St. Anger

[beepbeep]

Unfortunately, St. Anger sucks!

They were on the top of their game 10-15 years ago...not any more. Gone is technical virtuosity, gone are intelligent lyrics...what is left is "flavour of the week" wannabe-Nü Metal sound that was already dated before this album was made.

Acidentally, this album reminded me as bad copy of one I have in my collection: the much underrated "From Strength to Strength" by "B-Thong"... that CD is everything "St. Anger" should be. Of course, Metallica has enormous market-inertia and considering their new "brain dead" -style they'll just get even more rooted in wide masses...

What was once very innovative quality band has become something else...it was bound to happend but i hoped they would have more self-criticism to prevent this sort of crap.

On the other hand, they'll probably still earn heaps of money... so will Brian Adams and Shakira... :/

[CJFusco]

Pre-Black Album Metallica is beautiful music, period. Actually, the Black Album is pretty friggin good if you ask me, just a little different. I was pissed off when they released LOAD, just didn't sound like Metallica to me. Then they got me banned from Napster, and I swore off NEW Metallica forever (they were a different band in the MASTER OF PUPPETS/RIDE THE LIGHTNING days, IMHO). I never looked back since.

"What band of today would you make that statement about? "

For me, Radiohead. They have a huge fanbase and yet never really caught on with the mainstream ("too weird," they all say). They are critical darlings and every album they make goes at least platinum, despite hardly ever getting radio play (except for "Creep," of course). Oh yeah, and their music is interesting, intricate, and involving.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

I'd have to agree with you about Radiohead, CJ.

Another band you should check out is Sigur Ros. Some of the mostinteresting music Ive heard in a long time.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I've mostly given up listening to new music ("Nü"--LOL ). Right now I've got Beatles, Beethoven, and Satriani in my CD changer. I may own both "Load"s and the black album, but I never listened to them after the 2nd spin.

Music these days is written for the lowest common denominator and for our society's 3-minute attention span. We're likely to never see another Thick As a Brick or In-a-gadda-da-vida.

The latest is that bands are getting pissy at the single-song download sale model. Why? I say it's because nearly every "popular" band these days is a bunch of no-talent hacks who come up with one or two good songs and then put a bunch of filler in the rest of the "album". This way they can charge $18 for those two songs instead of $2.

http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1919550

[CJFusco]

BlueKSkyJaunte: I would have agreed with you about a year ago, but (gasp) it seems like new (ROCK) music is actually getting better. Maybe case-in-point - my local "new rock" station, which was a DJ-free upstart in the glory days of Nirvana (man those were the days), recently slightly altered their programming.

They still play a lot of new rock, but about half of their song schedule are alt-rock hits from the 1990s! Nirvana, STP, Pearl Jam, and Oasis to Meatpuppets, Elastica, Veruca Salt, Nada Surf, and Butthole Surfers...

...anyhow (and here's my point) most of the new music that they still play is actually pretty damned good! Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, White Stripes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc. They still play absolute crap like Linkin Park and Staind and Creed and Third Eye Blind, but it is heavily outweighed by the quality new stuff and the old 90s faves!