Metallica - Load & Reload POLL

this poll is my moment

this is probably "carpe diem baby"

here's a combined load/reload playlist i made a few years ago that i kind of think is their best album http://open.spotify.com/user/unbornwhiskey/playlist/0uwWqgH7Juacnd9A5Jbi8a

oh lord, bad memories. at the time I liked these because my music collection was < 100 but later listens have been painful.

some good tracks though, on both. probably will be one from Load, will have to think on it.

"Better Than You" sounds like a song gym rats listen to while bragging to the people next to them about how much they just benched

Never listened to Reload. Hero of the Day is probably the best track on Load. I really liked The House that Jack Built at the time, but relistening the guitar tones are way too pathetic for the kind of menacing heaviosity it's attempting.

liked Unforgiven II a hundred million times more than its antecedent

Forgot I quite like Wasting My Hate.

"Until It Sleeps"

haha reload is so bad

it's got "carpe diem baby," "where the wild things are," and "fixxxer," i think it's a good deal better than load

unfamiliar with any of this stuff. voting low man's lyric.

hero of the day no question.

2nd place - marianne faithfull's four bars or whatever on 'the memory remains'.

never heard reload, but i have vivid memories of anticipating Load. :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT2rdPtMoS4

never heard reload, but i have vivid memories of anticipating Load. :/

Perfect OOC post.

I tended to like the fake country-blues stuff from Load, plus "Until it Sleeps" because of the video, plus "The Memory Remains" and "The Fixxxer" (the latter of which I know I enjoyed though I don't receall what it sounds like).

Started this poll because I found myself listening to Load last night and found myself thinking "y'know, while this isn't a patch on, and is very different from the music that the band made their name with, I'd still take this over virtually everything they've done since". There's filler galore on these two records, but I still think that Load is particular could be trimmed to about 8 or 9 tracks and it wouldn't be too bad. I haven't listened to Reload for quite some time, but I do know that every time I have, I've got the impression that while there's one or two tracks on there I do like ('Fuel', 'Where The Wild Things Are', 'Low Man's Lyric' etc.) there was no real need to put out every single track that they wrote and recorded during these sessions. It's almost like they got a bit lost making this record and didn't have a clue which tracks to include and which tracks to leave on the cutting room floor.

And how long did it take everyone else to realise what the album art of Load actually is!?

I was really hoping this would be a poll with only two options: Load or Reload (which I believe is supposed to be spelled ReLoad, because it came out in the '90s).

AND IT ALL CRASHES DOWN

guys, outlaw torn is really good

reload might've been my first cd but i'm not sure

guys, outlaw torn is really good

otm

Load isnt too bad and if it had been released as a side-project people would have been cool with it.
Everything after is just awful.

outlaw torn is the best of the long songs here

i remember the rock radio station i listened to around this time played 'bleeding me' incessantly

the production on both of these albums is dog shit and James began his yodeling here.

from Load/Reload, these are the only songs I'd ever care to hear again:

The House That Jack Built
2x4
Fixxxer
Better Than You
Attitude
Prince Charming

'The Outlaw Torn' is great and one of my favourites on the album, the only problem I have with it is that they ended up shortening it in some kind of obsessive "we have to fill the MAXIMUM time on the CD, guys!" exercise. They ended up putting the full version out as a B-side or something, if I recall. But fuck, couldn't they have just bumped off something like 'Poor Twisted Me' or 'Cure' for it, which would have been a bit more sensible?

Poor Twisted Me is like George Thorogood gone flaccid

oh wait, "Until It Sleeps" has a pretty good chorus, I can still f/w that.

Hmm. I actually like the production of Load/Reload. A lot of shit gets thrown at Bob Rock for these albums, but to my ears Bob Rock did his job well and any flaws of these records are entirely down to Metallica themselves.

I mean, as a producer you can only do so much with what the band have to offer, y'know?

i remember downloading a live recording of 2x4 way before the record came out. it wasn't even an mp3, it was an MP2! i think it was the first music i ever downloaded, and it was so distorted and lo-fi that it sounded amazing.

the drums are kinda the same level of overproduced as they were on TBA, but the guitars sound really slippery and wet which didn't really work for them.

also you can hear Newsted so there's that problem

Jordan I d/led the early version of "Devil's Dance" and it sounded way better than the version that actually surfaced on disc. I remember not being able to find "2x4" while looking all over Netscape :(

U GUYS are you NOT AFRAID of LARS' WRATH?? Talking about this downloadin'.

hey these were bootlegs of songs that weren't released yet before he gave a shit :)

Do you think they've been chastened by the fact that they were going after people for downloading the Loads?

What makes me chuckle is that Lars threw his toys out of his pram over a leaked early version of 'I Disappear', of all songs. In fact, 'I Disappear' sounds like a cast-off from these sessions, and weren't 'No Leaf Clover' and '-Human' written around the time of Load/Reload also?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Sacko Bowl

And how long did it take everyone else to realise what the album art of Load actually is!?

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican), Thursday, May 29, 2014 3:46 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh it was part of the whole promo campaign for the album, they were very up front about it.

i crank "Fuel" and "Hero Of The Day" and "Ain't My Bitch" when i hear them on the radio, but i can't imagine listening to all of this stuff. maybe at some point i will try Brad's best-of playlist.

blood and semen, right?

when AMB came out a bunch of us thought it was "Ate My Bitch"

perhaps woulda made more sense if it was "f Big Lurch"

hahahahaha it would be amazing if that song was about some kind of monster or creature that was "headstrong" and "draggin' me down" before concluding, ruefully, "it ate my bitch"

weirdest Shel Silverstein poetry ever

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

listened to 'until it sleeps' today... still great. If only the album had delivered on that promise.

Ugh how did I miss this?? Reload was maybe the second album I ever bought

Without relistening probably would go Fixxxer, then Memory Remains

whaaaat people like "Until It Sleeps"? i consider them to be a solid singles act post-Black Album but i hate that one with a passion.

it's quite hard for me to pick a favourite, because i think there's more or less an equal and consistent level of blandness across the two records, but i think the two i'd least dislike to listen to these days are The Memory Remains and King Nothing.

Until it Sleeps is fine.

yeah, it's not too bad. there are far worse offenders here.

Actually surprised to see 0 votes for 'Where The Wild Things Are', 'Bleeding Me', 'Wasting My Hate' and 'Thorn Within'... and 1 vote for 'Poor Twisted Me'!?

The Metallica poll should be rolling out in 2015, 2017. I'm glad that someone's listening to these albums. We'll need something to fill in Nos. 41-50.

"Bleeding Me" I can't stand cuz his clean singing is agonizing on that album.

there are literally times on Load on higher notes where he sounds like fucking Weird Al.

We'll need something to fill in Nos. 41-50.

Hey there's Garage Inc. and "The Ecstasy of Gold"!

A couple from Death Magnetic will probably sneak in.

oh good my ballot will be 50% lulu

2 winners from this poll might sneak in somewhere between 45-50, but I can't imagine any others doing so given that there are 47 songs on their first 5 records.

I dunno, think people maybe like Hero of the Day more than Don't Tread on Me or Struggle Within.

"I Disappear" made a great intro for the sports show I used to produce. Sometimes we had to use special voiceovers, like if we were live in Alabama or somewhere, and that little spot where the "reel-to-reel" suddenly stops was a good edit point.

Yeah, will revise my "might" and say that Hero of the Day and Until It Sleeps will definitely make the artist poll when it happens. Would be surprised if any others from these records do. Only time will tell, I guess.

"mama said" #1

WHERE'S YOUR CROWN, KING NOTHIIIIIING!?!

http://jameshetfieldsoundboard.com

lol "Bad Seed" is such a Corrosion of Conformity castoff

relistening now

"Slither" sounds like a riff you play whenever your finger slips when you're trying to switch frets

"Prince Charming" trying to be legit metal but sounds more like cock rock

lol @ "Attitude", ..."just let me kill you for a while".

I guess my thoughts on these albums these days is you could probably cut about 30 minutes from Load down to the better tracks on the record, and then make a decent mini-album/EP out of Reload.

give me fuel
give me fire
give me dabladablablah

'Fuel', like a few of the tracks of the period, sounds like it was written during a cigarette break, but 'Fuel' works, I think.

It ain't mah BITCH-AHHHHHH

lol at "supreme music taste" turrican, of all posters, starting this poll

XP There was a great cold open during the last season of Homicide soundtracked by AMB.

Yup, and I clarified my reasons for starting this poll several posts in, iirc.

i feel like a lot of people hate these albums transitively. thrash metal was sort of outcast music, and some thrash fans seem mad that metallica started making music for "frat boys" - people they hated. that wasn't my experience. the people who bullied me in high school were into stuff like jane's addiction or rush, groups that are, in retrospect, honestly pretty good.

post-thrash metallica i tend to view more along the lines of a band like styx. i never had any problem with people who enjoyed styx, i just wished they liked music that wasn't quite as bad. i know that's a paternalistic and probably parochial viewpoint, and also probably hypocritical considering how much frankly terrible music i listen to, but i still kind of feel that way, that human beings deserve better music to listen to then "ain't my bitch".

Looking over the tracks some I have no recollection of, despite listening to both Loads a lot when they came out. Like, "Cure"? The only thing I can summon in my head is "GIMME CURE, GIMME FIRE, ETC."

something something something cure
sayin' i doooo believe

i think

def one of the worst tracks

And "Ronnie"?

"RONNIE FUEL, RONNIE FIRE, ETC."

"TWO BY FOUR, TWO BY FIRE, ETC."

Maybe this is how Hetfield wrote these songs.

'Cure' is one of the worst things on Load, definitely. I still reckon you could trim this LP down to about 9 tracks and have a very very good album - one of those tracks being the full 'The Outlaw Torn', of course.

"Ain't My Bitch" is like Kenny Loggins if he lost faith in Jesus and ate chewing tobacco sandwiches

MAMA SAY
MAMA SAW
MAMA MAKU-SA-KA-KA

"Prince Charming" is like some weird amalgamation of like NWOBHM and George Thorogood, and it fails so hilariously

"Better Than You" feels like the last recorded song to feature any remnants of the Jaymz "grunt 'n roar". a weak facsimile but he doesn't even try it anymore.

BETTER THAN YOU-OH-OH-OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

something something something cure
sayin' i doooo believe

i think

"Ain't My Bitch" is like Kenny Loggins if he lost faith in Jesus and ate chewing tobacco sandwiches

"Where the Wild Things Are" feels like James wanted to write a Simon and Garfunkel song and couldn't figure the fuck out how

15 disc Load box coming

https://www.stereogum.com/2306040/metallica-announce-15xcd-load-box-set-with-previously-unreleased-tracks/news/

hell yeah

Damn, that is a full Load. I can't believe it's 15 CDs and isn't also including Reload, figured that'd be a package deal.

I might get the 3 disc version for the live tracks, I don't need all the riff tapes and rehearsal stuff.

They're probably gonna do a massive 25-disc ReLoad/Garage Inc./S&M combo box.

Wake me up when they find 4 discs worth of Lulu outtakes.

(hey, i can dream)