Metallica has not always been the talented group of rock musicians that they are today. It took many years and many albums to bring the band to its current standing as the ?kings of rock.? Metallica has undergone changes in its lineup and its musical writing style. Comparing and contrasting the musical and lyrical content of each Metallica album shows exactly how much they have changed from the early 1980s to 2000. Metallica was founded in the early 1980s when a young man from Denmark named Lars Ulrich was looking to start a band in the Los Angeles area. The musical style labeled ?The New Wave of British Heavy Metal? captivated Lars. The New Wave of British heavy metal started in England in late 70s and was a product of some people?s distaste for the current punk rock scene (Crocker 11-12).
Lars, who had recently moved to the United States, started searching excessively for someone to jam with. He came across the name of a local heavy metal guitarist and vocalist in a local newspaper called The Recycler. This man was named James Hetfield. The two quickly became friends and began to play their favorite heavy metal music together on a regular basis (Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
The story behind the name Metallica is very interesting. A friend of Lars? was starting a heavy metal fanzine and asked Lars for advice on what its title should be. The friend gave Lars a list of candidate names and the word Metallica was on the list. Lars liked it so much he told his friend to choose another name and kept Metallica for himself (Crocker 25-26).
The Term Paper on Nonstop of Musical Innovation
In recent times, pop culture had been one of the most evident products of media which had strongly influenced many, many generations including our present society. Legions of different rock bands from the very famous groups such as Beatles, The Who, Metallica and Aero Smith and other different bands and artists have sprung out through the years and have influenced the kind or genre of music that ...
In 1983, the band?s lineup came to consist of James on vocals and rhythm guitar, Lars on percussion, Cliff Burton on bass guitar, and Kirk Hammett on lead guitar. However, in 1986, while the band was several albums into their career, Cliff Burton was tragically killed in a bus accident while the band was on tour in Sweden. Jason Newsted of the band Flotsam and Jetsam immediately replaced Cliff after his death (Doughton, 73).
Metallica?s heavy roots are traced back to their 1983 debut album Kill ?Em All. This album is considered by most the very first thrash metal album ever. According to Alan Gilkeson from the website about.com, thrash metal is ??basically derived from the Hardcore Punk cross over of the late 70’s and early 80’s, this style was of course brought to notoriety by the one and only Metallica.? The band?s main early influences include Motorhead, Diamond Head, and Judas Priest (Crocker, 24).
Taking these influences and mixing them with their own writing style, Metallica invented thrash metal. Although a new style of music was spawned from this album, it was not technically advanced. The music mainly consisted of a lot of double picking on the guitar and fast double bass drum beats (Doughton, 25-26).
The lyrical content of Kill ?Em All is not particularly profound. There are several examples of this on the album. The track Seek and Destroy is basically about a group of people looking to start an unsubstantiated fight, and the song entitled Motorbreath talks about fast cars and fast living (Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
Ultimately, Kill ?Em All, while being simplistic in musical and lyrical content, it has come to be one of the most influential metal albums of all time. Metallica?s sophomore release, Ride the Lightning, was a big step forward for the band musically and lyrically. Ride the Lightning was definitely the most maturing the band did from one album to the next. Cliff Burton played an enormous role in the band?s evolution on this album. In Burton?s earlier years, he had been trained in classical music and he brought his acquired knowledge to the band (Doughton, 48).
The Essay on Heavy Metal Metallica Band Album
Metallica have easily been arguably the best, most influential and most respected Heavy Metal band of the 80's and the 90's. Instead of drifting off in their own success, they brought the music back down to Earth, back to the street, where it belongs. The band formed after a series of events in 1981: Lars Ulrich, a Danish born drummer living in the Bay Area of San Francisco, was looking for ...
The band?s newfound classical influence is recognized most strongly in a few select tracks on Ride the Lightning. Fade to Black and The Call of Ktulu are two such tracks. Fade to Black shows off a classical guitar solo in the beginning of the song and also contains a classical guitar interlude. The Call of Ktulu, an instrumental song that is over eight minutes in length, is heavily influenced by classical music. The song contains many changes in mood and tempo, showing the bands? ability to incorporate dynamics into their music. Even though The Call of Ktulu is an instrumental song, it was inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. The Call of Cthulhu was a poem written by Lovecraft about a mystical creature. The spelling of Cthulhu was changed to K-t-u-l-u to avoid copyright infringement (Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
The lyrical content of Ride the Lightning matured alongside the bands musical style. On this album, the band touched on such topics as suicide, nuclear warfare, and capital punishment. The lyrics of the song Fade to Black are written from the point of view of a person that is contemplating suicide. This song was inspired by the theft of the bands? equipment while they were on tour in Boston (Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
All in all, Ride the Lightning showed the most maturing in the band?s writing styles. In the magazine Creem Metal, Lars said the following about the album: ?We like playing fast, we like playing slow, we like being melodic once in a while, we like being unmelodic, we like to throw a little bit of intelligence in there? (Crocker, 75).
The band?s third record, Master of Puppets, continued in the vein of Ride the Lightning in that the songs had a somewhat classical feel to them and the lyrics were more mature than they had been in the past. However, there is not nearly as much thrash metal contained on this album as there was on Ride the Lightning. The album?s opening track, Battery, begins with a guitar solo that shows a very strong classical influence. The songs Master of Puppets and Orion also incorporate classical elements into their structures. The album has an overall lyrical theme of personal or political manipulation. In the album?s title track, the lyrics deal with the addictiveness and controlling nature of drugs (Crocker, 77-79).
The Essay on Metallica Band Years Playing
Metallica Introduction Metallica was a band that that started out in the garage of one of the members when they were in high school. The band went through many changes and tragedies and found solutions for them and somehow remained playing. They started in 1980 as one of the first, if not the first Black/Metal band. Their popularity decreased in 1987 and form there they went on to become really ...
The song expresses that a person addicted to drugs becomes a ?puppet? being controlled by their habit. Leper Messiah tells the story of a crooked preacher manipulating his followers into donating their money to him for his own personal gain (Crocker, 77).
Master of Puppets was Metallica?s first album that was truly recognized by mainstream critics (Crocker, 80).
?And Justice for All also shows a great deal of maturing in Metallica?s writing style. According to Crocker in his book The Frayed Ends of Metal, ?And Justice for All marks the first time Metallica incorporated many riffs into each song structure as opposed to building a song around two or three essential riffs (125).
?And Justice for All and One show off this newly acquired style of writing with many riffs and many dynamics. The song One ties the music and the lyrical content together. It tells the story of a soldier who lost his limbs and senses in battle. The song starts peacefully with a slow, acoustic guitar, suggesting ??the peace of the dead?? and then transforms into an angry rush of guitar and drum riffs. (Crocker, 128).
The lyrics from ?And Justice for All are heavily influenced by politics and current world affairs. For example, the opening track on the album, Blackened, gives a bleak image of what the world could look like if its inhabitants were not cautious with the use of nuclear warfare. The title track, ?And Justice for All, discusses the band’s views on the current state of the United States government. This song states that only a select few have power and that those select few are generally corrupt Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
Clearly, Metallica went in a different direction with ?And Justice for All. Song structures were much more complex with more changes and an increased number of riffs. Metallica’s self-titled album, commonly known as “The Black Album”, is widely regarded by the mainstream as their biggest change. Many people charged Metallica with ?selling out? by releasing this album for many reasons. First, the album seems to be geared toward a more mainstream audience having shorter song times and a greater number of songs. The album also sounds very produced. The song structures are very tight, using a few core riffs for each song. In addition to those factors, this was the first album Metallica included a ballad, complete with a symphony orchestra accompanying the band (Doughton, 132-136).
The Essay on Miles Davis Album Song Nine
Miles Davis, from his beginnings as a nineteen-year-old kid in 1945 New York City, to his final days in the early 1990 s, is to be considers one of the jazz best. The 1996 album entitled, Bluing: Miles Davis Plays the Blues, the engineers at Prestige Records bring Miles Davis back to life. Packed with over 73 minutes and of 12 bar blues, Bluing brings nine great tunes of Davis together on one ...
Lyrically, this album is also a lot different than what they have done before. The lyrics are much more personal. The song The God That Failed touches on the subject of the death of Hetfield’s mother. She was a Christian Scientist and died as a result of her refusal of medial treatment. The album’s ballad, Nothing Else Matters, is about love over long distances and how love holds no physical bounds (Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
Load and Reload were recorded during the same sessions and therefore are considered the same album. Again, these albums showed a lot of maturing for the band. The songs contained on Load and Reload have more of a raw, laid-back, rock-n-roll feel to them, as opposed to the harsh heavy metal sound. For example, the track Mama Said, surprisingly enough, even incorporates strong country music elements into its structure (Hadland, Encyclopedia Metallica).
Finally, in 1999, Metallica released a live album entitled S&M. This album was recorded with a full symphony orchestra and the band performed songs from throughout their entire career along with two new tracks. The fact that Metallica, a heavy metal band, played an entire set with a symphony shows their willingness to try new things. Metallica did not have much variety incorporated into their music when they formed as a thrash metal band in the early 1980s. However, after dissecting each one of Metallica’s albums throughout the years, it is clear to see that the band has greatly matured musically and lyrically.
