teamventure

i listened to the first tracks on the black album and ajfa today while at the record store, and i must say that it's not even the same friggen genre.. vastly different..
enter sandman sounded cheazy, and catchy, and well, lame, while blackened sounded like thrash with a faster tempo and faster drumming..

Howard the Duck

they're all pretty much the same kind of keys, chords, progression and "melody"

except maybe "Nothing Else Matters" is more melodic than the previous stuff

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

teamventure

you can have music in the same key, chord progression, and melody, to be much different.. stylistically they aren't even the same genre. that's the bottom line.

LOLPOCALYPSE

I would consider AJFA a transitional album for Metallica. In that respect, it sounds just as much like Master of Puppets as it does to The Black Album. The two can't really be pulled that far apart from each other. Despite what these posts would indicate, "One" is just as radio-friendly as "Enter Sandman", regardless of any differences found in the songs. People seem to forget that, despite the more instantaneous mainstream success The Black Album had, AJFA had quite a bit to do the popularization of the band within the non-metal suburban teen crowd (especially with the popularity of the "One" music video, the band's first Grammy nomination, the fact that it went platinum 9 weeks after release). Those who didn't see an album like the Black Album coming next were foolish. The Black Album, rather than being some sort of quick jump in a different direction, was actually a continuation down a path Metallica had already laid out with AJFA.

That being said, there are a couple differences between the two albums. Yes, AJFA has longer songs. Yes, AJFA has a more progressive metal sound. But these differences are far too overemphasized. The overall Metallica sound is retained between the two albums. The two are only different enough to allow preferences to lead one to liking one over the other. The Black Album wasn't some giant leap away for the band. It was just slightly more catchy (and wrongfully judged from its first three singles, "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", and "Nothing Else Matters", which I think are the worst on the album) and capitalized on the increasing popularity the band initially gained from AJFA.

I am willing to bet that if AJFA was as immediately successful as The Black Album it would garner as much hatred and "irrelevance" on this thread as The Black Album did.

To say that The Black Album is irrelevant is ridiculous on so many levels. Yes, the amount of albums sold DOES make a difference. It was the best selling metal album of the time and the 25th best selling album in the US. The album is responsible for bringing countless new metal fans into the industry and helped the entire genre of metal grow exponentially. Making comparisons to the Spice Girls and The Backstreet Boys is simply juvenile. If anything is irrelevant in this thread, it is attempting to compare musical groups of a COMPLETELY different genre. The dynamics of pop and metal and the factors necessary to make each successful are so vastly different its almost laughable you thought the two could be compared, especially with the purpose of differentiating two metal albums. The only similarity is that fans within each respective genre liked the albums so a lot of albums were sold. How many albums the Spice Girls sold had nothing to do with Metallica. Period.

Whether you think so or not, Metallica has consistently offered quality music (except St. Anger and some of ReLoad). Other than a few ballads, Metallica's music really isn't mainstream sounding (even their newest). They are successful for the right reasons. They have a wide variety of fans because they have put out a wide variety of music.

teamventure

i like your post, but the only reason we brought up the backstreet boys and spice girls was to show what kind of logic that was being used. someone made the claim that the black album sold millions= relevant. well the same logic can be used to proove any top selling artist to be relevant then. we were just trying to proove that selling lots of records doesn't make an artist relevant if the album is totally lame..

LOLPOCALYPSE

I can see what you are saying. An irrelevant and bad artist (Backstreet Boys IMO) selling a gazillion albums does not make them relevant. However, this case is different. I think the difference here is that we are dealing with a genre and band that wasn't mainstream (at the time) that brought in a whole new following with just one album. The Black Album is historic in that sense. I would even say was kind of the main evangelical metal album of the 90s. It opened up the path to more extreme genres for many people. The fact that it sold 15 million in the US alone really showed at the time that metal wasn't going away. In fact, Metallica did that as a band throughout their career. They may not have released anything as groundbreaking as MoP recently, but they still tour and are still backed by an influential and inspirational career. Most importantly, though, they are still releasing quality music. In that respect, I would say they are relevant.

teamventure

that sounds fair enough to me..

The Batlord

My point is not that the songs are melodic or accessible. My point is that "Enter Sandman" is a cheap radio hit that sounds like a metalized version of Foreigner. It's tailor made to have a big riff to be played in a big venue to a bunch of *******s who would be just as happy moshing to Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park.

The differences are not overemphasized. When I was sixteen, The Black Album ruled my bitch ass. I didn't have the attention span or maturity to really get why Metallica's earlier **** was better. Now that I'm twenty four, The Black Album is cheap, boring, and just sounds like it was made for people who weren't old enough to drink (who just happen to be the only people I ever meet who think it's their best album). Sure, every now and again I listen to The Black Album for a change of pace, but halfway through the album, I'm already bored to tears and ready to put it up for another year or two. I still regularly listen to their first four albums (well, mostly 2nd, 3rd, and 4th), even a decade after I first started listening to them because they still sound fresh and make my head bang even when I try to sit still, but the Black Album got stale about five years ago.

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LOLPOCALYPSE

I can see that, as I don't like "Enter Sandman" at all. But as I said earlier, I don't think the Black Album should be judged for its first three singles. And I think the main point is that "One" suffers from nearly the same problem (yes, even the thrashy latter half). Whether on purpose or not (and despite being a much better song), "One" has become a cheap radio hit on its own. Its sound isn't really "non-cheap/non-mainstream" enough to make a huge difference. I'm not trying to say The Black Album is better, I'm just saying the differences aren't so huge.

About the differences:
Like I said earlier, I don't think it is their best. It is their worst besides Saint Anger and ReLoad. But the initial argument that I jumped into was that AJFA and The Black Album weren't that different. I would agree though, that The Black Album sounds very different from albums 1, 2, and 3. The only glaring difference between AJFA and The Black Album is song lengths.

I think a parallel could be drawn between Metallica and In Flames. In Flames had a Black Album of sorts, Reroute to Remain. It is the album that lost some "fans" and gained a whole crap load of new ones. It also triggered a new direction for the group, one that happened to be more commercially successful. The previous album, Clayman, is very much like AJFA. It was only slightly different than Colony, but hinted at a change in the future, especially with songs like "Only for the Weak" (which you could say was the "One" of the album). As a result, R2R was indeed a change for the band, but it still sounded like In Flames at the end of the day. While many cite R2R as the transitional album, I would say it is closer to the first of the "new" In Flames sound (and it produced the first radio single as well). Clayman was the transitional album, much like AJFA was for Metallica. It sounded a lot like Colony before it, but also sounded like R2R. R2R, however, sounds nothing like anything pre-Clayman.