What's wrong with the Black Album (Metallica)?

Couldn't agree more. About the only album it beats IMO is the absolutely horrid St. Anger. As far as I'm concerned, the band has been on a slow downward spiral since Master of Puppets. Their muse left them a long time ago. Now it sounds to me as if they just pigeonhole whatever sound they want for their album and force the songs to fit that sound. Clearly Death Magnetic attempted to ape their classic sound - and it did in every aspect except having actual good songs.

 

A sellout because it was melodic? I thought that was what made it a rather bold statement. It proved that metal can be both heavy and melodic.

 

first time i ever heard metallica was enter sandman....bought the black album immediately and loved it...i dont think it has filler except two songs...god that failed and dont tread on me....those are the two weakest songs to me...i always used to skip them....loved everything else.

after i was so pleased, the next two albums i bought were ride the lightning and justice for all....justice remains my favorite metallica album.....i adored fade to black on lightning.

so i had no betrayal feelings to mess with my enjoyment.

 

Ah I was so disappointed.As I said it was probably the best thing they ever did musically.Metallica for me was ugly music by very ugly people.Sanitarium,Fade To Black,Fight Fire With Fire,Dyers Eve,Phantom Lord.

 

You're not going to get Kill Em All or Ride with Bob C**k at the controls. Just isn't going to happen.

But, it's a damn solid album.

 

Umm pretty sure plenty of bands had already proven that back in the 80s.

 

Probably the most direly 'front loaded' album in rock history.

I can fully understand the popularity of the 'singles' (Sandman, Sad, Wherever, Unforgiven). They have the clinical precision and impressive sonic grandeur of Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' (without the elegance or musical artistry), are lyrically inoffensive (indeed, pointless) and sound huge on the radio.

What I don't get is the perpetual fan apologism for the second half of the album - which is an utterly disposable excursion into mediocrity. By Metallica's standards circa 1991, those are just terrible songs. 'Nothing Else Matters' through to 'The Struggle Within' is a shocking downward slide.

 

Black album was my introduction to Metallica in the late 90s. Prior to that I was aware of their Load/Reload releases and had heard some of the songs, mostly from watching music videos, but then my brother got into them and bought the black album which is how I heard it. Immediately loved it. I don't have any skippers on it. My favorite album is probably Master of Puppets but black album is up there.

 

Isn't that a Bob Rock thing? Put the better songs at the Beggining and the lesser ones at the end? I heard that somewhere.

 

You're putting it on the fans for "apologizing" rather than just admitting you don't like it or don't get it and stopping there. It's not them, it's you. I don't apologize for those songs and I think they're all good songs.

 

Death magnetic was better than Lulu as well.

 

Definitely. Some listeners,however, didn't seem to want to hear it from Metallica.

 

What's wrong with it? It effing sucks! That's what's wrong with it!

 

By Metallica's own standards circa 1991 (as I noted), the songs on the second half of the Metallica album are mediocre in the extreme. How does that side compare with any second half of their previous albums? It fails miserably. Are those songs revisited live? Never (until that 'Black Album played live' thing in 2012 - which simply justified another European tour pay day in lieu of new material).

 

The band plays 2 songs from the 2nd half all the time

 

Metallica became populist & corny with the Black album. 'Enter Sandman' video was goofy & embarrassing. Huge Metallica fan til then & couldn't help notice that all the people who used to beat me up because I wore Metallica T-shirts . . . were now raising their fist to 'Enter Sandman'. It is a strong Rock record but they became about 80% less compelling in these days, much much less specialized & fringe. I find the album reaches so far to get that bigger audience that something hardcore & deep was lost. I was 16 yrs old & felt this way. I've never purchased the album but recorded the videos when they played on TV.

 

Hardcore Metallica thrash fans = continued viable success and a future playing 5,000 seat hockey rinks in Battle Creek, MI and Boise, Idaho.
More accessible hard rock including a bloody prom ballad = a massive widening of the Metallica audience and worldwide domination.

The Black album was great. It stylistically, however, spawned the overblown and undercooked Load/ReLoad which in turn begat Metallica's creative nadir.

 

And heavy metal fans are among the most conservative and cliquish of all music fans. They want to love in the year 1986 forever. Whatever.

I never heard any criticisms of the 1991 Metallica album until 1995 in Minneapolis. When it was released, the "Black Album" was welcomed with open arms precisely because it was NOT another stodgy prog-rock album like "Justice". I remember the radio DJs raving: "There aren't ten tempo changes in each song! Now there are actually songs!" And the music was heavier and more thunderous than anything Metallica made before. They actually had bass! And the subject matter was a welcome alternative to the mainstream heavy metal of the day, which was still onsessed with supermodels, sports cars, and "rocking out!!!"

Weird how that whole period of hard rock, 1990-1992, got completely swept under the rug.

 

People were disappointed when Ride The Lightning came out because there were acoustic passages, they slowed down a little bit and Fade To Black. Bands change. You can't please all your fans all the time. They laughed all the way to the bank though.

 

For me, it is probably the single greatest let down from a band I love that I've ever experienced; then and still to this day. I grew tired of "Enter Sandman" a long time ago and only consider "Wherever I May Roam", "Sad But True" and "My Friend of Misery" as anything worth listening. The rest of the album is filler.

The only thing this album really has going for it is that it lowered expectations so much for "Load" that it makes that album (Load) seem much heavier and to have more depth than "Metallica."

 

That was proven by many other bands before The Black Album. It just so happened that Metallica decided to do their own take on it.

 

I heard a lot of criticisms when it came out.

 

Sure if you ignore the fact Metallica were selling out arenas in major markets on the Justice tour...

 

The diehard Metallica fans at my high school hated it.

 

Ok since you posted about something you clearly don't know about I decided to look it up. Second half ....Nothing Else Matters is played pretty much at every show. Through the Never, Of Wolf and Man and The God that Failed have all been played many times over the years including recent years outside of the shows where they played the black album. My Friend of Misery has been played once since those shows. They had songs on those old albums that had never been played until recent years either or had not been played since the albums came out. They must suck too.