Note: This article was assembled in segments over time, without the help of Pro-Tools and has not been tailored for the radio.
So last time out I was talking about tolerance, yeah well the time before that I promised this article.
So I lied.
Actually - the last article was in order to gather my thoughts before the (successful) marathon radio show. This article has been festering in my heart since the moment I heard The View.
Back earlier this year the swelling forehead of Kirk Hammett was seen reflecting the light of a thousand press conference blubs as he announced that rather than practising solos, drumming, not singing country or learning when to call time on the end of a song he and the rest of the Tallica crew were embarking on a special and exciting project.
I have to say that when the band spout off in the press like that it sets alarm bells ringing and reminds me of a time when Lars was shovelling half of Columbia's national export up his nose, raving about Oasis, how they were not a Metal Band and accusing people of stealing his art.
You know that bit in Some Kind Of Monster when Jamyez and Larz are bickering like two little bitches and Kirk removes yet more of his hair by slapping his forehead?
Not only is that moment telling as you can see where Hammett's brain cells and hair line have gone, but it now seems my default reaction for a member of the band opening their mouth.
So anyway with this trepidation in mind it was announced that this special project was to be a full length album with the legendary sack of scrotum leather that is avante garde weirdo Lou Reed. Known for hanging out with freak magnet Andy Warhol as well as being principle song writing for heroin quality inspectors The Velvet Underground, where his frank lyrics on sexual deviance and drug use won him both acclaim and revulsion; not to mention a long and illustrious solo career as a photographer, the man has a long history of fucking with people.
Viewing with an open mind (clinging on by it's finger tips) I thought it could be interesting.
The more details were revealed and it seemed the whole premise was Metallica jammed as some sort of backing band and Lou did his thing over the top. I have to say that in the year Metallica Monopoly was released this began to sound like a load (or even a reload, natch) of shit, especially when the lavish and expensive packaging began to appear and they too looked a bit naff, a bit pretentious and ill conceived.
Well I held off this long for a number of reasons...
1. It's so long I feel like it has been on the stereo for weeks when the truth is that I have listened approximately one and a half times to it. So merely 135 minutes of my life you owe me fuckers.
2. I have been fucking busy at work.
3. I have been fucking busy at home.
I got so tired and emotional the other day I laid awake thinking maybe I had 'lost the music' as I was feeling nothing and mentally resigned myself to wade through life passionless about something that has defined my existence for all these years.
In the cold light of day I knew I was being a tart as even As I Lay Dying failing to cover Slayer successfully brought a smile to my face, but this issue refuses to die and today the sales figures were announced.
My experience of Lulu ran something like this:
So I heard The View 30 second preview and thought 'Oh my god...'
Then I heard the full thing including Hetfield professing to be a table. Yes a table... and a root and some other shit.
Then tellingly they stopped releasing the music and started releasing the lyrics on their own.
The the album leaked onto the net, I downloaded it in seconds and put it on my Ipod.
I listened. I was both amused and devastated...
Still I could fill a web page full of expletives and (in my mind) funny insults about the sonic abortion that is Lulu, but I wanted to see how the world received it.
Firstly I was inundated by Facebook messages about their appearance on squeaky voiced, ivory tickler Jools Holland's show along with with the ballsack playing Iced Honey (like I could pick it out from the rest of the rambling shit on there...) which was something like the soundtrack of hopes and dreams dying and a million embarrassed rockers trying to assure their emo offspring that Metallica were really, once upon a time, cool and not a fucking joke of a band.
Then the album hit and the ripple across social media was like the JoHoes who came to my door a few months back recoiling at the sight of my Iron Maiden t-shirt... having beaten people to the punch by a fortnight I could only tut and say Cassandra like that I fucking told you so...
Yes, it is THAT bad.
My good lady practically threw herself out of the car when I put it on to go shopping as she thought it was a joke until I told her who it was.
No dear, it's not William Shatner, he's funny... and sometimes in tune.
So it's been what two weeks since this piece of shit hit the shops and what?
Well it has dropped out of the Billboard 200 this week.
Yep: 13,000 albums sold in the first week... 3000 sold in the second.
Total: 16,000
Now I know how no one buys albums, blah, blah, blah but compare this to 'comeback' album Death Magnetic which sold 490,000 in three days, THREE DAYS(!) and you'll see that finally, for once people have voted Metallica off the island with their wallets.
As for me, I don't even have the mp3's on my Ipod anymore.
I'm not going to review it blow by blow because all you need to know is it blows.
Blows likes a sore kneed, toothless crack whore with a face like a plasterers radio.
So they clawed back some respect by releasing their last album and fooled the world into thinking they are a heavy band, but after this it seems their is no hiding from the fact that Metallica have totally fucking lost it.
I have grown up in a post Black album world for pretty much all my fandom (bar an initial two years) and it is fair to say that Metallica have treated their fans (by and large) with utter contempt and this is the lowest blow yet and why more people aren't clamouring for them to just stop is beyond me, other than the fact that there is no one decent to fill that void, even Korn have cashed in their chips from gaining good reviews by writing a dub step album...
No one...
The message it does send out is that 'Tallica's credibility is shot, no one can really take them seriously as a Metal band anymore surely?
Right on cue last weekend came the announcement that they are headlining Download Festival and are going to play The Black album in it's entirety and all of a sudden people are excited again?
I have been waiting all Goddamn year for the announcement that Machine Head will finally be recognised for the great band they are and get to watch them tear the main stage a new asshole, but noooo!
We get this.
And Black Sabbath.
How safe, how credibility reaffirming for both the festival and for Metallica.
Honestly if I wasn't going to go with my mates partly out of tradition I'd vote again with my wallet and stay away... I mean sure it will be interesting to see them play their second least interesting album (or is that now third?) all the way through, but in actual fact I am Jack's complete sense of apathy towards this and if truth be told, the only thing worse is hearing that Sabbath are actually going into the studio to record a new album with Rick Rubin at some point..
And you know what?
I'm going to stop here.
No finesse, no well crafted summary or coda.
And if you you thought the last part of this was rambling and clueless, you've missed the subtle homage to Death Magnetic.
Fin.
