Megadeth VS Metallica

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Of course you can be a heavy metal fan and not like any of them - I don't like Anthrax or Slayer much (actually, I dislike most Thrash), but am into most every other type of metal. The Big 4 are just considered to be the most successful (not necessarily monetarily) Thrash bands because they have been around for almost 30 years, are still playing, and have become some of the most influential bands in metal history.

 

Anthrax is awesome. Three words: Fistful of Metal. Enough said.

 

This is how I see the so-called big 4 of thrash

--Metallica - The pioneers. The guys who really brought thrash metal to the forefront, and gave the world something really fresh and powerful. I got to see them live during their Master of Puppets tour—when Cliff was still alive and kicking. My neck hurt for several days after that concert! It was all worth it, or so I told myself at the time.
--Megadeth - the pissed off younger brother who was doing something similar to what Metallica was doing (being led by a founding member, no less), but with a lot more anger and angst, and somewhat faster paced. I have always felt Mustaine was underappreciated as a guitar player (he's quite good actually), but inspite of this, to me their music was less polished than that of Metallica.
--Anthrax - Thrash metal gains a sense of humor. I loved these guys too, and even learned to be "somewhat" less dismissive of rap music because of them. I think their bridging of these then two completely separate genres (metal and rap, that is) was perhaps their greatest contribution to music. Not to say they didn’t have numerous great songs. I got to see them live when I was in high school when they opened for Ozzy Osbourne, and man was it an experience.
--Slayer - Dark and openly singing about Satan - I eventually got into them as well. I always considered them to be a very different thing than the others. Primarily, it was the morbid, Satanic lyrics surrounded by the ULTRA heavy music. Slayer was the heaviest band of this grouping by far, and if Megadeth was pissed off, these guys were acting like the world was about to end. Unlike some bands that had a Satanic message, for Slayer it was all an act. They did it for shock effect. Unlike the others, their music was all but devoid of anything melodic. It was low, chunky rhythm guitars providing the base for numerous screeching high guitar leads, which Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King would share duties on. It was slower paced -- not to say that it was by any means slow (this is where much of the heaviness came from) -- and Tom Araya’s screaming vocals always seemed to embody pain and suffering . Slayer did much to prepare the way for so-called "death-metal." I particularly got into their South of Heaven album, but in spite of the fact that they are now considered one of the big 4 of thrash, I never grouped Slayer together with the others stylistically back in the day. For me, they were better grouped with bands like Venom, Merciful Fate, etc (the bands that I always felt a little bit guilty for enjoying). At the time, we called this satanic or black metal.

 

Who would have thought this would ever happen?

 

This says it all:

I'll believe it when I see video of it, since I'm not going to Eastern Europe for it.
And even if it does happen, Mustaine would surely screw it up somehow. Megadeth would *have* to go on after Metallica just to keep his mouth shut. Metallica would have to mind their maners while on stage too.

 

Hmm... Anthrax and Megadeth on the same tour? Works for me. Metallica and Slayer... meh.

 

I'm more of a rock guy than a metal one. I can't really say much since the only band of the four I have listened to is Metallica. I share Caradhras' earlier point (though I'm not a Megadeath fan). I used to be into the earlier Metallica, but most of the black album and everything after is bad (I really like Master of puppets). Metallica basically decided to alter their sound and songs so they could apeal to a larger audience. To me, that is really s**t! You don't do that in any art field, whether it is film, dance, music, painting, sculpture... If Metallica had their post black album sound from the beginning it would have been one thing, but to change it mi-career so you can make more money, that's a slap in the face in all the metalhead fans that put them where they were...

Personnally, in the metal genre, my favorite band is Ministry...

 

Why not? If you were the artist, would you want to be confined to a particular style, when your artistic leanings were taking you other directions? And even if appealing to a larger audience was a key motivation, so what? Metallica's music has always been about evolving and changing. No single album sounds like another. I think this is a big part of why they have been so successful and managed to stand the test of time. They have never been afraid to try new things and go in different directions.

And frankly, artists do this all the time, be them filmmakers, dancers, musicians, painters, etc. To try to pigeonhole an artist into a particular style because there are those who would disapprove of change, well, it defies what art is about entirely.

 

If appealing to a larger audience means scrapping your originality and not using your full talent, then you have sold out and that is a big no-no. And Metallica did this big time.

 

Wait, so by not changing their style they would be maintaining their originality? How is it original to keep doing the same thing? Is it not more original to try something you haven't done before? You might see it as selling out; I see it (and I think the members of Metallica would agree) as evolving and exploring new things. This isn't to say I've enjoyed all aspects of their musical evolution. As I posted a few days ago, I pretty much lost interest in them after the Black album. But I certainly would not deny Metallica their right to take their own journey. That's what they've done, regardless of their motivations. They created the music they felt like creating. I'd say every artist has the freedom, no, the obligation, to do exactly that! Of course, with that there is always going to be criticism, which is where Triactus and Saber come in, I guess.

EDIT: And for what it's worth, I've been a Metallica fan for a very long time. They have been criticized in this manner pretty much since the beginning. There were those fans that hated Ride the Lighnting and Master of Puppets because they didn't have the speed that Kill Em All did. There were those fans that hated And Justice For All because it didn't have the agression that RtL and MoP had. And of course, the Black Album was commercially huge, so that brought forth yet another wave of negative criticism. When Load and Reload (or whatever they're called) came out, metal was pretty much dying. Metallica tried to do something that was more relevant to what was going on with music at the time (whether or not they were successful is a different story). I'm sure appealing to a wider audience was part of that, but I'm also sure the members' own musical tastes were evolving along with those of the rest of the world. So they reinvented themselves. There's no crime in that as far as I'm concerned.

 

You're mixing two things up : Evolving artistically and changing your sound to appeal to a larger audience. Take Radiohead for example. They changed drastically from their first album. They evolved, taking a new musical direction.

What I'm talking about with Metallica, is changing you sound to make it radio friendly. That is not an artistic evolution. That is a commercial decision and that is bull**it. Same thing with Collective Soul. Their first two albums are decent, but the rest is pure crap on an artistic level.

 

I don't think I'm mixing up two things at all. In my opinion you are simply placing artificial restrictions on how drastic the change/evolution can be. The reality is, most metal bands went into hiding during the period that Metallica was doing the Load/Reload stuff. Apparently, Metallica wanted to keep making music, and in order to do this their music needed to have a market. Whether or not that was selling out, well, that's debatable. It wouldn't be selling out if Metallica enjoyed the music that they were making at the time. By all accounts they did, so that would make them artists trying something new more than it would make them sell outs. Even the music from Load and Reload is unique in its own way. It didn't sound like a lot of other music that was popular at the time. It's just that it was more rock than metal. So what.

 

That's not what I said, or implied. A band can keep their same style while improving artistically, technically, and keeping what made them who they are. Take Dark Tranquillity for example. All of their albums are distinctly them, and not only do they get more intricate with each album, or try new things (like more clean singing, on Projector, or more ambient keyboard, like on Haven), they do not lose who they are and, in fact, become more popular with each album. Fiction, for example (their 2007 album) was widely popular, but it was also one of their more artistic albums. And their new album is sounding less artistic, but heavier (from the two songs they've released so far).

 

Fair enough, but if we're arguing for originality, I would have to say what Metallica did was far more original than the scenarios you describe. Metallica basically did a complete make over, a complete reinvention of what they were. In spite of the fact that I didn't particularly care for the reinvented Metallica, I have to give them credit for doing something as ballsy and risky as they did.

I think the real crux of this conversation is "did Metallica sell out?" From my point of view, they did something that took guts, that was -- I believe -- less commercially successful than their previous Black Album had been, and explored a different aspect of their musical and artistic tastes, after 15+ years of doing more or less the same kind of thing. I don't call that selling out as much as I do artistic license.