I'd have two nickels, which isn't much but it's funny how it happened twice"
Funny thing is, the "stock" sound that Lars complains about in Some kind of monster, is everywhere on St Anger. It isn't just the drums that are stock. The whole CD is filled with "stock" shit St Anger is an unorganic, stock pile of garbage, that pretends to be lively and punky. It's all fake. That's what's provoking.
I vividly remember hearing Frantic on the radio when it first came out. I was so excited! I'm a metalhead, I was not used to hearing this kind of heavy music on mainstream radio. Sure, it wasn't *good* exactly, but it was loud and aggressive and I was so hyped to hear what this new, young, popular metal band was going to do next! Then the song ended and the DJ said "That was Metallica." Total whiplash.
My friend Chris was a massive fan of Metallica. He told me he listened to it once and threw it out the window of his car near his house. That CD case with a new CD stayed in that gutter by the sidewalk for weeks and no one took it. It was a running joke when we got together to rip on it savagely.
Lulu had decent production but it was very very poorly paced and Lou Reed sounded horrible. He really brought the album down. It would have at least been listenable if they took out Lou Reed and just had James, and maybe shaved off some of the songs like Junior Dad which are way too long for no reason.
Let’s not forget that the early 2000’s had some HEAVY competition in the rock scene. Like even if you weren’t into emo or nu metal. Just two years earlier tool came out with lateralus and soad came out with toxicity. Not only did you not want to listen to st anger to begin with but you had other far better options to listen to at the time.
my 6th grade teacher, who was like a 60 year old woman whose primary interest was Elvis Presley, was a huge metallica fan. just to add to that ''bigger than metal'' thing
I had a 60 year old teacher who was a Rodgers and Hart fan who hated Elvis. But she got totally turned on to Texas favorites The Judys, and also the B-52's and Devo. She knew a couple of the Jonestown killers and thought "Guyana Punch" by The Judys was the infamy they deserved.
Well Kurt was always a big pop music fan. One of the funniest stories about him was he invited his friend over to his place saying "I just heard the coolest song!" And he plays his friend "My Sharona" by the Knack and it took his friend a minute to realize that he wasn't playing it as a joke and he seriously considered it one of the best songs he'd ever heard.
In Utero had effort put into it. Cobain simply didn't want his band to be perceived as sell-outs. It wasn't about making too much money or being too famous, it was about controlling their image.
Nobody said that In Utero was bad, just that it was intentionally abrasive (to the point where much of the lyrical content got them pulled from stores). Also, Heart-Shaped Box is essentially the only single out of the album that randos on the street recognize and can belt out.
My father was a devoted Metallica fan from the early 1980s on, raised my brother and I on Metallica and when "St. Anger" came out, he was SO EXCITED to run home with the CD and listen to it. ...and then he sat motionless with an expression of abject shock before quietly throwing the CD case over his shoulder and leaving the room.
How the fucking hell was he not demoralized from their previous shitty albums of load and reload or even the dumpster fire we call garage inc which all sucked as for load and reload they both felt like soulless cash grabs for the grunge rock movement when it was already long dead and then there is garage inc which tried to milk and even copy the success of punk acts such as green day but looked like fucking posers in the end
It was the first Metallica fan to come out while I was an active fan of the band, aged 16. A friend and I both bought copies of it, went to a local pub (the landlord was remarkably lax about licensing laws), put our CDs into our respective Discmans… and then lied to each other’s faces that it was the best thing they’d done since Justice, because we simply didn’t want to admit that Metallica, fucking METALLICA, had essayed this piece of garbage.
@@largegummyhitman5786 What did Garage, Inc. have to do with Green Day? Half the songs were recorded in the ‘80s before Green Day was even a thing, and the disc of new recordings has covers of Discharge, Blue Öyster Cult, Mercyful Fate and Black Sabbath. It’s about as Green Day-influenced as it is Thelonious Monk-influenced.
The idea that the way we live foreshadows the way we die is really a profound and impactful one. It deserved such better writing than "My lifestyle determines my death style"
*in dreaded black and white, hands on head in confusion* my life style determines my death style.... *in neon lights, thumbs up, shades and rose colored nostalgia* MY LIFESTYLE DETERMINES MY DEATHSTYLE, YEEEHEEEH, YEEEEHEH!
My mind is blown that "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle" isn't something They Might Be Giants made up for Scott Bower, since it's such a dorky sentence.
source ? according to wikipedia: "Patronage: Archaeologists; archivists; Bible scholars; librarians; libraries; school children; students; translators; Morong, Rizal; Dalmatia" there is also a page for another saint jerome (Gerolamu Emiliani), where (again, according to wikipedia): "Patronage: orphans and abandoned children" the only thing i found about him being a "saint of anger" is about him having anger issues and dealing with them. maybe that gives him an unofficial title of "saint of anger". however officially he's not the saint of anger.
@@justsomecommentchannel8602 i did some quick googling, and it seems that according to catholic scholars, st jerome is who you pray to when you yourself have pent up rage you need to channel somewhere
In the VH1: Behind the Music, Metallica openly admitted they got big initially because fans were sharing bootleg copies of their demos. Then, once they made it big suddenly they are against people sharing their music. Fortunately, entertainers and entertainment companies learned from the mistake and never attacked their fan bases again.
@@Arbbal Metallica actively encouraged fans to bootleg their early performances and EPs. They would even let them plug in to the sound boards at concerts for cleaner recordings, if Radio DJs from the early 90s are to be believed. Then when other bands were able to do that same tactic on a wider scale, they sued and shut it down because a couple people were downloading their radio singles. /smh
@@Dill_Pickle1997 oh god no dude, Metallica don't go and take down any video about them. Though their record label, or some other company might try and strike the video for the music
That skit was so very on point. Imagine you are in your crappy little dorm room while you, struggling to pay your bills while putting yourself through school and some rich asshole barges in and says that he now has the rights to all your shit because he only made $5,000,000 that year.
-- Unintentional messaging "We're judging you for using Napster anyways so... Why buy the good stuff we're already a criminals?" Yeah, not hard to see how they lost.
@@Arcademan09 Imagine that the concept of paying for music doesn't register to some people, case if you haven't noticed the reason why merch and ticket pricing skyrocketed in the last 20 years is mainly due to the fact that people just weren't paying for music like we uste too, it's not about "DeFeNdInG RiCh MuSiCiAnS" it's about the value of the music, it's about people supporting their artists not just by tickets or merch but by supporting mainly by buying the actual music they make, cause ever since the Napster days us the fans have been supporting mainly by compensating the lost profits of record sales by buying more expensive merch and tickets for the shows
@@lionwolf2797 I agree. People don’t realize that when they start downloading music, the artists that they claim to “love” aren’t being compensated. There is a lot that goes into recording music or live shows and everyone has to be paid. If these guys are rich and made a ton of money over the years, it’s because of their own success and hard work. They have countless fans and have been touring and writing music for decades. Their fans have supported them all of that time and have always paid for their music/merch/shows, up until Napster and downloading started. They started losing money from that, they called it out, and they were right to do that. Most people wouldn’t appreciate being stolen from or having their hard work just stolen off of them and never reimbursed for it. I’m not even a fan of Metallica and never was but I believe they were in the right to come out and go against Napster. People didn’t like it cuz they weren’t getting freebies anymore, straight up
my favourite thing about Todd is that he's one of the few youtubers whose videos got progressively better over the years. not to say that his old videos are bad necessarily, but his best content has arguably come out in these last two years. and this might be one of his best videos yet. love you, Todd.
That's true of pretty much all ex-channel awesome folk, I think. Without being chained to the formula and expectation of surface level snark, they've had the chance to shift into better, deeper critics even while retaining a sense of humor
@@margaretmadole I mean, just look at Lindsay Ellis as a perfect example of what you just described. She has made some of the best analysis videos on this website, and she just had to break free from the restraints of Channel Awesome for her to do it.
Agreed. His old videos weren't bad, exactly, but they definitely flew too close to the, "angry random dude is insulting about everything," UA-cam craze (that thankfully mostly has died out by now,) and become a lot more thoughtful.
Trainwreckords Weird Lyrics Hall of Fame: "And now she thinks she's bissexual" (Lauryn Hill) The entire "Door to Door" song (Creedence Clearwater Revival) "In a word to, Yah! The wisdom tooth, So open up and say aaaah-men, rinse cup, hey and spit again" (Van Halen) "I am the modren man" (Styx) "I'd love to hurt the population" (Hootie & The Blowfish) "Keep you and hold you, after I scold you, I hope I can mold you" (Arrested Development) "Mary Jane, I wanna roll you down to the fields where you were born" (Spin Doctors) The supreme god: "You're being a penis, colada that is" (Liz Phair) And now, a new addition to the family: "MADLY IN ANGER WITH YOU" Edit: A few great additions I missed, thanks for commenting lol "We love Spam in America / Polanski's banned from America" (Jewel) The entire "American Life" Rap (Madonna) "A Tribe Called Quest is a bad investment" (MC Hammer) "We aint gonna be treated like trash, we got one thing, we are the Clash" (Bernie Rhodes) "Gay man, looking for another / Candyman, yeah the candyman can" (Van Halen again)
I always found it ironic that a band who built their whole momentum in the 80’s on TAPE TRADING was the band that went after Napster. Forgot where they came from. They’re legends. They’ve redeemed themselves. But that period from like 2001-2007 they were maybe the most loved and hated band simultaneously.
We make up for that now by paying $100 to sit half a mile away in an arena to see our favorite musicians when $100 could almost get you backstage passes in 2000
Watch me drop these "PORN BOMBS ON MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY YEAHHHH!!!" "Turns out...ooops!!! Sorry busy parents, I happen to like BDSM!!!!!" "Ok real talk.....TURNS OUT BDSM DIDN'T SCRATCH THAT WEIRD-ASS ITCH AND I LOVE random "midget and horse porn oh GOD please eensure safety like my God why...??? "
“I have never been more acutely aware of James Hetfield as a human being, and I hate it.” That line is absolutely perfect. If I was let down by Load and Reload, I was depressed by St. Anger. It just put a stake in the heart of Metallica. And the documentary just made James and Lars look like insufferable egomaniacs. It was well past time for me to abandon ship.
Thank you for not lumping Kirk in with James and Lars as insufferable egomaniacs. If there's one innocent figure in this story, it's him (and Robert, of course).
One of my first jobs was at a pizza place, and I had a friend who bought this album the morning it came out. He pulled into the parking lot blaring it, hopped out of the car talking about how awesome it was...but by the end of our 6 hour shift, he had slowly come to terms that the album literally sounded like garbage. It was actually sad, he came into work so happy...
Basically my experience with Netflix's reboot of Aggressive Retsuko. I was a high schooler with really annoying classmates, so I loved the original shorts, and I was excited to hear it was coming to Netflix. Then, when it finally premiered on Netflix, I watched a little bit of the first episode in the car on the way home, and, well... let's just say that after finding out how they screwed up the show, my traditional Friday pizza didn't taste as good as it usually does. I stopped using Netflix permanently, I burst into random fits of rage in class, and I wished I could stop being so angry, but couldn't. In essence, Netflix's version of Aggressive Retsuko was my personal St. Anger and it effectively turned me into St. Anger.
My stepdad has a similar experience listening to WEEKEND WARRIORS by Ted Nugent. He was a huge fan, then heard that and it slowly creeped on him, "Oh no, this isn't good..."
@@seamusburke639 Henry Rollins had a good story about Ted Nugent before and during Weekend Warriors. Not only did Weekend Warriors suck, but Ted made the mistake of having this up-and-coming band called Van Halen opening on that tour, who ended up upstaging Ted.
This album reminds me of one of my therapist’s techniques: Write an angry letter to someone that wronged you. The problem is the second half. To BURN that letter, instead of sending it.
@@thereverse-flash9942 That therapist should have been fired. If you hire a therapist to get an album's production back on track and the result is St. Anger, they did not do their damn job!
@@drpibisback7680 Yeah, to be fair, the therapist wasn't brought into make a stellar album, he was hired to keep the boys working together. In that regard, he did his job swimmingly.
I actually liked St. Anger when it released. I'm sure it's a coincidence that I was 10 years old and had literally just discovered Metallica a week prior.
This disasterpiece is weirdly influential for me because it was the first time I ever tried to “tamper with” music. When I really discovered Metallica and later this album as a pre-teen in the mid-2000's, I saw that a lot of people on the internet were creating their own versions of St. Anger where they would do everything from drastically shorten the tracks (whether by removing parts or speeding them up to make them "thrashier") to rearrange parts to even "remix" the album and try to mitigate that ugly snare sound. I agreed that St. Anger was a bad record with a few good traits and parts waiting to be realized in a better context, so I first started taking a stab at editing a song or two from St. Anger myself at age 13. I ended up getting carried away and spending hours of my free time editing and getting lost in Angerland. I got fairly good at splicing parts in the audio editing program I used (Amadeus II). I started getting really out there with editing - I sped up or slowed down different parts, began adding effects like reverb to others, turned bridges into choruses, removed any parts that “returned” to previous ones, etc. By the end my version of the record must've sounded fucking disturbing and probably worse than the original thing, but I liked it and I really enjoyed working on it. I learned a lot about what kinds of arrangements worked and didn’t work (at least for me), and what I wanted out of a composition. I learned to listen closely to music in a way I didn’t before and listen for details - I must’ve gone back over parts or edits dozens of times. Even though I still thought (and still think) that St. Anger was bad, I became weirdly close to it. I became familiar with all its weird little nuances and oddities, perhaps more than anyone ever should. I started noticing how Pro-Tooled and assembled the record is, which is funny -- it was supposed to be their "raw honest roots garage band jamming together" record and yet was probably the least organic thing they ever did. If you listen closely enough, you can actually hear where some parts (mainly the drum cymbals) get cut off by the splicing of another part, especially if they’re looped (and an alarming number of parts on the record are). The whole record is like the musical equivalent of slumming. Fast forward to today and I frequently “write” avant-garde “compositions” by splicing together, looping, layering, and otherwise manipulating raw recordings of myself and/or my friends playing mostly improvised music, so it sounds written. In a bizarre way, I have St. Anger to thank for that.
A most excellent exegesis! Your assessment of St. Anger (i.e., how it encouraged listeners not to listen passively but to immerse themselves in it, to (in a sense) deconstruct it and thereby create something new) remind me of Glenn Gould's assessment of Carlos' SWITCHED ON BACH album. If I embark on a research project about Gould's conception of the New Listener (and I might ... I'm meeting with my advisor next week), I would love to contact you for an interview, as your historical situation of St. Anger within the craft of mashup could be highly relevant to such a project.
@@melchiorhoffman Wow, thank you! I would definitely be interested in doing that interview if you decide to start your project. Thank you also for reminding me of Switched On Bach -- I haven't listened to that one in a few years. I think I'll revisit it right now. I've heard a few times that my stuff often sounds like "synth baroque" and the like, so I might find new resonance there.
@@melchiorhoffman Hello, Melchior! I thought back to this comment and thought I'd follow up on how your research project has been going and if you were still interested in that interview. Either way, I hope your day is well.
@@melchiorhoffman I've never heard such a load of pseudo-philosophical sophistry in an attempt to give meaning to what was simply a contrived attempt at being abrasive.
@@somewhatsomething4882 I am not attempting to give meaning to St. Anger itself. I applaud NEFX for having interacted with this music rather than passively listened to it. I raise a glass to NEFX for viewing the universe of recorded music as something to play with, edit, destroy, contextualize anew ... rather than as an exhibit to revere and leave untouched. That is all. (If NEFX had demonstrated this approach without even mentioning this album, I'd still be impressed.) And I agree with you that I need to write clearer. Thanks.
Kind of the funny thing here is, we could all totally imagine what the good version of this album might be. Like, take that song 'St Anger' for instance - the good version of that would vocalise something to the effect of "I wear St Anger around my neck for protection, but it also keeps away people who care about me - my anger is a comforting thing that is also destroying me". That's potentially really powerful, but the song itself is just so nothingy.
@@xemnufromthemagicplanet1678 Cuz Metallica were never great songwriters, lyrically. They never explored concepts, never tied themes together... Every album was just a collection of songs, and that's what Metallica did. It grew tiresome, especially when they sold out... Even Queensryche had deeper song writing. Carnivore had a concept and theme. Nuclear Assault did the whole 'crunchy, endlessly repeating mosh riff' stuff better. By the time the Black album was released, Metallica had sold out and their most popular song off that god forsaken piece of garbage record was based on a nursery rhyme. Even Megadeth did that concept better, on 'Go To Hell,' from the 'Bill and Ted 2' soundtrack. I liked your comment - something so obvious, but Metallica just never really 'got it' when it came to writing songs. Frustrating and sad.
This kind of slight lyric reworking to make the intentions come through better is something I honestly wish Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk) had. His lyrics are unique and interesting, but they feel like a bunch of words that, in and of themselves, don't really mean anything. They just needed someone to come behind him and change a few words to give the songs a bit more context or something.
also the easy fix for the stupid title... just call it St. James! or St. Hetfield if you don't want the comparison to actual Saint James. OR you can lean into it since James was the first to be martyred
9:11 This isn't an exaggeration, the album version of Death Magnetic was compressed and boosted to the point that there is audible clipping on the tracks (loudness wars and all that) while the Guitar Hero Metallica versions of the songs somehow evaded this treatment. As far as I know, anyway.
Neversoft remixed the album for both GH 3 and Metallica... and even DJ Hero's mix [forgot which song but it was a Death Magnetic mix with another] Im even more baffled that band allowed it to be different, or well in this case, better.
For the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, the songs were basically mixed on the fly by the game, so if a player misses notes their instrument drops out. Often times, towards the end of the music game era, the developers were given access to the master recordings for the songs to be able to achieve this effect, basically giving them carte blanche to mix it how they saw fit. Otherwise, the songs would actually be re-recorded by a cover band, so they would have a master recording. In Guitar Hero Metallica, all of the songs are based on actual master recordings, some I think were redone for this game by the original artists. This is why the songs from …And Justice for All sound a lot better too. As for why Metallica would allow these versions to sound different, my best guess is it was this, or some other band covers your songs.
@@meWASHER Neversoft got the masters before it was *officially* mastered. Remember: they had to do animation and charting for every song for it to be ready for album release day.
@@meWASHER and with Guitar Hero, you could always tell which ones were the original and which were covers before the song even starts, as the artist credit would say something like "originally by" or "made famous by" if it was a cover.
I noticed that the 2003 VMA's were also the same VMA's where Madonna showcased a song from American Life. Also, both Metallica and Madonna had moments during that ceremony that overshadowed them performing their new songs (Metallica covering classic songs, Madonna kissing Britney and Christina). It seems like to start a Trainwreckord, the VMAs are a good place to start.
You may have a point here. Christina Aguilera also performed “Dirrty” at the 2003 MTV VMAs, and she could be a contender for her “Bionic” album as a future Trainwrecord episode.
The part in “Some Kind of Monster” when they literally couldn’t jam together as a band was mind blowing to me. They couldn’t just, play together. I could never look at them the same way after.
@@kaydwessie296 I saw Metallica live in 2019 and they were bloody great! There's a reason why they're as big as they are - they're an excellent live band.
Guns 'n' Roses made Use Your Illusion 1 & 2 from opposite sides of the planet. They struggled to tolerate each other, long enough to pump out the albums and tour. So this sort of thing isn't unheard of
Fun Fact: Some talented artists (Daryl Gardner, Chris Dando, and Dave Cox) re-recorded the entire album from the ground-up. And yes, the snare was fixed in it.
@@EngineerLume Literally UA-cam search for St. Anger Rerecorded. It's either the first or second result that comes up. Don't expect too much though, if you polish a turd it's still a turd, just one that looks a little better.
@@worsel555 disagree. The only thing that remains are the bloated song times and questionable lyrics. The guy singing like James is better than James himself and the drums are obviously leagues better. Makes the whole experience different. It's a solid 6 at that point.
So after re-reading "This Monster Lives" recently (the book about the making of "Some Kind of Monster") I was able to glare an insight that might explain a lot: So Metallica had dragged their feet with getting any semblance of a record ready in 2002 so before Christmas of that year, the label came in and said that they had to put a record out by June 2003, which meant they needed to have the album delivered by the beginning of April so they can start marketing it. The problem? Metallica only had about 3 songs written and recorded by Christmas 2002, meaning they had to cobble together a whopping 8 songs in about 3 months. Also, James didn't write all of the lyrics. As a part of their therapy sessions during the writing of the album, Lars and Kirk wrote lyrics as well so every song on the album is a lyrical Frankenstein's monster of James, Lars, and Kirk.
Sounds an awful lot like the story of how the implosion of megadeth's "classic line up" happened in 1998 when they were recording risk. Dave Mustaine had a bad relapse in the winter of '97 that combined with the artistic and creative differences he was having with marty freidman and created a powder keg within the band that finally came to a head during a group therapy session when marty basically told dave that he was an asshole who was destroying the band by not letting them have some say in the musical direction of the band. In response to this confrontation dave gave in and let marty have more say in the musical direction of the band which led directly to an in studio battle between dave and marty while they were making risk, marty wanted to "paint with more colors than battleship grey" and dave was intent on trying to recapture the sound of countdown to extinction so a compromise was made in which marty was given more writing freedom. That's why risk is so patchy in that when it's good the songs are great but when its bad the songs are almost unlistenable.
And they always did music first, then lyrics. The lyrics were always tailored to fit the music. In his interview with Noel Gallagher Lars said that he doesn’t understand how some bands write the lyrics first as you just end up with the music and lyrics not fitting each other, which is ironic because that’s exactly what happened with this album
I was actually genuinely surprised to watch a scene from the documentary on UA-cam and saw Kirk being the guy who came up with the "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" lyrics.
Oh god you're right. While Gordon was in stasis for 20 years after the Black Mesa Incident, his crowbar ended up in the hands of Lars, who somehow... turned it into a drum or something. ANYWAY, that was that until he lost it and Barney got it back to give to Gordon once he got out of stasis.
St Anger the song was basically my first exposure to metal, at least that I can remember. That music video was everywhere back then. I was pretty young and remember thinking "Jesus, metal is awful, it really is just noise". It's Metallica, so I just assumed in my childhood way that metal sounded like Metallica. Thankfully St Anger doesn't even really sound like Metallica.
9:50 Important context regarding Metallica's anti-Napster stance and Lars Ulrich in particular. 1. They weren't just against it, they wanted the government to criminally charge anyone who downloaded their music via Napster and have them pay a $100,000 fine/ per song, even though Metallica themselves would not exist as a band if not for metalheads sharing bootlegs of their music in their early days, they didn’t have the airwave saturation and studio support to make it big without those tapes. 2. "Ulrich talked this huge game about how it ~hurt~ him as an ~artist~ and tried to play like pirates were damaging the lives and livelihood of the musicians whose music they pirated. This was especially necessary to hit Napster’s userbase because I cannot express to you how much everyone loathed record labels in the 90s and aughts, we all knew they were greedy capitalist parasites who abused consumers and artists alike, but we did genuinely like the musicians who made music and wanted them to prosper, so if we were hurting them and not the labels like we thought we should probably stop, right? But Ulrich had his own fucking record company. He was lying through his filthy teeth about artists being hurt by piracy, the only money coming out of his pocket was what he fleeced from the other artists he managed."
Here is what you left out. It all could have been avoided had Napster blocked an unfinished version of I Disappear. That was all they wanted at the beginning. So it did start as being about an artist controlling their own art. Napster brought it on themselves. Also Blackened Records was 15 years off so no Lars did not own a record company, and really still doesn't, he is part owner of a record label.
@@soulcrusher807 I wasn’t defending Napster, I know many smaller artists made case for it, but I‘m fine saying they were bad, and that particular case is fair, but whatever it started as, it ended with them wanting to sue fans for insane amount of money, for the thing that made them big in the first place. Also, no, Lars became a record exec a year BEFORE Napster existed. Get you facts straight.
13:30 Huh, it’s only two years after this review that I learned Hetfield had _literally_ blown up and suffered severe burns due to a pyro malfuction during a concert. Ouch.
I was in a relationship with a MASSIVE Metallica fan when this came out. He even had the star/square logo tatted between his shoulder blades. He went nuts for St. Anger- going so far as to buy me a copy too. He swore up and down that it was "really good" and applauded them for "not following a formula". I can't help but think his passion for it was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome as a fan- he was trying to convince himself how good it was as much as he was trying to convince me and our friends.
St. Anger is horrible. Off key breaking vocals can ruin a song for me. The flubby guitars was the next thing that ruined it. And the third was the snare drum. The riffs were shite. The lyrics were shite. The songs were an 8 minute long journey that took you nowhere. Back when load and reload released we all got nervous. Then St. Anger released and it was evident that the Metallica I have listened to since 1986 were gone. At least in studio record form.
@@qty1315 I see him just trying to get the perfect words before the therapist Dr Towel (thats his real name watch this podcast called Why I Hate This Album episode on st anger) Dr Towel just gives him his words (that happens)
@@Kikichan456 One review of Lulu stated "If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the worst twelve Primus songs for Starbucks, that would be better than Lulu."
I seem to remember Trey Parker telling a story once about doing the temp vocals for “Little Boy You’re Going to Hell” before Hetfield came into the studio to record. Apparently he was like “hey, this doesn’t sound like me at all,” whereas Matt and Trey both claim that they sounded identical. Hilariously enough, until hearing that I had always assumed it was Parker doing a parody of Hetfield’s voice 😂
I very much agree that Metallica's prestige fell after this, even if they did "return to form" after. It was like Metallica was more a force of nature before and then just became a band after. I had one friend who I saw it with directly. I was never that into them personally, but I knew so much about them bc of him. He would obsessively try to learn the guitar parts to all their songs whenever we'd jam or would put in the S&M album whenever we drove places and talk about it like it was music gospel. But after St Anger something shifted. He kind of just started moving on to other metal bands. Didn't really bring up Metallica as much anymore. He didn't complain about them getting worse or anything but it was clear their mystique was gone for him. And I noticed this especially when I eventually stumbled across the video for "The Day That Never Comes" on tv. I didn't even know they had a new album until that point bc I just wasn't hearing the hype from him. I think Todd's right that the whole St Anger debacle and documentary humanized Metallica. They were no longer gods of metal but people making metal music. Achilles had fallen. Once you see how the sausage is made you no longer enjoy eating it as much.
There was an episode of Northern Exposure in 1994, when one of Maurice Minnefield's fellow former astronauts comes to town. He was someone Maurice really looked up to, and considered to be a role model not only as an astronaut, but also as a man. Then he tells Maurice his business failed, he lost his house, etc., and asks him for a loan. Maurice is so shocked he doesn't say yes or no. He doesn't know what to say. Later, he mentions it to Chris, barely able to communicate his feeling of being abjectly let down. Chris says that he shouldn't be, the greatest people are also, at bottom, human. Maurice turns to leave, pauses on his way to the door, and says, "I've got all the humans I can use." That's probably what happened to your friend, and a lot of Metallica fans, after St. Anger. When I read the line "he looked like he'd given up on life", I saw Maurice Minnefield's face. My punk rock singer friend played St. Anger for me when it came out. After 20 seconds, I said "It sounds like Lars is running 5-gallon paint buckets and 66 Chrysler air cleaner tops through the Pye limiter Hendrix used on the piano on Crosstown Traffic." He agreed. I said "Fuck this, put on Kill 'Em All, I need to clean out my brain." He did, and as far as I know, that was the last time he listened to a second of St. Anger. And he has hundreds, maybe thousands, of records. He's one of those guys who likes music, TV, and movies that are so bad they're good. St. Anger is one of the few things that is simply off the table, and not negotiable.
I've seen Cesar Zuiderwijk (drummer for Golden Earring) do exactly that during a clinic: play a solo with something like 8 squeaky, sausage-shaped dog toys in every nook and cranny.
I just realised how much this album feels like the Green Day trilogy. It's the singer working through his issues on a supposed back to basics creation with the producer that made them big not stepping in to say it's a mess. The only difference is the trilogy is three albums and has more solos than usual.
@@Z_Viper08 not to mention it appears to be a joke by Billie’s wife, Adrienne. Given how high Billie was & how seemingly uncritical Rob was as a producer, it makes a frustrating amount of sense.
This documentary and the album, were amongst the first big lessons in my teenage life. Realized that I don't really want to know anything about people, who make music/movies/books that I like.
Advice I was given by a music reviewer many years ago, "Never buy the first album after rehab." They don't know what they are doing, it's almost like a child mind has taken over and they are overly fascinated by the mundane.
Pretty much all the album is them trying to replicate SOAD but not knowing how to write like they do; why their songs work; or how to produce albums in that style.
I remember walking into a record store (when that was still a thing) and this was playing. Even the salesman couldn't lie to me. "Is the whole f*cking album this bad or just this one song?", I asked. "The whole album sucks, dude", was his answer. (These are the guys that are supposed to CONVINCE me to buy stuff.)
I remember an ad on WEBN Cincinnati where the radio host (probably paraphrased here) said, "What, we're not allowed to make fun of that album? They're still trying to sell it? Alright, fine, St. Anger's *[audible laugher in the background]* good. Sure."
When they played frantic at mtv icon, it led everyone to believe St. Anger was going to be a monster of an album. Things changed quickly after the release.
In defense of the snare, the same out-of-tune "oil can" sound can sound great, and is used by many slam / grind bands. It's just that the rest of the record is mixed so poorly and it's so loud that it sticks out in a really unfortunate way.
donk! i like the sound in isolation, in my own production when i'm working with acoustic drums i try to bring out those (in)harmonics but i make electronic music, the tone makes it stick out more under all the synths
It would be a fun unique sound in another genre where the feel was completely different. Alt rock bands like Kaisers Orchestra, and stuff that came along during the "steampunk" bandwagon, and even some folks mentioning synth up there, stuff like Primus, I bet if one is creatively clever it can totally be possible to make an amazing hook with that offtune oil drum sound. It just sounds like painful garbage because the tempo and the vocals and everything else is a pile of mess.
It's true that the weird pangy snare is really common in goregrind and slam, but honestly I think it sounds doofy as hell in those genres too. It serves a clearer purpose for sure (it cuts through the usually very muddy and massively downtuned guitars, which themselves are usually playing very chaotic music so the mix is an intentionally crowded, sludgy mess) but whenever the snare has an identifiable tone attached to it beyond just a percussive punch, it's super distracting, especially if the band is fond of gravity blasts and such. Last Days of Humanity is a top tier goregrind band but they genuinely do sound like St Anger on fast forwards a lot of the time. I don't hate it on principle, I think Putrid Pile is pretty good and I think they have that snare sound, but I do think that basically any album that utilizes it would be improved if it didn't. It's like, I dunno, taking a really beefy sidegate from darksynth and trying to utilize it on a Freedom Call album. It just flatly does not work.
So my bestie Joe LOVED Metallica, and when this album came out we all went over to his house to listen to the whole thing together. By the third song he was pale and frowning and by the time the whole album was done we all agreed that Metallica broke up right before this album, and never spoke of it again.
@@mjwbulich That's valid - I was a little surprised myself - but I still enjoyed the album and I played the hell out of it on bus trips and walking to or from work (probably telling that none of its tracks are on my classic metal playlist, though). It was, however, the last Metallica album I ever bought. I haven't listened to anything since, including St Anger, all the way through and couldn't name or place any random Metallica song I've come across in the past 30 years.
They arguably broke up between ...and Justice for All and Self-Titled / Black albums. Burton was amazing, his presence made them awesome. They were lucky that he was able to contribute, however small, to Justice before he died. @@mjwbulich Ehhh... Load was actually more when old fans felt betrayed and left. Black was "They're headed in a mainstream direction and it's ok, I can listen to this, but their old stuff is better". Load was when they walked away going "This is bad, not anything I want to hear from this band, ohh and they are fucking up my ability to listen to and share popular and new music so fuck them." Functioning with the mindset of "Black was their actual last and worst, Album" Unfortunately Black and Load had so much popular hype it generated a ton of new, young fans who never knew the much better progressive thrash band they were, or why old fans railed against them.
Fun fact: There is actually a catholic patron saint of recovery from addiction, called Saint Maximilian Kolbe, so the lyric could have been “Saint Kolbe round my neck”...
Huh, that replaces “Anger” nicely, and would make the lyrics way more meaningful. Though maybe instead of “around my neck” it could be “above my head”, since he’s the saint of recovering from addiction and is more positive a force by default. Though if he wanted to show that despite the sobriety, he’s still shaking off the addiction and it still has a hold over him, it could work...
OP, you know if there is a saint of recovering from anger issues/ learning patience? If so, I can't help but think it would've been a better title. St. Anger sounds oddly childish. Like "He's an angel who makes me madder! I call him ST. Anger!"
@@nomobobby There are a few different interpretations of "Patience" as a virtue in catholicism, Saint Monica is apparently one but she is also the patron saint of married women and was sainted because of her patience enduring her unfaithful husband, which might be a bad look for Metallica. Another is Saint Jerome, who is said to be a patron protector of people with anger issues, but again he's more a patron of librarians and that might be a little too weird of a cut... Another idea might be Job, who is an exemplar of patience from the bible what with enduring suffering at the hands of Satan, but Job is definitely a difficult name to fit into a decent rythm. I felt the song more was about his addiction issues than necessarily the anger that it caused, so I feel like Kolbe would be the best fit.
@@CobaltKitty Hmm... Thanks for the info. At the least I would buy any of those as artistic license as opposed to "St. Anger" though, even if its off it sounds more authentic. What's the next album; "St. Depression" or demon "Sloth"? Its just so childishly blunt its almost as bad as the drums. IDK anything about Metallica (not my genre), so reading these lyrics as a outsider- I don't get it. It reads like anger is the main problem instead of the symptom of addiction. Maybe the rest of the album puts into to context? TBH I'm scratching my head wondering if it has more to do with the band drama, Like his uncontrollable rage leads him to self medicate which only makes the problem worse when it wears off? That feels like such a stretch though... (Why is it always the Trainwreckords that leave me questioning every choice on it? I'm thinking too much for a record I'd never listen to)
I love St. Max Kolbe! He is so inspiring, and the fact that he volunteered to die in the stead of another person that he barely knew (in Auschwitz) makes me cry every time I think about it. That's one of the greatest acts of love. I didn't know he was the patron saint of addiction until you mentioned this though, so thank you so much for sharing, and God bless!
One scene that I've always remembered from "Some Kind of Monster" is Metallica playing a song off "St. Anger" for one of their managers, Cliff Burnstein. The band is all nodding their heads in time to the music, while Cliff looks visibly bored and actually checks his watch like "how much longer do I have to listen to this shit?"
@@lucasoheyze4597 The big scene I remember is them finally deciding to fire Phil after starts overstepping his role, and Kirk pipes up asking, "Wait, can we do that?" ...YES, KIRK. YOU CAN FIRE PEOPLE YOU EMPLOY. JESUS.
"I realize now that I barely knew you before... F*CK!" How have I *NOT* watched this prime cut of interband drama? Clips make it out to be the best thing attached to this album TBH. Anyone know if its streaming anywhere? I wanna see it after watching this.
@@nomobobby Any luck tracking it down? It is most definitely the best thing that has to do with this album. It's pure cringe, watching men that have been so rich and privileged for so long, and have been surrounded by "yes men" so completely, that they have lost touch with each other, their music, and reality in general. Their "problems" are so petty and so far from what average people would think are problems, that it's kind of eye-opening to see what the ridiculously rich artists of the world think are problems with getting angry over. They are most definitely worlds away from the struggling band that made Master of Puppets and toured in a van.
I feel like having Bob Rock do a raw garage record is like asking Steve Albini to do a polished hair metal album, you're asking them to do the opposite of what they're good at
I remember in Highschool that my metalhead friends were all excited because they really expected the next "Ride the lightning". It was sad. The first day they thought it was good, the second they said that two or three songs were kinda ok. The third day they stopped talking about it. For months!
St. Anger is a detox. It perhaps shouldn't have been put out but I suppose they felt they had to put something out. I do feel so bad for Kirk though. He literally did not need to be a part of that. He had like no input and doesn't really play anything different to James. It was a musical detox for James and Lars, with Kirk simply "allowed to be there".
Kirk is credited as a writer in every song of the album. He literally wrote the fucking "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" line. Fym he had "no input" lol
this album sucking is what bonded my dad with my boyfriend when I took him to meet my parents after a month of so of dating, i got to sit back and watch them go to town on how much they hated St Anger. they resumed the chat at our wedding reception 6 months ago - it is their favourite subject and is way more entertaining than the album itself.
That's so wholesome lol. My ex bonded with my dad over how good Learning To Fly by Pink Floyd is
I love this!
Such a good story!!
Fucking hilarious.
Congrats on the wedding!
That rules
Y'know how people tell you that sometimes when you're angry you should type up a letter to someone but then never actually send it, just throw it away instead? Yeah....
@Joshua Roehl Dude... that song is St Anger level bad! Rebecca Black would listen to Friday on repeat to get it out of her head. You should be proud!
Haha! 🤣
Oh crap we wasn't supposed to send those?
The problem is when you're that famous, some people want to hear everything you have to say, even if it's the shit you shouldn't say out loud
@Joshua Roehl Stop posting that song everywhere. It is definitely worse than St. Anger.
I just remember a local DJ announcing, "Here's the new song from Metallica" and they played the song's debut, and then he came back on and said, "That was a bag of suck!"
Haha! I miss the days when DJs had balls
The DJs in my area definitely still have balls. Corey & Patrick.
When Volbeat - Last Day Under the Sun premiered, after it finished, Corey was all "Can I make a point? I really like Volbeat. They always have big riffs, driving solos, & are just generally fun to listen to. This song sounds like it's made for little kindergartners to all hold hands to. Yeah. I guess it's a "song", but unless my kids specifically ask to hear it, I wont be playing this bullshit anymore." & i swear to god they never played it again.
@@jadedheartsz Totally. I throughly enjoyed Last Day, but then again I enjoy good music as opposed to the DJs of a butt rock station
I think if he wasn't on the radio he would have said another 4 letter word beginning with S...
8:14 As a drummer, I can explain the sound: Lars turned the snare off. It’s not DETUNED, it’s just off. It has been used well in songs like “I Disappear,” it’s just mixed SO LOUDLY and the reverb is BALLS!
Yeah, I think he's trying to sound like Korn, who were HUGE at the time. Lots of their songs the drummer turned the wires off on the snare.
Can I ask what does it mean to "detune" a drum?
@@stevencoffin328precussions, unlike normal pitched instruments (basically anything that is NOT a drum), when referred to as tuning it means to change the timbre of that particular piece (the ACTUAL pitch happens on the overtones, aka the "ring", thinks Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit's drums, where the snare's RING is in the key of F)
@ryujinvtubecs
Think you mean "percussion".
I have been a percussionist since 1986.
Percussion refers to any instrument that requires "striking" to produce a sound. That includes piano, BTW.
Only drum I ever tuned to match a pitch is the timpani (the kettle drums most commonly used in symphonies). Like the person already commented, Lars just turned his snare off.
@@stevencoffin328 Dankpod's 4th channel The Drum Thing is a pretty good source for Drums
I saw Metallica at the Download Festival in 2006. At the end of the set, Lars said "Thanks everybody and sorry about that fuck-up two years ago" (referring to him being too sick to play at the 2004 event). Three separate people around me simultaneously turned to their friends and said "What, St Anger?"
I saw them at Sonisphere in 2010 - it was apparently Hetfield's birthday and the overall a cool atmosphere between the band and the crowd... except when Lars addressed the audience. Real 'fuck off' vibes then 🤣
Nothing to apologize for. They played Battery with Dave Lombardo. Probably the best that song ever sounded.
Did you get to see Strapping Young Lad? I know they were in Download '06
@@theyoyoyo7833 The worst album Devin can release in his career will always be better than the worst Metallica album. That's for sure.
@@theyoyoyo7833 i’ve watched that SYL set so many times on youtube, so good
The best thing about St. Anger being my first Metallica song, is that there was nowhere to go but up from there.
yo do you live under a rock tho?
@@Cronposh ?
wait until you hear Lulu, it makes St Anger look like the Black Album
@@Massachamp08 Well, depending on who you ask, the Black Album isn't exactly great either lol.
@@j.j.4150 bruh the Black Album is a fantastic album, metal wouldnt be big as it is today without it and we all know it
Kirk being told he can’t solo looks like Bambi finding out his mom is dead
I love all the comments about Lars and James fighting in SKOM being "they really fighting over who has custody of Kirk" lmaaaao
It's my favorite part of "Some Kind of Monster", and I will never stop to find it funny.
I love Kirk to death, but the funniest Metallica-related comment I have ever read was someone saying "If you ever feel useless, just remember that Kirk Hammett sang background vocals to Creeping Death opposite Jason Newstead."
Kirk is a fantastic guitarist and has written so many beautiful rifts and he clearly has his place in the band.
I fully understand why it's sacrilege to take that one thing away from him in his eyes.
It’s even sadder considering Kirk came out looking the best out of the band in that documentary.
I once read a comment describing the behind-the-scenes stuff as Kirk going to the bathroom while everyone else is recording, and when he comes back the album's finished.
"If we have no guitar solos in any of these songs, that dates the music to this period. " super fucking perceptive of Kirk
It's the only lucid moment in the entire documentary, he's so rational and everyone is like "Nahhh" it's a real life Spinal Tap bit.
Kinda weird how even Todd doesn't seem to agree with him on that even though he'd just spent several minutes complaining about how the lack of solos on the album was one of the big contributing factors in it tanking, because Kirk was fucking right.
And it dated the album to its period. Sure, you can name metal bands doing solos at the time, but most of the mainstream metal wasn't doing solos.
@@Aleph3575i think he agrees with the fact that the way solos were handled sucks, but that he thinks that it's not the absence of solos per se that makes the album terrible, but the lack of hooks.
In esdence, trend chasing itself wasn't the problem, it was the sheer absence of willingness to make a good album
@@Running_Colours Yeah, there are tons of hits and great metal and rock songs with no solos. But is not experimenting, is just lazy
When I was on the editorial staff for a small local literary magazine, we used to use the acronym "GTBP," which stands for Good Therapy, Bad Poetry. "Yes, this poem sounds like it represents an enormous personal emotional breakthrough for you, and I want to make sure I acknowledge that when I inform you that it is very, very bad." From what I can hear, St. Anger sounds like GTBP hooked up to a Marshall stack.
That sounds like literally everything Roger Waters has ever done.
As a Metallica fan who actually listened to St.Anger in full, I can confirm that it does sound like that.
@@the-NightStar
Post-Pink Floyd that is
@@michealpersicko9531
His solo stuff was shite too
I’m gonna save this acronym, I feel like it’ll come in handy
Kirk saying that the lack of guitar solos would date the album to that specific point in time was so extremely on point and accurate.
one problem with the lack of solos is metallica always writes their songs around kirk's solo, and during the solo, there's this cool jam happening behind kirk with james, cliff/jason/robert, and lars playing something bad ass.
which is one reason the songs go nowhere.
I like to think that Mtv told them "nah guys, solos are too complex for the average mtv listener"
Ya
And then came the rise of Metalcore and Djent bands which brought back guitar solos into modern metal.
Yep. It's kinda hard to explain now, but Avenged Sevenfold hitting with Bat Country with a stated goal of bringing back guitar solos and dual harmonies was actually a big deal. They were viewed as "uncool" for a loooong time.
My whole family loved Metallica, especially my mom, and I convinced her to buy this album right when it came out. We left the mall for the hour long drive down country roads, with St. Anger playing. We just kept saying um... okay... well... and now it's actually one of the things I most regret doing to her. As a teen, I didn't do drugs, get bad grades, or get brought home by the cops, but I got her to buy this album. Mom, I'm sorry.
This is genuinely funny and sad at the same time. I feel your pain. Artists might do something that fans don't like, musically, whatever.. that's their right. But this album is just objectively *terrible* and the audio engineering choices are physically painful. Just a big oof all around.
As someone who did drugs and got brought home by the cops, I’m pretty sure mom would’ve been a lot more disappointed if I brought this piece of garbage home
How....could.....you
@@zendakk music can't be OBJECTIVELY bad you smoothbrain lmao. I'm not defending this album but that is not how objectivity works.
@@Phantom_Mountain_Art objectivity tends to refer to a standard being achieved, or simply remaining at a consistent quality. St. Anger fails at both. So with the finite amount of source material to analyze within the album itself, and seeing how it stands on its own merits, one can conclude that it is of objectively poor quality. Lots of people seem to think objective means "100% correct and universally agreed upon" when it's really not. The evidence used should be held up to scrutiny and if said evidence holds up, a conclusion can be made based on the information present. The conclusion is purely based on how well researched the information is, but simply working to analyze a piece of media with its own contents is engaging in objective critique. Stuff that would not qualify as objective would lend to personal feeling, or having to come up with your own personal explanation for a choice being made.
For example, choosing to have the snare sound like someone smacking a bat against a trash can makes for an awful sound, not only on its own, but within the context of the rest of the composition; it sounds superbly out of place, even with them going for an "edgier" and "rougher" sound.
Anyone can use objectivity to analyze a piece of art. It just comes down to the facts you use, and the assessment of said facts.
I love the part of the documentary where Lars is trying to be all philosophical like "The idea of the guitar solo is outdated" and Kirks just like "Dude! This is my JOB!"
If Lars Ulric wad born 120 years ago he'd be one of those people who thought horses would immediately go extinct because we had cars.
I loved and respected Kirk's passion in that scene. He knew it was a bad idea to exclude solos altogether.
When I was at Marine Combat Training in 2003 someone wrote "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" inside one of the stalls in the bathroom. So I guess it was a big hit with 18 year old Marines right out of boot camp, at least.
Sounds about right.
The single most embarrassing line from an album that almost exclusively consists of embarrassing lines! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
my poop style determines my wipe style
@@2-d_in_a_bag lol
@@2-d_in_a_bag i laughed harder than i should at this
That movie extended my marriage by at least a few years. Whenever my ex or I would blow up over nothing instead of addressing the real thing that was bothering us we called it "Suing Napster", then we'd bond over how ridiculous we were being and make up. Our eventual divorce was amicable, and our other divorced friends are all weirdly jealous, like "yeah, they really got divorce right, they don't blame each other, they don't hate each other, it just didn't work out" "Some Kind of Monster" is always going to be one of my favorite movies for that reason.
That’s like that Breakfast at Tiffany’s song but instead you have a healthy disdain for Metallica to bring you together ❤️
@@galleryofrogues "Do you REMEMBER how METALLICA, were gonna sue Napster?"
You couldn't satisfy them
This is one of the best stories I’ve ever read. Genuinely warmed my heart, thank you
@@NEEDbacon I heard that as I read it and I can't decide if it's terrible or not XD
"This album is like seeing your parents cry for the first time" is one of the harshest insults I can imagine.
Imagine being in prison and Metallica shows up, but then they play St. Anger.
I'd ask for the electric chair. Even if I was jailed for unpaid parking tickets or something 😂
@@matthewhodgson4447 "please, let me ride the lightning already"
@@matthewhodgson4447”flash before my eyes,now its time to die”
really underrated comment
Notice how bored the inmates all look. It's like even in jail there are better things to do than listen to Stanger
Their live performance stream on Twitch getting replaced with 8bit folk tunes to avoid copyright infringement for their _own music_ felt like very delayed karma.
Copyright so strict that artists who made the music/companies that publish it... can't play it when they legally want to... *sigh*
Not unheard of, some bands or artists had their own music blocked on their own channel by the automated system.
@@battlion507 It's awful for all the other musicians getting screwed over but for those who were Metallica fans back when Lars went on his copyright striking tirade and getting Napster shut down, it's finally getting the last laugh.
If there was a right way to do music copyright, they’ve long since blown it.
every time i hear people use that royalty free song in videos now i always comment "so cool you used metallicas for whom the bell tolls live at blizzcon"
"Meesa lifestyle determines meesa deathstyle" - Jar Jar Hetfield
😂😂😂😂
Saiiiint Jar Jar 'round my neck, heeeee never gets respect - literally James f'ing Hetfield
I always hear “my wife’s style determines my dad’s style”.
I love that I'm reading this while my mom is watching Star Wars in the other room.
Op is hilarious, you added value I thought nary possible w "death star" 😂✌🏻 @@daelen.cclark
Those "clonk", "donk", and "bonk" has to be the highlight of the video.
@@mezzb I think the lack of bass on that album also helped worsen the drum sound, since often the bass helps the tone of drums by the parts often being similar rhythmically. And Justice is actually by far my favorite Metallica album as I think the songs themselves are almost all excellent there, but there’s always been something weird sonically about it (which is also partially why I love it so much).
@@FragmentedR_YT exactly, taking Newsteds work out of the mix ruined the drum sound, too.
It's also my favorite Metallica album, vut I gotta honest, It would be much more fun and I would listen to it more often, if it had the powerful sound it deserved.
I wish they would have fixed that in the remaster (as far as possible), but I understand the difficult circumstances under which tge album was made, the very personal decision to mix it that way and even though I disagree with their decision, I can see why they don't want to.
I can imagine that changing it would feel like betraying their former selfs and their history to them.
I couldn’t stop laughing at it. It’s like if the dude who hit the steel drum in Slipknot was the only drummer in the band
That shot of the music video to St. Anger, where they're playing in what seems to be a parking lot, washed out with sunlight and with a slightly yellow cast to it? That's 2003. That's what 2003 looked like.
Parking lot? I thought that was the courtyard (or whatever it's called) of San Quentin Prison.
You do know 2003 was a year in real life, right? Not just an aesthetic from a Metallica music video...
That was a prison. Dumass
@@demoleramera It was just an aesthetic from a Metallica music video; it's not a real thing you dork.
I agree with that assessment. Now if we can just figure out what 2003 smells like, we’ll be all set.
Metallica behind the scenes documentaries are fucking hilarious. Someone in editing knows what they're doing, cause they're paced like comedies.
I read somewhere that Some Kind of Monster was gonna be a reality show before the band got the rights, so I think you’re onto something there
A Year and a Half In the Life of... was really good but that was back when they were at their peak too.
"HE FOCKING LEFT THE BAND!!"
“Especially Lars who brought in a giant beer keg to play drums on” is one of my favorite Todd jokes
It is a good analogy. I reached a similar conclusion myself when listening to it back in the day. At the time I remember saying it sounded like they were banging on Teflon pans.
@@olliep8117 My punk rock singer friend played this for me when it came out. I said the drums sounded like Lars ran them through the Pye limiter Hendrix used on the piano in Crosstown Traffic. He agreed. Then I said "Fuck this shit, put on Kill'Em All, I need to clean out my brain." So he did, and it worked.
Just watched a video on yt where a guy plays a beer keg with a metal baseball bat. 😂 Sounded better than Lars’ sound on St. Anger.
Watching this right after the Will Smith episode has me wondering how many of these things feature Chris Rock hosting a show right before a career-ending event occurs.
Lol, Chris Rock being some kind of harbinger of ill fate 😂.
It's uncanny how I was literally about to post a comment to the effect of "Isn't it funny how Chris Rock was indirectly tied to two career-killing moments, both times at an award show?" And then I saw this comment.
Perhaps the most under rated comment of this entire amusing comment section.
Don't throw Chris Rocks in Glass Houses I guess?
The Chris Rock Event Horizon
@@drygnfyre "If I had a nickel for every time Chris Rock was indirectly tired to a career-killing moment, I'd have two nickels, which isn't much but it's funny how it happened twice"
“I think it sounds stock to my ears”-Lars Ulrich on the album that actually had stock drum sound effects
Says the most stock drummer ever.
@@Captain_Neckbeardhey that's an unfair comparison. Stock needs to be standard and listenable. Lar's garbage drumming is neither of those things!
Funny thing is, the "stock" sound that Lars complains about in Some kind of monster, is everywhere on St Anger.
It isn't just the drums that are stock.
The whole CD is filled with "stock" shit
St Anger is an unorganic, stock pile of garbage, that pretends to be lively and punky. It's all fake. That's what's provoking.
"So then his friend says 'It's not stealing, we're just sharing' and then Lars pulls out a comically large soda can"
“Oh, goody. I found my new snare.”
“Funniest shit I’ve ever seen.”
Little-known fact, behind the scenes, Lars Ulrich actually gave up the majority of drumming duties on this album to Bam-Bam from The Flintstones.
oh what a fun joke
@@dr.loomis4221 he's not wrong tou. Lars IS nothing but a big blonde baby
@@ghostoflazlo Bam-Bam is also a way better drummer.
Go easy there, Gdouble. Bam-Bam has feelings too.
DAAHhhahhhahHAhah!
Oh... fuckin' WINNING!
I vividly remember hearing Frantic on the radio when it first came out. I was so excited! I'm a metalhead, I was not used to hearing this kind of heavy music on mainstream radio. Sure, it wasn't *good* exactly, but it was loud and aggressive and I was so hyped to hear what this new, young, popular metal band was going to do next! Then the song ended and the DJ said "That was Metallica." Total whiplash.
Was that last part supposed to be a pun?
@@liamfitzgerald7217 I mean, I noticed the reference and I left it. I'm not gonna claim it's clever or anything
@Stella Hohenheim it's a song off Metallica's Kill Em All
@Stella Hohenheim Metallica has a song called Whiplash.
St. Anger kicks ass. Only idiots care what other idiots think.
My friend Chris was a massive fan of Metallica. He told me he listened to it once and threw it out the window of his car near his house. That CD case with a new CD stayed in that gutter by the sidewalk for weeks and no one took it. It was a running joke when we got together to rip on it savagely.
Metallica is so legendary, they have TWO Trainwreckords-tier albums and it still wasn't enough to kill their careers.
Oh, we're counting Load and Re-Load as one album now?
@@thisisfyne I think he meant Lulu with the second one
You make 4 of the best thrash albums ever and you earn some goodwill.
@@SomeDumbKid1 they didn't even need four albums. Master of Puppets cemented their legacy.
Don't forget they are the cause of DMCA
that mtv awards napster sketch is peak cringe
It's incredible that they managed to get the guy from the Dungeons & Dragons movie to be in it! :-P
The St. Anger video was nominated for Best Rock Video at the 2003 edition, but lost against Linkin Park
I like it when my favorite content creators comment on each others videos. :)
WAIT HOL UP THAT ERIK ANDRE?
@@KrugerBabadook Pretty sure that's one of the Wayans.
“except for Lulu, but that is a story for another day”
Metallica will return to Trainrecords
James will return as the table.
lulu wasnt that bad...
Lulu was good, imo
Can't wait for the table wrestling memes that episode.
Lulu had decent production but it was very very poorly paced and Lou Reed sounded horrible. He really brought the album down. It would have at least been listenable if they took out Lou Reed and just had James, and maybe shaved off some of the songs like Junior Dad which are way too long for no reason.
Let’s not forget that the early 2000’s had some HEAVY competition in the rock scene. Like even if you weren’t into emo or nu metal. Just two years earlier tool came out with lateralus and soad came out with toxicity. Not only did you not want to listen to st anger to begin with but you had other far better options to listen to at the time.
Seriously. Two words: Linkin Park.
Slipknot, Sepultura. Metallica isn't that heavy anymore.
@@johnps1670heavy music nowadays is practically unlistenable. I dont care if that makes me sound old, its fuckin unintelligible and extremely grating
my 6th grade teacher, who was like a 60 year old woman whose primary interest was Elvis Presley, was a huge metallica fan. just to add to that ''bigger than metal'' thing
My friend's pastor father is a Metallica fan
@@boomslang182 Just like all those republican congressmen who claim they love Rage Against the Machine. Irony can be a hell of a drug.
I had a 60 year old teacher who was a Rodgers and Hart fan who hated Elvis. But she got totally turned on to Texas favorites The Judys, and also the B-52's and Devo. She knew a couple of the Jonestown killers and thought "Guyana Punch" by The Judys was the infamy they deserved.
@Stella Hohenheim stop upvoting your own comments
@@seymourglass26 Exactly lol
All these references to Some Kind of Monster, and not once does Todd show Lars yelling, "HE FOCKING LEFT THE BAND?!"?
which part of that is... helloooo?!
ua-cam.com/video/kj_8E3FOU4s/v-deo.html
Period!
Exclamation point!
ffftUUUUUUUHHHH!
Or him screaming "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK" into a microphone.
"the snare is to st anger what jar jar is to the phantom menace"
Amazing comparison
The problem is that even without jar-jar the phantom menace still isn't good.
@@plasmakitten4261 and changing the snare tune of st anger also doesn't make it better.
Hence the comparison, guys.
Oh you like it? You're a big fan? You think it's an amazing comparison?
@@dr.loomis4221 Nobody paged Dr. Shithead to the operating theater, thank you.
Give "In Utero" this, it still had hooks. People still belt-out, "HEY! WAIT! I got a new complaint!"
On the listenability scale, St. Anger makes In Utero sound like Revolver.
Well Kurt was always a big pop music fan. One of the funniest stories about him was he invited his friend over to his place saying "I just heard the coolest song!" And he plays his friend "My Sharona" by the Knack and it took his friend a minute to realize that he wasn't playing it as a joke and he seriously considered it one of the best songs he'd ever heard.
Oh dude. In Utero is still a great record. Heart Shaped Box is an immaculate song.
In Utero had effort put into it. Cobain simply didn't want his band to be perceived as sell-outs. It wasn't about making too much money or being too famous, it was about controlling their image.
Nobody said that In Utero was bad, just that it was intentionally abrasive (to the point where much of the lyrical content got them pulled from stores). Also, Heart-Shaped Box is essentially the only single out of the album that randos on the street recognize and can belt out.
My father was a devoted Metallica fan from the early 1980s on, raised my brother and I on Metallica and when "St. Anger" came out, he was SO EXCITED to run home with the CD and listen to it. ...and then he sat motionless with an expression of abject shock before quietly throwing the CD case over his shoulder and leaving the room.
How the fucking hell was he not demoralized from their previous shitty albums of load and reload or even the dumpster fire we call garage inc which all sucked as for load and reload they both felt like soulless cash grabs for the grunge rock movement when it was already long dead and then there is garage inc which tried to milk and even copy the success of punk acts such as green day but looked like fucking posers in the end
@@largegummyhitman5786 Garage Inc was better than both previous albums
@@lordrathut Well even then that is your opinion so enjoy it all you want
It was the first Metallica fan to come out while I was an active fan of the band, aged 16. A friend and I both bought copies of it, went to a local pub (the landlord was remarkably lax about licensing laws), put our CDs into our respective Discmans… and then lied to each other’s faces that it was the best thing they’d done since Justice, because we simply didn’t want to admit that Metallica, fucking METALLICA, had essayed this piece of garbage.
@@largegummyhitman5786 What did Garage, Inc. have to do with Green Day? Half the songs were recorded in the ‘80s before Green Day was even a thing, and the disc of new recordings has covers of Discharge, Blue Öyster Cult, Mercyful Fate and Black Sabbath.
It’s about as Green Day-influenced as it is Thelonious Monk-influenced.
The idea that the way we live foreshadows the way we die is really a profound and impactful one. It deserved such better writing than "My lifestyle determines my death style"
*in dreaded black and white, hands on head in confusion* my life style determines my death style....
*in neon lights, thumbs up, shades and rose colored nostalgia* MY LIFESTYLE DETERMINES MY DEATHSTYLE, YEEEHEEEH, YEEEEHEH!
That’s what happens when you let anyone other than James write lyrics
Is it bad that I think that's the best lyric on the album?
Don't you mean "My lifestyle (donk donk) determines my death style"
@@morley364 Ah yes, my mistake!
My dad looks so much like this era of James hetfield that back in 2003 he was stopped on the street for autographs.
Did he gave autographs? Or maybe get a free guitar plus sponsorship?
My mind is blown that "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle" isn't something They Might Be Giants made up for Scott Bower, since it's such a dorky sentence.
Love TMBG. Scott Bower, Scott Bowerrrrr
St. Anger backing a Jar Jar Binks scene was the nightmare I never knew I would suffer.
I loved it. 地獄 is what I live for.
Jar Jar > you.
@@commandercaptain4664 “I’m madly in Jar Jar with you.”
MEESA FRANTIC TIC TIC TICK TOCK
@Julie Miller And Jar Jar for All.
The patron saint of anger is St. Jerome, in case anyone was curious.
Cheers, I was curious.
You did more research than James, well done.
source ? according to wikipedia:
"Patronage: Archaeologists; archivists; Bible scholars; librarians; libraries; school children; students; translators; Morong, Rizal; Dalmatia"
there is also a page for another saint jerome (Gerolamu Emiliani), where (again, according to wikipedia):
"Patronage: orphans and abandoned children"
the only thing i found about him being a "saint of anger" is about him having anger issues and dealing with them. maybe that gives him an unofficial title of "saint of anger". however officially he's not the saint of anger.
no it isn't it's St. Anger
@@justsomecommentchannel8602 i did some quick googling, and it seems that according to catholic scholars, st jerome is who you pray to when you yourself have pent up rage you need to channel somewhere
Here before Lars Ulrich copyright claims the whole video
Lars just sent me a cease and desist letter as he has copyrighted my life.
In the VH1: Behind the Music, Metallica openly admitted they got big initially because fans were sharing bootleg copies of their demos. Then, once they made it big suddenly they are against people sharing their music. Fortunately, entertainers and entertainment companies learned from the mistake and never attacked their fan bases again.
@@Arbbal
Metallica actively encouraged fans to bootleg their early performances and EPs.
They would even let them plug in to the sound boards at concerts for cleaner recordings, if Radio DJs from the early 90s are to be believed.
Then when other bands were able to do that same tactic on a wider scale, they sued and shut it down because a couple people were downloading their radio singles. /smh
Shit, is this actually gonna be taken down?
@@Dill_Pickle1997 oh god no dude, Metallica don't go and take down any video about them. Though their record label, or some other company might try and strike the video for the music
Fun Fact. St. Jerome is the Catholic saint of Anger. Or at least the saint you pray to in order to control your anger.
Todd: "Is it gonna sound like that for the entire album?"
Narrator voice: "It will sound like that for the entire album."
it has its charm if not listened all at once
@@AnarchistMetalhead Oooof, just when I thought ancap opinions couldn't get any worse you gotta hit me with that one.
James immediately afterwards:
"I've made a huge mistake."
I read the last line in Ron Howard's voice in my head.
Hey this isn't the Arrested Development episode
11:27 Pretty sure bringing prisoners out to listen to a performance of St. Anger counts as cruel and unusual punishment
better than bending over for the soap in the shower I guess...
"I'd like to go back to my cell, please."
@@play-s-_______-osu yes, I know, they're both pretty cruel treatments...
I was about to say the same thing but I just knew someone else had to have the same thought. XD
They actually played a short show in that yard after filming wrapped for the st anger video.
That skit was so very on point. Imagine you are in your crappy little dorm room while you, struggling to pay your bills while putting yourself through school and some rich asshole barges in and says that he now has the rights to all your shit because he only made $5,000,000 that year.
-- Unintentional messaging "We're judging you for using Napster anyways so... Why buy the good stuff we're already a criminals?" Yeah, not hard to see how they lost.
@Dustin Kimpton Most of those are live show costs, which I assume are paid for by the tickets. You wouldn't download a live show, right?
@MR.CLAW97 imagine defending rich musicians
@@Arcademan09 Imagine that the concept of paying for music doesn't register to some people, case if you haven't noticed the reason why merch and ticket pricing skyrocketed in the last 20 years is mainly due to the fact that people just weren't paying for music like we uste too, it's not about "DeFeNdInG RiCh MuSiCiAnS" it's about the value of the music, it's about people supporting their artists not just by tickets or merch but by supporting mainly by buying the actual music they make, cause ever since the Napster days us the fans have been supporting mainly by compensating the lost profits of record sales by buying more expensive merch and tickets for the shows
@@lionwolf2797 I agree. People don’t realize that when they start downloading music, the artists that they claim to “love” aren’t being compensated. There is a lot that goes into recording music or live shows and everyone has to be paid. If these guys are rich and made a ton of money over the years, it’s because of their own success and hard work. They have countless fans and have been touring and writing music for decades. Their fans have supported them all of that time and have always paid for their music/merch/shows, up until Napster and downloading started. They started losing money from that, they called it out, and they were right to do that. Most people wouldn’t appreciate being stolen from or having their hard work just stolen off of them and never reimbursed for it. I’m not even a fan of Metallica and never was but I believe they were in the right to come out and go against Napster. People didn’t like it cuz they weren’t getting freebies anymore, straight up
12:36 Hetfield as a stern dad fits. He'd go on to narrate an anti-porn documentary. Not kidding.
Meatallica
my favourite thing about Todd is that he's one of the few youtubers whose videos got progressively better over the years. not to say that his old videos are bad necessarily, but his best content has arguably come out in these last two years. and this might be one of his best videos yet. love you, Todd.
That's true of pretty much all ex-channel awesome folk, I think. Without being chained to the formula and expectation of surface level snark, they've had the chance to shift into better, deeper critics even while retaining a sense of humor
@@margaretmadole True! Lindsey Ellis comes to mind, especially.
@@margaretmadole I mean, just look at Lindsay Ellis as a perfect example of what you just described. She has made some of the best analysis videos on this website, and she just had to break free from the restraints of Channel Awesome for her to do it.
That is obviously a big factor. In retrospect, many of the reviewers who worked under TGWTG were so much better at their job than their own boss lmao.
Agreed. His old videos weren't bad, exactly, but they definitely flew too close to the, "angry random dude is insulting about everything," UA-cam craze (that thankfully mostly has died out by now,) and become a lot more thoughtful.
"I'M A LONELY LITTLE BOY AND I NEED TO BE LOVED; DAD WAS REAL MEAN AND NOW I NEED A HUG"
Bro I'm crying lmfaoooo
Shut the f****** You're Metallica not Weezer
>Super Macho Man Who Hasn't Felt Love In 10 Years
>Sad little boy who is misunderstood
Pick one James XD
Trainwreckords Weird Lyrics Hall of Fame:
"And now she thinks she's bissexual" (Lauryn Hill)
The entire "Door to Door" song (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
"In a word to, Yah! The wisdom tooth, So open up and say aaaah-men, rinse cup, hey and spit again" (Van Halen)
"I am the modren man" (Styx)
"I'd love to hurt the population" (Hootie & The Blowfish)
"Keep you and hold you, after I scold you, I hope I can mold you" (Arrested Development)
"Mary Jane, I wanna roll you down to the fields where you were born" (Spin Doctors)
The supreme god:
"You're being a penis, colada that is" (Liz Phair)
And now, a new addition to the family:
"MADLY IN ANGER WITH YOU"
Edit: A few great additions I missed, thanks for commenting lol
"We love Spam in America / Polanski's banned from America" (Jewel)
The entire "American Life" Rap (Madonna)
"A Tribe Called Quest is a bad investment" (MC Hammer)
"We aint gonna be treated like trash, we got one thing, we are the Clash" (Bernie Rhodes)
"Gay man, looking for another / Candyman, yeah the candyman can" (Van Halen again)
Also the entirety of magic pie (Oasis)
That Liz Phair episode just made me cry.
@@prufrock1977 Yeah, her entire discography does that.
The whole American Life rap (Madonna)
Also "my life style determines my death style", "tick tick tick tick tick tick tick TICK TICK TICK TOCK" and " St Anger round my neeeeecckk"
I always found it ironic that a band who built their whole momentum in the 80’s on TAPE TRADING was the band that went after Napster.
Forgot where they came from.
They’re legends. They’ve redeemed themselves. But that period from like 2001-2007 they were maybe the most loved and hated band simultaneously.
I respect the artistic choice to make the snare sound like a rubber playground ball hitting the side of an aluminum shed.
The more I think about it, the more amazing it is that we basically stopped paying for music in the 2000s and got away with it.
Lars was kind of the canary in the coal mine on that one. When other musicians saw how he was treated by the fans, they adjusted their PR accordingly.
Now they're just like "...please pay to stop ads from happening?
😜
👉🏿👈🏿"
No, now they're like "please pay $100 for nosebleed seats at my next concert since you won't pay for my new record".
We make up for that now by paying $100 to sit half a mile away in an arena to see our favorite musicians when $100 could almost get you backstage passes in 2000
@@Arizona_Bay_Real_Estate I think that was due to TicketMaster being a monopoly.
St. Anger is like a coworker who's talking way too much about their personal life problems to the point where its uncomfortable and annoying
Best review ever.
That's exactly how I feel about some woman whom I worked with at a CVS named Margaret. She was exactly as you described.
Watch me drop these "PORN BOMBS ON MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY YEAHHHH!!!"
"Turns out...ooops!!! Sorry busy parents, I happen to like BDSM!!!!!"
"Ok real talk.....TURNS OUT BDSM DIDN'T SCRATCH THAT WEIRD-ASS ITCH AND I LOVE random "midget and horse porn oh GOD please eensure safety like my God why...???
"
@@dostwood5103 my mother is a margaret who used to work at cvs.
And now every Metallica song is like that now.
“I have never been more acutely aware of James Hetfield as a human being, and I hate it.” That line is absolutely perfect. If I was let down by Load and Reload, I was depressed by St. Anger. It just put a stake in the heart of Metallica. And the documentary just made James and Lars look like insufferable egomaniacs. It was well past time for me to abandon ship.
Thank you for not lumping Kirk in with James and Lars as insufferable egomaniacs. If there's one innocent figure in this story, it's him (and Robert, of course).
One of my first jobs was at a pizza place, and I had a friend who bought this album the morning it came out.
He pulled into the parking lot blaring it, hopped out of the car talking about how awesome it was...but by the end of our 6 hour shift, he had slowly come to terms that the album literally sounded like garbage.
It was actually sad, he came into work so happy...
Basically my experience with Netflix's reboot of Aggressive Retsuko. I was a high schooler with really annoying classmates, so I loved the original shorts, and I was excited to hear it was coming to Netflix. Then, when it finally premiered on Netflix, I watched a little bit of the first episode in the car on the way home, and, well... let's just say that after finding out how they screwed up the show, my traditional Friday pizza didn't taste as good as it usually does. I stopped using Netflix permanently, I burst into random fits of rage in class, and I wished I could stop being so angry, but couldn't. In essence, Netflix's version of Aggressive Retsuko was my personal St. Anger and it effectively turned me into St. Anger.
My stepdad has a similar experience listening to WEEKEND WARRIORS by Ted Nugent. He was a huge fan, then heard that and it slowly creeped on him, "Oh no, this isn't good..."
Same. I was so pumped but before I even got halfway through the album I was just crushed. XD
@@Bismuth83X XD I'm sorry man, it's really the worst when something you love is eviscerated right before your eyes.
@@seamusburke639 Henry Rollins had a good story about Ted Nugent before and during Weekend Warriors. Not only did Weekend Warriors suck, but Ted made the mistake of having this up-and-coming band called Van Halen opening on that tour, who ended up upstaging Ted.
Metallica 1983: Thrash metal
Metallica 2003: Trash cans metal
@Luke you have to emphasize the drum sound
@@lilo5437 And trash 'the rest of it'.
@Luke Just 'trash'.
metallica 2021: royalty free 8 bit music
Metallica 2003: Crash metal.
This album reminds me of one of my therapist’s techniques: Write an angry letter to someone that wronged you.
The problem is the second half. To BURN that letter, instead of sending it.
This album literally was a therapist technique, they had a therapist who made them right lyrics to air out their anger.
@@thereverse-flash9942 That therapist should have been fired. If you hire a therapist to get an album's production back on track and the result is St. Anger, they did not do their damn job!
@@drpibisback7680 It was to get the band back together
@@drpibisback7680 Yeah, to be fair, the therapist wasn't brought into make a stellar album, he was hired to keep the boys working together. In that regard, he did his job swimmingly.
What's your therapist's opinion on not sending it, but setting it to music, thus launching your wildly successful musical career?
I actually liked St. Anger when it released. I'm sure it's a coincidence that I was 10 years old and had literally just discovered Metallica a week prior.
This disasterpiece is weirdly influential for me because it was the first time I ever tried to “tamper with” music. When I really discovered Metallica and later this album as a pre-teen in the mid-2000's, I saw that a lot of people on the internet were creating their own versions of St. Anger where they would do everything from drastically shorten the tracks (whether by removing parts or speeding them up to make them "thrashier") to rearrange parts to even "remix" the album and try to mitigate that ugly snare sound. I agreed that St. Anger was a bad record with a few good traits and parts waiting to be realized in a better context, so I first started taking a stab at editing a song or two from St. Anger myself at age 13.
I ended up getting carried away and spending hours of my free time editing and getting lost in Angerland. I got fairly good at splicing parts in the audio editing program I used (Amadeus II). I started getting really out there with editing - I sped up or slowed down different parts, began adding effects like reverb to others, turned bridges into choruses, removed any parts that “returned” to previous ones, etc. By the end my version of the record must've sounded fucking disturbing and probably worse than the original thing, but I liked it and I really enjoyed working on it. I learned a lot about what kinds of arrangements worked and didn’t work (at least for me), and what I wanted out of a composition. I learned to listen closely to music in a way I didn’t before and listen for details - I must’ve gone back over parts or edits dozens of times.
Even though I still thought (and still think) that St. Anger was bad, I became weirdly close to it. I became familiar with all its weird little nuances and oddities, perhaps more than anyone ever should. I started noticing how Pro-Tooled and assembled the record is, which is funny -- it was supposed to be their "raw honest roots garage band jamming together" record and yet was probably the least organic thing they ever did. If you listen closely enough, you can actually hear where some parts (mainly the drum cymbals) get cut off by the splicing of another part, especially if they’re looped (and an alarming number of parts on the record are). The whole record is like the musical equivalent of slumming.
Fast forward to today and I frequently “write” avant-garde “compositions” by splicing together, looping, layering, and otherwise manipulating raw recordings of myself and/or my friends playing mostly improvised music, so it sounds written. In a bizarre way, I have St. Anger to thank for that.
A most excellent exegesis! Your assessment of St. Anger (i.e., how it encouraged listeners not to listen passively but to immerse themselves in it, to (in a sense) deconstruct it and thereby create something new) remind me of Glenn Gould's assessment of Carlos' SWITCHED ON BACH album. If I embark on a research project about Gould's conception of the New Listener (and I might ... I'm meeting with my advisor next week), I would love to contact you for an interview, as your historical situation of St. Anger within the craft of mashup could be highly relevant to such a project.
@@melchiorhoffman Wow, thank you! I would definitely be interested in doing that interview if you decide to start your project. Thank you also for reminding me of Switched On Bach -- I haven't listened to that one in a few years. I think I'll revisit it right now. I've heard a few times that my stuff often sounds like "synth baroque" and the like, so I might find new resonance there.
@@melchiorhoffman Hello, Melchior! I thought back to this comment and thought I'd follow up on how your research project has been going and if you were still interested in that interview. Either way, I hope your day is well.
@@melchiorhoffman I've never heard such a load of pseudo-philosophical sophistry in an attempt to give meaning to what was simply a contrived attempt at being abrasive.
@@somewhatsomething4882 I am not attempting to give meaning to St. Anger itself. I applaud NEFX for having interacted with this music rather than passively listened to it. I raise a glass to NEFX for viewing the universe of recorded music as something to play with, edit, destroy, contextualize anew ... rather than as an exhibit to revere and leave untouched. That is all. (If NEFX had demonstrated this approach without even mentioning this album, I'd still be impressed.) And I agree with you that I need to write clearer. Thanks.
The most embarrassing thing to happen to Metallica is still copyright-claiming their own live performance on Twitch.
Wow. That sounds like an Onion headline.
@@stevegeorge6880 It was hilarious. They had to play copyright free music over it
Poetic justice at its finest.
The most embarrassing thing Metallica ever did was rejecting Les Claypool. Hetfield's best song licks shit off the shoes of Claypool's worst.
@@lulairenoroub3869 WHAT!!!!! LES CLAYPOOL COULD HAVE BEEN METALLICA'S BASSIST?!?!?! *HEAD EXPLODES*
Kind of the funny thing here is, we could all totally imagine what the good version of this album might be.
Like, take that song 'St Anger' for instance - the good version of that would vocalise something to the effect of "I wear St Anger around my neck for protection, but it also keeps away people who care about me - my anger is a comforting thing that is also destroying me".
That's potentially really powerful, but the song itself is just so nothingy.
THAT IS SUCH A GREAT IDEA
Seriously, how did they not lean into that?
@@xemnufromthemagicplanet1678 Cuz Metallica were never great songwriters, lyrically. They never explored concepts, never tied themes together...
Every album was just a collection of songs, and that's what Metallica did. It grew tiresome, especially when they sold out...
Even Queensryche had deeper song writing. Carnivore had a concept and theme. Nuclear Assault did the whole 'crunchy, endlessly repeating mosh riff' stuff better.
By the time the Black album was released, Metallica had sold out and their most popular song off that god forsaken piece of garbage record was based on a nursery rhyme.
Even Megadeth did that concept better, on 'Go To Hell,' from the 'Bill and Ted 2' soundtrack.
I liked your comment - something so obvious, but Metallica just never really 'got it' when it came to writing songs.
Frustrating and sad.
@@JohnSmith-mk1rj One? Unforgiven? Ronnie? Sanitarium?
This kind of slight lyric reworking to make the intentions come through better is something I honestly wish Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk) had. His lyrics are unique and interesting, but they feel like a bunch of words that, in and of themselves, don't really mean anything.
They just needed someone to come behind him and change a few words to give the songs a bit more context or something.
also the easy fix for the stupid title... just call it St. James! or St. Hetfield if you don't want the comparison to actual Saint James. OR you can lean into it since James was the first to be martyred
St Anger - incontrovertible proof that 'abrasive and difficult' isn't the same thing as 'good.'
9:11 This isn't an exaggeration, the album version of Death Magnetic was compressed and boosted to the point that there is audible clipping on the tracks (loudness wars and all that) while the Guitar Hero Metallica versions of the songs somehow evaded this treatment. As far as I know, anyway.
Neversoft remixed the album for both GH 3 and Metallica... and even DJ Hero's mix [forgot which song but it was a Death Magnetic mix with another]
Im even more baffled that band allowed it to be different, or well in this case, better.
For the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, the songs were basically mixed on the fly by the game, so if a player misses notes their instrument drops out. Often times, towards the end of the music game era, the developers were given access to the master recordings for the songs to be able to achieve this effect, basically giving them carte blanche to mix it how they saw fit. Otherwise, the songs would actually be re-recorded by a cover band, so they would have a master recording. In Guitar Hero Metallica, all of the songs are based on actual master recordings, some I think were redone for this game by the original artists. This is why the songs from …And Justice for All sound a lot better too.
As for why Metallica would allow these versions to sound different, my best guess is it was this, or some other band covers your songs.
@@meWASHER Neversoft got the masters before it was *officially* mastered. Remember: they had to do animation and charting for every song for it to be ready for album release day.
@@meWASHER and with Guitar Hero, you could always tell which ones were the original and which were covers before the song even starts, as the artist credit would say something like "originally by" or "made famous by" if it was a cover.
I noticed that the 2003 VMA's were also the same VMA's where Madonna showcased a song from American Life. Also, both Metallica and Madonna had moments during that ceremony that overshadowed them performing their new songs (Metallica covering classic songs, Madonna kissing Britney and Christina). It seems like to start a Trainwreckord, the VMAs are a good place to start.
Madonna actually performed "Hollywood" there. And all of it was tied to it being the 20th annual edition of the awards show.
The 2003 show was one of the worst VMAs and definitely the worst up until then. And MTV just got worse after that. 😐
@@digamejh "Hollywood" was on the album American Life. I think that's what they were referring to. At the VMAs, she was basically revealing the album
You may have a point here. Christina Aguilera also performed “Dirrty” at the 2003 MTV VMAs, and she could be a contender for her “Bionic” album as a future Trainwrecord episode.
@@cremetangerine82 OOH, definitely! I would love to hear what he has to say about that album
The part in “Some Kind of Monster” when they literally couldn’t jam together as a band was mind blowing to me. They couldn’t just, play together. I could never look at them the same way after.
Just sad how the mighty Metal gods fall.
I've heard Metallica SONGS live twice. They were covers by other bands I had gone to see. I'm still convinced I saw the superior versions
@@kaydwessie296 Same here. These days, I often find covers of Metallica songs better than the originals.
@@kaydwessie296 I saw Metallica live in 2019 and they were bloody great! There's a reason why they're as big as they are - they're an excellent live band.
Guns 'n' Roses made Use Your Illusion 1 & 2 from opposite sides of the planet.
They struggled to tolerate each other, long enough to pump out the albums and tour.
So this sort of thing isn't unheard of
James Hetfield (covering Amy Winehouse): "They try to make me go to rehab I say YEAH YEAHHHH YEAH"
Fun Fact: Some talented artists (Daryl Gardner, Chris Dando, and Dave Cox) re-recorded the entire album from the ground-up. And yes, the snare was fixed in it.
What is the name of this version of the album?
@@EngineerLume Literally UA-cam search for St. Anger Rerecorded. It's either the first or second result that comes up. Don't expect too much though, if you polish a turd it's still a turd, just one that looks a little better.
Yeah, he mentioned that in the video you know?
The songs are just bad fundamentally. No production value could save those.
@@worsel555 disagree. The only thing that remains are the bloated song times and questionable lyrics. The guy singing like James is better than James himself and the drums are obviously leagues better. Makes the whole experience different. It's a solid 6 at that point.
So after re-reading "This Monster Lives" recently (the book about the making of "Some Kind of Monster") I was able to glare an insight that might explain a lot: So Metallica had dragged their feet with getting any semblance of a record ready in 2002 so before Christmas of that year, the label came in and said that they had to put a record out by June 2003, which meant they needed to have the album delivered by the beginning of April so they can start marketing it. The problem? Metallica only had about 3 songs written and recorded by Christmas 2002, meaning they had to cobble together a whopping 8 songs in about 3 months.
Also, James didn't write all of the lyrics. As a part of their therapy sessions during the writing of the album, Lars and Kirk wrote lyrics as well so every song on the album is a lyrical Frankenstein's monster of James, Lars, and Kirk.
Sounds an awful lot like the story of how the implosion of megadeth's "classic line up" happened in 1998 when they were recording risk.
Dave Mustaine had a bad relapse in the winter of '97 that combined with the artistic and creative differences he was having with marty freidman and created a powder keg within the band that finally came to a head during a group therapy session when marty basically told dave that he was an asshole who was destroying the band by not letting them have some say in the musical direction of the band.
In response to this confrontation dave gave in and let marty have more say in the musical direction of the band which led directly to an in studio battle between dave and marty while they were making risk, marty wanted to "paint with more colors than battleship grey" and dave was intent on trying to recapture the sound of countdown to extinction so a compromise was made in which marty was given more writing freedom.
That's why risk is so patchy in that when it's good the songs are great but when its bad the songs are almost unlistenable.
Some kind of monster indeed!
And they always did music first, then lyrics. The lyrics were always tailored to fit the music. In his interview with Noel Gallagher Lars said that he doesn’t understand how some bands write the lyrics first as you just end up with the music and lyrics not fitting each other, which is ironic because that’s exactly what happened with this album
I was actually genuinely surprised to watch a scene from the documentary on UA-cam and saw Kirk being the guy who came up with the "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" lyrics.
And all this time Robert was vibing in the corner. "Omg omg i'm Metallica".
Iirc this was his first Metallica album, way to start.
I don’t think the drums were replaced by an oil barrel.
I think it’s more accurate that he’s playing with a Half-Life crowbar.
Oh god you're right. While Gordon was in stasis for 20 years after the Black Mesa Incident, his crowbar ended up in the hands of Lars, who somehow... turned it into a drum or something. ANYWAY, that was that until he lost it and Barney got it back to give to Gordon once he got out of stasis.
@@accountwontlastlong1 Barney is actually Lars Ulrich and was using it as a drumstick
Yeah one of the guys in Slipknot plays with kegs or oil drums in his kit and they don't sound anywhere near as bad.
To me, it sounds like he’s dribbling a dodgeball lol
"Lars Freeman, who is Gordon Freeman's brother..."
St Anger the song was basically my first exposure to metal, at least that I can remember. That music video was everywhere back then. I was pretty young and remember thinking "Jesus, metal is awful, it really is just noise". It's Metallica, so I just assumed in my childhood way that metal sounded like Metallica. Thankfully St Anger doesn't even really sound like Metallica.
9:50 Important context regarding Metallica's anti-Napster stance and Lars Ulrich in particular.
1. They weren't just against it, they wanted the government to criminally charge anyone who downloaded their music via Napster and have them pay a $100,000 fine/ per song, even though Metallica themselves would not exist as a band if not for metalheads sharing bootlegs of their music in their early days, they didn’t have the airwave saturation and studio support to make it big without those tapes.
2. "Ulrich talked this huge game about how it ~hurt~ him as an ~artist~ and tried to play like pirates were damaging the lives and livelihood of the musicians whose music they pirated. This was especially necessary to hit Napster’s userbase because I cannot express to you how much everyone loathed record labels in the 90s and aughts, we all knew they were greedy capitalist parasites who abused consumers and artists alike, but we did genuinely like the musicians who made music and wanted them to prosper, so if we were hurting them and not the labels like we thought we should probably stop, right?
But Ulrich had his own fucking record company. He was lying through his filthy teeth about artists being hurt by piracy, the only money coming out of his pocket was what he fleeced from the other artists he managed."
Yeah, well now streaming has destroyed the music industry...so, well done.
@@lucasoheyze4597 in what way?
@@benis9684 Record sales have collapsed, streaming makes very little income except for the biggest artists.
Here is what you left out.
It all could have been avoided had Napster blocked an unfinished version of I Disappear. That was all they wanted at the beginning. So it did start as being about an artist controlling their own art. Napster brought it on themselves.
Also Blackened Records was 15 years off so no Lars did not own a record company, and really still doesn't, he is part owner of a record label.
@@soulcrusher807
I wasn’t defending Napster, I know many smaller artists made case for it, but I‘m fine saying they were bad, and that particular case is fair, but whatever it started as, it ended with them wanting to sue fans for insane amount of money, for the thing that made them big in the first place.
Also, no, Lars became a record exec a year BEFORE Napster existed. Get you facts straight.
St. Anger's snares sound like getting hit in the face with a dodgeball.
It does!!
It's a bold move, Cotton - let's see how it works out for them...
No wonder so many Metallica fans hate it. It's triggering and reminds them of middle school.
That's a new one for me
Trashcan lid
Oh boy... Can't wait for Todd to scream "I AM THE TABLE!"
Wrong album.
k
@@samuelskillern7365 "Metallica will return in: Trainwreckords - Lulu"
Fellow Botchamania viewer?
I can't wait to see Todd "Worship someone who actively despises you. Who actively despises you."
13:30 Huh, it’s only two years after this review that I learned Hetfield had _literally_ blown up and suffered severe burns due to a pyro malfuction during a concert. Ouch.
This happened in 1991, they were on the Black Album tour with Guns N' Roses & Faith No More.
I was in a relationship with a MASSIVE Metallica fan when this came out. He even had the star/square logo tatted between his shoulder blades. He went nuts for St. Anger- going so far as to buy me a copy too. He swore up and down that it was "really good" and applauded them for "not following a formula". I can't help but think his passion for it was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome as a fan- he was trying to convince himself how good it was as much as he was trying to convince me and our friends.
scrolling through the comment section reading these kinds of stories is very entertaining
@@Flowtail 😂😂 I can imagine
St. Anger is horrible. Off key breaking vocals can ruin a song for me. The flubby guitars was the next thing that ruined it. And the third was the snare drum. The riffs were shite. The lyrics were shite. The songs were an 8 minute long journey that took you nowhere. Back when load and reload released we all got nervous. Then St. Anger released and it was evident that the Metallica I have listened to since 1986 were gone. At least in studio record form.
Fan is short of fanatic, so it makes sense that fans have no objectivity.
It's okay. Fans did that with Star Wars: Episode I at first, too.
My favourite line from this album was
“Can’t you help me be uncrazy?”
That sounds like something Homer Simpson would say
"All work and no play makes Homer...something something."
I'm a sucker for "Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tock!"
I just imagine James writing that and feeling so damn clever.
@@qty1315 I see him just trying to get the perfect words before the therapist Dr Towel (thats his real name watch this podcast called Why I Hate This Album episode on st anger) Dr Towel just gives him his words (that happens)
d'oh!
@@ladyoftheratking7801 it's spelled "Towle," but close enough.
Having never heard this album before, my immediate thought is that the song St. Anger sounds like Red Hot Chili Peppers covering a Linkin Park song.
That's actually a decent analogy
@@Kikichan456 One review of Lulu stated "If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the worst twelve Primus songs for Starbucks, that would be better than Lulu."
James Hetfield’s vocal performance in “Frantic” sounds like he's doing a Trey Parker impression.
I'm surprised South Park never took a jab at "St. Anger." Or maybe they did and I missed it.
@@drygnfyrethey made a jab at Lars’ take on music piracy in their classic Christian rock episode
I seem to remember Trey Parker telling a story once about doing the temp vocals for “Little Boy You’re Going to Hell” before Hetfield came into the studio to record. Apparently he was like “hey, this doesn’t sound like me at all,” whereas Matt and Trey both claim that they sounded identical. Hilariously enough, until hearing that I had always assumed it was Parker doing a parody of Hetfield’s voice 😂
I very much agree that Metallica's prestige fell after this, even if they did "return to form" after. It was like Metallica was more a force of nature before and then just became a band after. I had one friend who I saw it with directly.
I was never that into them personally, but I knew so much about them bc of him. He would obsessively try to learn the guitar parts to all their songs whenever we'd jam or would put in the S&M album whenever we drove places and talk about it like it was music gospel.
But after St Anger something shifted. He kind of just started moving on to other metal bands. Didn't really bring up Metallica as much anymore. He didn't complain about them getting worse or anything but it was clear their mystique was gone for him.
And I noticed this especially when I eventually stumbled across the video for "The Day That Never Comes" on tv. I didn't even know they had a new album until that point bc I just wasn't hearing the hype from him.
I think Todd's right that the whole St Anger debacle and documentary humanized Metallica. They were no longer gods of metal but people making metal music. Achilles had fallen.
Once you see how the sausage is made you no longer enjoy eating it as much.
You totally nailed it with the sausage comparison there. Nicely done.
@@duncanpadgett Thank you 😁
There was an episode of Northern Exposure in 1994, when one of Maurice Minnefield's fellow former astronauts comes to town. He was someone Maurice really looked up to, and considered to be a role model not only as an astronaut, but also as a man. Then he tells Maurice his business failed, he lost his house, etc., and asks him for a loan. Maurice is so shocked he doesn't say yes or no. He doesn't know what to say. Later, he mentions it to Chris, barely able to communicate his feeling of being abjectly let down. Chris says that he shouldn't be, the greatest people are also, at bottom, human. Maurice turns to leave, pauses on his way to the door, and says, "I've got all the humans I can use."
That's probably what happened to your friend, and a lot of Metallica fans, after St. Anger. When I read the line "he looked like he'd given up on life", I saw Maurice Minnefield's face.
My punk rock singer friend played St. Anger for me when it came out. After 20 seconds, I said "It sounds like Lars is running 5-gallon paint buckets and 66 Chrysler air cleaner tops through the Pye limiter Hendrix used on the piano on Crosstown Traffic." He agreed. I said "Fuck this, put on Kill 'Em All, I need to clean out my brain." He did, and as far as I know, that was the last time he listened to a second of St. Anger. And he has hundreds, maybe thousands, of records. He's one of those guys who likes music, TV, and movies that are so bad they're good. St. Anger is one of the few things that is simply off the table, and not negotiable.
@@emilyadams3228 I will upvote a Northern Exposure reference anytime, anyplace.
@@SamAronowI second this!
“Replacing the percussion with squeaky dog toys” someone who could pull that off was Frank Zappa
Also, obvious MST3K reference.
Arcade Fire could probably get away with it
And any project fronted by David Byrne
I've seen Cesar Zuiderwijk (drummer for Golden Earring) do exactly that during a clinic: play a solo with something like 8 squeaky, sausage-shaped dog toys in every nook and cranny.
Just look for "Through the Fire and Chicken" on UA-cam to see how you should replace percussion with a squeaky dog toy.
I just realised how much this album feels like the Green Day trilogy. It's the singer working through his issues on a supposed back to basics creation with the producer that made them big not stepping in to say it's a mess. The only difference is the trilogy is three albums and has more solos than usual.
Uno Dos Tre didn't really kill Green Day's relevance tho, they just kind of fizzled out after 21CB and the decline of Pop-Punk in general
@@patoren3gou653 but Father of All... did.
@@musyarofah1 honestly Im More of a blink guy than a Green Day guy so I haven't listened to it yet but I have not heard great things about it
Still can’t believe they made 3 albums just out of a joke of their drummers name
@@Z_Viper08 not to mention it appears to be a joke by Billie’s wife, Adrienne. Given how high Billie was & how seemingly uncritical Rob was as a producer, it makes a frustrating amount of sense.
This documentary and the album, were amongst the first big lessons in my teenage life. Realized that I don't really want to know anything about people, who make music/movies/books that I like.
Advice I was given by a music reviewer many years ago, "Never buy the first album after rehab." They don't know what they are doing, it's almost like a child mind has taken over and they are overly fascinated by the mundane.
🎵a love supreme, a love supreme...🎵
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band would like a word!
The one exception I can think of to this rule would be Alice Cooper's "From the Inside"
Aerosmith was killer when they left rehab in the 80s
@@joeywalker2061
Done with Mirrors...eh. Pump and permanent vacation, yeah!
maybe hetfield's weird high pitched scream voice was an attempt at imitating system of a down? the "fran-tik tik tok" thing reminded me a lot of them
Except SOAD's sound mixing isn't trash
But you do raise a very good point
Imagine thinking you could duplicate SOAD. Lol
Except Serj Tankian can actually pull it off, lol!
That's genius, you've figured it out.
Pretty much all the album is them trying to replicate SOAD but not knowing how to write like they do; why their songs work; or how to produce albums in that style.
I remember walking into a record store (when that was still a thing) and this was playing. Even the salesman couldn't lie to me. "Is the whole f*cking album this bad or just this one song?", I asked. "The whole album sucks, dude", was his answer. (These are the guys that are supposed to CONVINCE me to buy stuff.)
Oh my God! Not even the salesman could get you to buy "St. Anger". 😆
Like they give a fuck, bruh they're minimum wage workers
I remember an ad on WEBN Cincinnati where the radio host (probably paraphrased here) said, "What, we're not allowed to make fun of that album? They're still trying to sell it? Alright, fine, St. Anger's *[audible laugher in the background]* good. Sure."
@@aw2584 it could have been an independently owned one.
The magazine "Metal Maniacs" summed it up perfectly....
"St. Anger is the sound of rich people slumming."
When they played frantic at mtv icon, it led everyone to believe St. Anger was going to be a monster of an album. Things changed quickly after the release.
It was a monster, but one from Rick And Morty or Superjail.
In defense of the snare, the same out-of-tune "oil can" sound can sound great, and is used by many slam / grind bands. It's just that the rest of the record is mixed so poorly and it's so loud that it sticks out in a really unfortunate way.
Chili Peppers
donk!
i like the sound in isolation, in my own production when i'm working with acoustic drums i try to bring out those (in)harmonics
but i make electronic music, the tone makes it stick out more under all the synths
Yeah because Lars always has the drums mixed way too high
It would be a fun unique sound in another genre where the feel was completely different. Alt rock bands like Kaisers Orchestra, and stuff that came along during the "steampunk" bandwagon, and even some folks mentioning synth up there, stuff like Primus, I bet if one is creatively clever it can totally be possible to make an amazing hook with that offtune oil drum sound. It just sounds like painful garbage because the tempo and the vocals and everything else is a pile of mess.
It's true that the weird pangy snare is really common in goregrind and slam, but honestly I think it sounds doofy as hell in those genres too. It serves a clearer purpose for sure (it cuts through the usually very muddy and massively downtuned guitars, which themselves are usually playing very chaotic music so the mix is an intentionally crowded, sludgy mess) but whenever the snare has an identifiable tone attached to it beyond just a percussive punch, it's super distracting, especially if the band is fond of gravity blasts and such. Last Days of Humanity is a top tier goregrind band but they genuinely do sound like St Anger on fast forwards a lot of the time. I don't hate it on principle, I think Putrid Pile is pretty good and I think they have that snare sound, but I do think that basically any album that utilizes it would be improved if it didn't.
It's like, I dunno, taking a really beefy sidegate from darksynth and trying to utilize it on a Freedom Call album. It just flatly does not work.
Your reviewing style determines your viewer style, Todd.
It's funny because it's true.
I do
Actually more clever than the original lyric
"My *donk* *donk* !
Determines my *bonk* *clonk* !"
- Lars Ulrich, 2003
@@lordofgiovanni But it's only more clever because of the context, which wouldn't exist without the line
So my bestie Joe LOVED Metallica, and when this album came out we all went over to his house to listen to the whole thing together. By the third song he was pale and frowning and by the time the whole album was done we all agreed that Metallica broke up right before this album, and never spoke of it again.
We called it St. Repetition, since every song consists of about four lines repeated over and over and over again.
No you know how early fans felt when the black album dropped.
@@mjwbulich That's valid - I was a little surprised myself - but I still enjoyed the album and I played the hell out of it on bus trips and walking to or from work (probably telling that none of its tracks are on my classic metal playlist, though).
It was, however, the last Metallica album I ever bought. I haven't listened to anything since, including St Anger, all the way through and couldn't name or place any random Metallica song I've come across in the past 30 years.
They arguably broke up between ...and Justice for All and Self-Titled / Black albums.
Burton was amazing, his presence made them awesome. They were lucky that he was able to contribute, however small, to Justice before he died.
@@mjwbulich
Ehhh... Load was actually more when old fans felt betrayed and left.
Black was "They're headed in a mainstream direction and it's ok, I can listen to this, but their old stuff is better".
Load was when they walked away going "This is bad, not anything I want to hear from this band, ohh and they are fucking up my ability to listen to and share popular and new music so fuck them." Functioning with the mindset of "Black was their actual last and worst, Album"
Unfortunately Black and Load had so much popular hype it generated a ton of new, young fans who never knew the much better progressive thrash band they were, or why old fans railed against them.
@@dembones5005 hardwired is a great album. Listen to “Spit out the Bone”, fantastic song.
I like that the subtitles say “my lifestyle determines my dance style, my lifestyle determines my dad’s style”
Fun fact: There is actually a catholic patron saint of recovery from addiction, called Saint Maximilian Kolbe, so the lyric could have been “Saint Kolbe round my neck”...
Huh, that replaces “Anger” nicely, and would make the lyrics way more meaningful.
Though maybe instead of “around my neck” it could be “above my head”, since he’s the saint of recovering from addiction and is more positive a force by default.
Though if he wanted to show that despite the sobriety, he’s still shaking off the addiction and it still has a hold over him, it could work...
OP, you know if there is a saint of recovering from anger issues/ learning patience? If so, I can't help but think it would've been a better title. St. Anger sounds oddly childish. Like "He's an angel who makes me madder! I call him ST. Anger!"
@@nomobobby There are a few different interpretations of "Patience" as a virtue in catholicism, Saint Monica is apparently one but she is also the patron saint of married women and was sainted because of her patience enduring her unfaithful husband, which might be a bad look for Metallica. Another is Saint Jerome, who is said to be a patron protector of people with anger issues, but again he's more a patron of librarians and that might be a little too weird of a cut... Another idea might be Job, who is an exemplar of patience from the bible what with enduring suffering at the hands of Satan, but Job is definitely a difficult name to fit into a decent rythm. I felt the song more was about his addiction issues than necessarily the anger that it caused, so I feel like Kolbe would be the best fit.
@@CobaltKitty Hmm... Thanks for the info. At the least I would buy any of those as artistic license as opposed to "St. Anger" though, even if its off it sounds more authentic. What's the next album; "St. Depression" or demon "Sloth"? Its just so childishly blunt its almost as bad as the drums.
IDK anything about Metallica (not my genre), so reading these lyrics as a outsider- I don't get it. It reads like anger is the main problem instead of the symptom of addiction. Maybe the rest of the album puts into to context? TBH I'm scratching my head wondering if it has more to do with the band drama, Like his uncontrollable rage leads him to self medicate which only makes the problem worse when it wears off? That feels like such a stretch though...
(Why is it always the Trainwreckords that leave me questioning every choice on it? I'm thinking too much for a record I'd never listen to)
I love St. Max Kolbe! He is so inspiring, and the fact that he volunteered to die in the stead of another person that he barely knew (in Auschwitz) makes me cry every time I think about it. That's one of the greatest acts of love. I didn't know he was the patron saint of addiction until you mentioned this though, so thank you so much for sharing, and God bless!
One scene that I've always remembered from "Some Kind of Monster" is Metallica playing a song off "St. Anger" for one of their managers, Cliff Burnstein. The band is all nodding their heads in time to the music, while Cliff looks visibly bored and actually checks his watch like "how much longer do I have to listen to this shit?"
Mine was when Lars plays a track he thinks might be the opening song for his dad, who says: "If I was you, I would delete that" 😆😆😆
@@lucasoheyze4597 The big scene I remember is them finally deciding to fire Phil after starts overstepping his role, and Kirk pipes up asking, "Wait, can we do that?"
...YES, KIRK. YOU CAN FIRE PEOPLE YOU EMPLOY. JESUS.
"I realize now that I barely knew you before...
F*CK!" How have I *NOT* watched this prime cut of interband drama? Clips make it out to be the best thing attached to this album TBH. Anyone know if its streaming anywhere? I wanna see it after watching this.
@@nomobobby Any luck tracking it down? It is most definitely the best thing that has to do with this album. It's pure cringe, watching men that have been so rich and privileged for so long, and have been surrounded by "yes men" so completely, that they have lost touch with each other, their music, and reality in general. Their "problems" are so petty and so far from what average people would think are problems, that it's kind of eye-opening to see what the ridiculously rich artists of the world think are problems with getting angry over. They are most definitely worlds away from the struggling band that made Master of Puppets and toured in a van.
@@dvt1393 Now I'm not going to say to watch it on putlocker or levidia, especially if you have adblocker installed
but
I feel like having Bob Rock do a raw garage record is like asking Steve Albini to do a polished hair metal album, you're asking them to do the opposite of what they're good at
Absolutely!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂
"White Snake produced by Steve Albini" that would be art.
You want a hypothetical "opposite of what they're good at"?
Imagine Mutt Lange producing a Pavement album.
Imagine if they had actually had gotten Albini for that, might have been one of their most beloved albums
I remember in Highschool that my metalhead friends were all excited because they really expected the next "Ride the lightning". It was sad. The first day they thought it was good, the second they said that two or three songs were kinda ok. The third day they stopped talking about it. For months!
Lars: "My Coke style determines my snare style"
All the songs here sound like bad parodies of heavy metal music written by someone who hates heavy metal.
yeah.
I think this is the most accurate description of this album I’ve ever heard.
i swear to god, you are just describing james hetfield when he was doing this album.
All their songs sound like that, period.
At least Spinal Tap was fun.
The people who love Metallica the most are metalheads and Metallica fans, the people who HATE Metallica the most are metalheads and Metallica fans
This is a perfect description my dude.
So basically, Metallica is the “Star Wars” of metal
@@Pundit07 That checks out I would say.
You either like the black album or you hate the black album, very little in between
"No one hates _________________ like ________________________ fans."
St. Anger is a detox. It perhaps shouldn't have been put out but I suppose they felt they had to put something out.
I do feel so bad for Kirk though. He literally did not need to be a part of that. He had like no input and doesn't really play anything different to James. It was a musical detox for James and Lars, with Kirk simply "allowed to be there".
Kirk is credited as a writer in every song of the album. He literally wrote the fucking "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" line. Fym he had "no input" lol