Metallica
Metallica has always been something of a problem. They’re loud, ugly, and probably armed. Their lyrics, the ones you can decipher, stink. They’re filthy rich and ludicrously popular, worshiped by hordes of white punks on dope. On the other hand, they’ve been responsible for some of the most soul-stirring rock and roll ever made. Though they toiled in relative obscurity for years, their new album, Load, is being trumpeted by Rolling Stone as the biggest release of the summer, and recently a new twist has been added to the simple Metallica-equals-heavy-metal equation. Metallica, as everyone knows, is headlining this year’s Lollapalooza festival, the ne plus ultra party for “alternative” bands and their fans. Of course, the term “alternative” has become highly suspect, and now that the world’s most popular and well-paid bands are called alternative, it’s never meant less. I trace the beginning of the end to the first time the late, great Blaze, the last bastion of Spinal Tap-oid metal radio in Chicago, first played Helmet. Such miscegenation was bound to cause trouble, and now, five years later, it’s here.
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It’s tempting to think of Metallica as this generation’s Led Zeppelin, as each represents the zenith of popular heavy metal for its time, but the comparison doesn’t really stand up. Led Zeppelin was huge from the start, made up of gods who dominated the hard-rock world with a mixture of sex appeal and pseudo mysticism, and a musical arsenal that went well beyond (but of course included) thunderous riffing. The members of Metallica started out as a bunch of leather-and-denim stoners; the four delinquents on the back of Kill ‘Em All look to be about 18, eyes drooping, hair in that familiar Prince-Valiant-gone-to-seed do that burn-outs favor. You can almost smell the bong water. Singer/guitarist James Hetfield, especially, looks like he’s about to pass out.
In addition to their related positions on the compass of cool, Metallica and Black Sabbath shared a sensibility. At the risk of sounding reductive, there’s one Black Sabbath song, “Symptom of the Universe” from 1975’s Sabotage, that I’ll bet young Hetfield spent a lot of time with. On this song, metal’s protoboneheads take their one and only hit, “Paranoid,” and boil the original riff down to two antagonistic notes. Even more powerful and atonal than “Paranoid,” “Symptom of the Universe,” with its murderous unk-unk-unk-unk, is the obvious jumping-off point for roughly half of Metallica’s early output, and the basis for Hetfield’s signature insistent rhythm-guitar style (some say he stole it from his early bandmate, Dave Mustaine, but the point remains). Even at a million miles per hour the audacious Black Sabbath attack could be heard.
Let them have their fun, and their millions, and sail off into mainstream glory. You really can’t blame them, and they’ve certainly earned the right to do whatever they want. At least there’s still Pantera. For a while, anyway.
