Metallica has made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I must say that it has been a long time coming for metal in the Hall of Fame, but after Black Sabbath and now Metallica it seems as if metal's mark on the music world is finally being acknowledged.
I still remember the first Metallica album I ever owned. It was Master of Puppets. I first heard it it at a friend's house back in Cincinnatus, NY. The opening song, "Battery", literally blew me away. I had never heard anything played that heavy or that fast in my young life (I was 14 at the time). I remember not being able to understand a single word being screamed and not able to discern drumbeats. I was dumbfounded. My friend then played "Damage, Inc." and again I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was then decided that I really didn't like it.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and the cassette is sitting in my mailbox from the BMG Music Club (how many of you metalheads weren't a member of either BMG or Columbia House?). The reason I ordered it? I have no clue. When the time came for me to order something, that was the album I chose. This time I was not constrained to listening to only 2 songs and I had access to the lyrics as well.
The album was pure crap. I didn't like it at all. The singer only screamed and the band members played their instruments too fast to be any sort of cohesive unit. Now bands like AC/DC, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motley Crue - now they knew what they were doing. But the one thing I could not do when it came to Master of Puppets was to stop listening to it. At a time when AC/DC saw the heaviest rotation in my stereo, Metallica started to take over and Master of Puppets was the jumping off point. Needless to say, I was hooked into this heavier metal. Metallica was heavier than Priest or Maiden, which up until that point were the heaviest bands in my rotation. I was still mainly into the more commercially viable metal (in Cincinnatus we took what we could get), but this allowed me to seek out and appreciate more of the "not so ready for prime time" non-label-friendly stuff that polluted our ears (and record stores). Master of Puppets had become at that point the greatest album ever.
For my art class in my freshman year I did the Master of Puppets album cover in watercolor. It turned out pretty good for a first time watercolor painting (except for the strings; I tried to mask them out but they ended up looking like white thorn bushes). In my sophomore year art class we did a unit on calligraphy. The project for the unit consisted of doing a phrase in calligraphy. I decided I couldn't do a 3- or 4-line phrase and went all out with the lyrics to "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)". While people may not have liked the lyrics all that much, they were definitely impressed with the scale of the project.
But enough of the trip down memory lane. I watched part of the acceptance speech. I saw Jason Newsted standing up there with James, Lars, Kirk, and Robert. I don't know if Jason is in the Hall of Fame along with the current members. If that's not the case, he should be because he was a member of Metallica through their biggest period. I also hope that Cliff Burton is given the posthumous honor of induction. It leaves me to wonder about Dave Mustaine. Although he didn't even play on Kill 'em All, he did help write most of their debut album and a couple of songs on Ride the Lighting. I would hope that he at least gets some acknowledgement for his contributions to early Metallica. Trust me, they needed him. If you don't believe me, head over to Amazon and order the Metal Massacre anthology, which contains the earliest recorded Metallica. The orginal version of "Hit the Lights" was pre-Mustaine Metallica and based on that song alone I'm sure many wrote off any future for Metallica.
At any rate, I'll raise my water glass and say "Congratulations" to Metallica. They were key in creating the metal scene in the United States, not to mention their influence on the rest of the metal world. As part of the big-four of American metal (the other 3 being Slayer, Anthrax, and Dave Mustaine-led band Megadeth) they helped set the stage for explosion that was yet to come. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will never be the same.
Well, to all you, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I must bid you goodnight.
PS - There's no picture again tonight as with my new puppy I haven't had a chance to take any in a few days. Not to worry, though, they will soon be once again forthcoming.
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