Album of the Week #4 - Metallica - Ride The Lightning

Civilian_Target

I wish they'd created an album called Ride The Puppets

It would have been the greatest metal album ever, with Battery, MOP, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fade To Black, and turn over to Creeping Death, Sanitarium, Orion and Damage Inc. (And you can possibly drop the "metal" in that last sentence )

For me, Ride The Lightning is all about For Whom the Bell Tolls and Creeping Death. Particularly the latter is a stonking track.

Degag

buck65 wrote:

Pornapster - very controversial, but you do make a good point. If you look at Metallica's back catalogue they have some fantastic songs 3 or 4 on RTL, most of Master, 4 from AJFA and maybe 3 from the next few albums at most.
So IMO they have maybe 20 great songs, that is probably still better than most metal bands but the hype is just waaaaay too much.
They have been abysmal since 1991, at least we have 3 great albums though, their music is formulaic now, much the pity.

I cant think of any band past or present who have 20 "great" songs, if great is the quality of the likes of one or mop.

cournioni

buck65 wrote:

Pornapster - very controversial, but you do make a good point. If you look at Metallica's back catalogue they have some fantastic songs 3 or 4 on RTL, most of Master, 4 from AJFA and maybe 3 from the next few albums at most.
So IMO they have maybe 20 great songs, that is probably still better than most metal bands but the hype is just waaaaay too much.
They have been abysmal since 1991, at least we have 3 great albums though, their music is formulaic now, much the pity.

Personally I can only think of a few good songs which I don't really care to list. 20 is way way over the top.

malice, the hype I'm talking about is the "Metalikuh are dee best band in the wurrld" type of hype. The over exposure in the media that they get when there are clearly better bands out there than them. Especially the fact that they haven't released a half decent album since the late 80's early 90's.

To be honest, if I was to be given two blank cd's and asked to make a best of Metallica album, I would struggle to fill it with "great songs".

Malice

PORNAPSTER wrote:

malice, the hype I'm talking about is the "Metalikuh are dee best band in the wurrld" type of hype. The over exposure in the media that they get when there are clearly better bands out there than them. Especially the fact that they haven't released a half decent album since the late 80's early 90's.

I understand what you're saying and I can't argue about the quality of their releases since the Black album that's for sure. As for overexposure in the media, when you're the one of the most entities in your area, that's what people want to hear about. It's a bit like the way football headines are all about Man Utd/Chelsea/Liverpool rather than say Exeter City I agree with you that there are better bands than Metallica out there but any list that I came up with would probably be very different to yours and I doubt many of the bands that I list would be capable of putting on as exhilarating a live show as Metallica still does.

PORNAPSTER wrote:

To be honest, if I was to be given two blank cd's and asked to make a best of Metallica album, I would struggle to fill it with "great songs".

I tried this before and had to give up because I couldn't decide what songs to leave out

Mordeth wrote:

awesome album, and whoever it was that was talking smack about AJFA... stop it

Was that aimed at my comment about the sound? If so, I still stand by it That's not to say that the songs on the album aren't excellent because they are!

Fozzy

Ride The Lightning is a great album, I haven't listened to it in about two years though. Every song except Escape is excellent, the best being Fade to Black and Creeping Death I think

The overexposure they get in the media when they come over here is nothing to do with their music, it's because so many people want to see them. A band like Opeth might have been making better music recently, but they just don't have the same amount of fans as Metallica, so there's no reason for the media to cover them at all. Plus, Metallica know how to promote themselves very well

Alter-Ego

I just jumped on the bandwagon when i voted for this. I think its a fantastic album but puppets is better imo.

Some great tracks on it and it does have a certain sound that i've never heard on any other metallica album. Deserves album of the week status.

A Primal Nut

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Personally I can only think of a few good songs which I don't really care to list. 20 is way way over the top.

malice, the hype I'm talking about is the "Metalikuh are dee best band in the wurrld" type of hype. The over exposure in the media that they get when there are clearly better bands out there than them. Especially the fact that they haven't released a half decent album since the late 80's early 90's.

To be honest, if I was to be given two blank cd's and asked to make a best of Metallica album, I would struggle to fill it with "great songs".

Saying they don't have at least 20 great songs is your subjective opinion and the fact is that almost all metal fans disagree with you. What makes them wrong and you right? Hype? Don't be rediculous. For one thing, the Black album is the most hyped Metallica album yet very few fans list it as their favourite album.

I hate the way certain people think "oh well I don't like a band, therefore they must be popular for other reasons than music because there's no way I'm wrong - oh yeah, hype, that's a good one!" :rolleyes: There's no basis for it. I've listened to lots of bands of different genres (including Black Sabbath) and Metallica are one of my top 3 favourite bands of all time. You'll just have to take my word for it that its purely because of the music and not other reasons. I actually take offence that you think I can't make up my mind about a band based on their music - I'm not a ****in' sheep.

As for they don't have 20 great songs, well lets see, pretty much all of Kill 'Em All and Master Of Puppets are classic metal songs - about 14, so well over halfway there already. I'd personally add in half of RTL and AJFL, another 9 - so there's 23 - then i'd say 4 or 5 from the Black Album. It's definately close to 30 and that's talking about classics that could make the best of album - there's still loads of other great songs. IMSO of course.:rolleyes:

Amazing live too.

gucci

the first metallica album i owned and boy does it still soudn great to this day!! sure i may admit i prefer MOP, but this album is brilliant, for whom the bell tolls is a great song and fade to black was the first metallica song that i could make a decent go of on a guitar so for that reason i always enjoy listening to it.
infact i havent been listening to it enough these times.....right im out of here to go look for it

Malice

I think it's funny how there are so many replies on this thread saying that Master of Puppets is better. If that's the case then how did Ride The Lightning end up as album of the week before it?

Devious

malice_ wrote:

I think it's funny how there are so many replies on this thread saying that Master of Puppets is better. If that's the case then how did Ride The Lightning end up as album of the week before it?

Im sure we'll see MOP on here at some stage, its just that RTL deserves a lot of recognition as being the stepping stone to MOP so maybe thats why we all voted for it first. I prefer MOP as wll but still voted for RTL.

Ph3n0m

Devious wrote:

Im sure we'll see MOP on here at some stage, its just that RTL deserves a lot of recognition as being the stepping stone to MOP so maybe thats why we all voted for it first. I prefer MOP as wll but still voted for RTL.

plus a lot of people were just too damn lazy to actually vote for their preferred Metallica album. As one poster said "just jumped on the band wagon" :rolleyes:

Devious

Ph3n0m wrote:

plus a lot of people were just too damn lazy to actually vote for their preferred Metallica album. As one poster said "just jumped on the band wagon" :rolleyes:

Its not really a case of "jumping on the bandwagon", its just that a lot of people saw this as an opportunity to get RTL recognised as the fine album that it is and so voted for it.

Theres no particular order to this album of the week thing i.e. its not "week 1: best album ever, week 2: second best album ever" etc. so it doesn't matter that RTL has appeared before MOP.

Malice

That makes sense I suppose. I for one intend to vote for Master of Puppets starting next week. Then I can hopefully post all over it's Album of The Week thread saying how Ride The Lightning is much better

Het-Field

It is my favourite Tallica album.

-First off the bat, I would never put trapped under Ice in the same catagory as "Escape". Escape is a song Iv listened to about 10 times since i got the album in 2002. Trapped Under Ice, is a song iv listened to hundreds of times. Its a quintessential Trash metal track. I know people who have seen it played live, and they would say metallica should play it more.

-Creeping Death is my favourite song. I love the intro, the crowd interaction, and the lyrics are biting. Its a song people forget all too quickly when talking about Metallica's best

-Ride The Lighting, has one of those bone crunching solos which only Metallica can deliver. Its a song iv never seen live, but I want it now.

-Saw both Fight Fire With Fiew, and Kutulu live. They are amazing pieces of music, however, I would concede that I perfer Orion.

-Fade to Black and For Whom The Bell Tolls are Metallica classics. I neednt say more.

Ride The Lightining is a `10/10 Album.


Buy It

ec18

i'm fairly meh about this album tbh...I like the album but it is by no means one of the best albums i ever heard........it would at a push make it into my top 10......Its good just not great...doesn't compare to kill em all imo......Saying that though the title track is one of my favourite songs

Dragan

This was the first ever tape that i actually bought, as opposed to copied!

Got it on a trip to Dublin with my auld lad when i was but a tiny D! I love this album, some absolutely fantastic songs on it.

Malice

ec18 wrote:

i'm fairly meh about this album tbh...I like the album but it is by no means one of the best albums i ever heard........it would at a push make it into my top 10......Its good just not great

You like it but say it's not great? Then you say it would make it into your top ten? Is that not a bit contradictory?

ec18 wrote:

doesn't compare to kill em all imo

I agree with you here but probably from the opposite viewpoint I think it stomps all over Kill 'Em All. With dirty great Paratrooper boots!

ec18

malice_ wrote:

You like it but say it's not great? Then you say it would make it into your top ten? Is that not a bit contradictory?

I meant that it would struggle to make it into my top ten if at all, And its a good album but its no paranoid or master of reality, I'd find it hard to compare it to most of my "classic" rock collection....

malice_ wrote:

I agree with you here but probably from the opposite viewpoint I think it stomps all over Kill 'Em All. With dirty great Paratrooper boots!

Well thats your opinion kill em all is probably my favourite metallica album ( yes i prefer it to puppets)

SirLemonhead

I like it a lot. I don't listen to it very often anymore mind, but it's a great album. The guitar tone is nice and crunchy and Kirk played some of the best leads of his career on this, I think.

Miles better than Master of Puppets (awful guitar tone and mindless kirk hammet noodling solos...it's like he's guessing what notes to play next on some of the songs)

Malice

ec18 wrote:

I meant that it would struggle to make it into my top ten if at all, And its a good album but its no paranoid or master of reality, I'd find it hard to compare it to most of my "classic" rock collection....

Fair enough, the top ten comment makes sense now. Why would you compare a thrash metal album to a classic rock album though? They are very different genres. You might as well compare it to The Lord of The Rings soundtrack and complain that it doesn't have as much choral singing

ec18 wrote:

Well thats your opinion kill em all is probably my favourite metallica album

Don't get me wrong, Kill 'Em All is an excellent album in places. Songs like No Remore, Four Horsemen are classics.

ec18

malice_ wrote:

Fair enough, the top ten comment makes sense now. Why would you compare a thrash metal album to a classic rock album though? They are very different genres. You might as well compare it to The Lord of The Rings soundtrack and complain that it doesn't have as much choral singing

I don't differentiate between genres hence the "".....to me rock music is rock music no exceptions......

Malice

ec18 wrote:

I don't differentiate between genres

So Metallica is the same genre as Cannibal Corpse which is the same genre as Black Sabbath which is the same genre as Britney Spears?

ec18

malice_ wrote:

So Metallica is the same genre as Cannibal Corpse which is the same genre as Black Sabbath which is the same genre as Britney Spears?

No britney spears isn't rock, to be more accurate i don't have sub genres....rock is rock whether its death metal, punk or classic