Anger – and it’s a point the band themselves make – is that, without it, Metallica would no longer exist.īefore analysing Lulu, it’s helpful to consider one simple question: would any other metal band have had the nerve to make such an album? By any measure, Metallica’s much-derided collaboration with Lou Reed is a challenging collection, but it’s also a throwback to an era when musicians were true artists, unafraid to push boundaries and confront preconceptions. Anger was made, and while it’s hard not to sympathise with the band’s confusion and uncertainty at the time, it also beggars belief that the most astute and forward-thinking metal band in history considered this a collection worthy of their name. Everyone is familiar with the hugely difficult circumstances in which St. Remember that scene in Some Kind Of Monster where Torben Ulrich tells his utterly crestfallen son, “I would say… delete that”? If only anyone else in Metallica’s forelock-tugging entourage had displayed the same balls and integrity. That noted, it is, let’s be honest, a dog of an album. Anger received rave notices it was only later that cold critical analysis was applied and the band’s eighth album was met with frothing hatred. Anger and then Google the same writer’s names alongside their self-righteously savage reappraisals of the album. God forbid anyone would accuse music journalists of being fickle, but if you’re ever looking for a cheap laugh, exhume the contemporaneous print reviews of St. It’s the sound of Metallica trying to be Metallica, and while it’s a collection that bears repeated listens, it’s also, like Rick’s work with AC/ DC on Ballbreaker and Black Sabbath on 13, an album purposefully ‘on brand’, a facsimile of Metallica at their peak.
On a surface reading, the likes of The Day That Never Comes, My Apocalypse and That Was Just Your Life are excellent songs, but they’re also forged in the image of ‘classic’ Metallica, by men uncertain of their relevance or purpose in the contemporary metal world. Death Magnetic is the sole occasion in their history when the band played safe and delivered a set of songs tailor-made for their audience. Anger – which we’ll come to – the Rick Rubin-helmed Death Magnetic was hailed as a massive return to form for the Bay Area ’Bangers: a call-back to the old-school Metallica sound.
On the face of it, Metallica’s ninth studio album is a curious choice for the worst album in their canon.
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