Some Kind of Monsturd? Pt. 1

I’m going to touch base on a band, no wait, The band that always gets people fired up and that’s exactly what I plan on doing right now. Metallica. Perhaps one of the greatest heavy metal bands of our time that pioneered the way for metal to go more mainstream and to gain enormous popularity. We all know the history so I need not explain.

Anyway, here we are in 2007. In March Metallica finally starts recording the as always highly anticipated new record. Exit Bob Rock (been a long time coming if you ask me), enter Rick Rubin. Where will this record go? Will it be a big ole cup of disappointment like “St. Anger”, a large helping of WTF? Like “Reload”, or a truckload of “I’ve waited four years for this?” that was called “Load”. Only time will tell.

I know I’m going to catch a lot of flack for this but its expected. How did this article come to life? Well…I’m flipping through channels the other night and come across VH1 and what is on but none other than “Some Kind Of Monster”. As I’m sitting there watching this for the second time in my life and getting even more noxious than the first time, I think to myself…”What the hell happened”?!? Everyone is crying, bitching about one thing or another, “He’s hurting my feelings”, “I can’t work with him”, “I can only be in the band a few hours a day”. I mean COME ON!??!?? Was this all a marketing ploy to help sell the anticipated coming album? And if it was then Metallica has become nothing more than a bunch of media whores if they are so willing to put themselves out there on front street and embarrass themselves by showing so much negative emotion. There’s a therapist helping write lyrics, Bob thinks he’s the new bass player and Lars is crying cause James doesn’t love him. I thought I was watching The Real World on an estrogen induced acid trip! I think Jason had plenty good reason to leave the band.

Think back a bit. Lets get our “What-ifs” flowing. What if they never fired Dave Mustaine? Would they be as big a band as they are today or would he have lead them to an early demise? Speaking of demise, if Cliff had lived what would “…And Justice For All” have sounded like? There are just so many possibilities! Frankly, I’m glad they fired Dave because if they didn’t I would have never fallen in love with the by-product of Metallica called Megadeth. I would have never heard that intro bass line to “Peace Sells” or the ferocity of “Black Friday” Or every amazing solo on “Rust In Peace”. If you ask me Mustaine was far too talented to not be a front man of his own band!

To be continued…

Pic. from Metallica.com