August, 2021. Metallica, legendary thrash band, celebrated the 30th anniversary of their commercially acclaimed Black Album with a mega reissue of no less than “three live LPs, 14 CDs and six DVDs featuring unreleased content (live shows, rough mixes, demos, etc), MP3 download card of all audio, four tour laminates, lanyard, three lithos, three guitar picks, lyric folder and sheets, and a 120-page hardcover book with never-before-seen photos + stories from those who were there” to quote from the band itself.
They also asked a number of musicians to commemorate the music with some covers. Titled ‘The Metallica Blacklist’, the original track listing of 12 songs blows out to 4 hours and 53 songs worth of music.
Metallica has released some brilliant genre-defining and constraint-exceeding music over the years and James Hetfield is a virtuoso rhythm guitarist. They’ve also produced the Some Kind of Monster documentary, Through the Never concert film, and the S&M live orchestra album.
The Blacklist was digitally released on the 10th of September. So, to do you a favour, via Spotify and tinny computer speakers….
Today I am smashing and skipping through the massive set of Metallica s/t covers: “The Metallica Blacklist.”
Here we go:
Track 14. Biffy Clyro sounds good. He’s the premier of Scotland for a reason. It’s weird. It’s garbled. It goes half time at the end.
22. Flatbush Zombies and DJ Scratch. Samples Unforgiven’s chorus? Bars over old-school beats? Scratching too. It’s ok, it’s different.
I’m getting an X-Factor vibe here so far. I’m up to The Unforgiven covers.
25. Moses Sumney, I like this. Nice singing. Same as the Mr. Biffy track, I’d listen to this more than once.
26. J Balvin - rapping in Spanish (?!) over the original.
27-2?. More rapping by artists over Wherever I May Roam. I know Metallica was pretty influential on hip hop.
30. SebastiAn - what the fuck is this? James Hetfield singing over some bland funky instrumental.
Lots of skipping here. If it sounds the same as the original…
34. Tomi Owō - totally different musically and I can barely understand what she’s saying.
36. Why Miley is singing like that I’ll never know.
42. My Morning Jacket. Jesus Christ. That drumming!
OK the Nothing Else Matters covers are juiceless. I’m scanning through songs now to see how the meat of the track tastes before I skip or spit. I’m mostly spitting.
I’m noticing all the songs are lyrics exact. Did you know you need to get the original publishing holder to sign off on any lyrical changes? Pretty much no Eagles cover with different words exists - Don Henley always says no.
48. IDLES - I’ve heard of this band before. Not sure I’ve heard their music. The song The God That Failed is about Hetfield’s fundamentalist Christian mum who refused cancer treatment. This is whacky… post-rock, tuneless singing. Again, like they’re singing the lyrics over their own music. Skip.
Ad break. Sodastream the fresh way to drink fresh. I’m interested in checking out Sodastream.
49. Imelda May - nice voice. I dig this.
50. Cherry Glazerr - my hearing is obviously bad, her voice is for dogs to listen to.
52. Kamasi Washington. Yeah this is out there, I love it. The band is dynamic. Patrice Quinn is hitting notes. Great drumming. Awesome solos. The band doesn’t reference the original after playing the head. This is pretty busy and tough and frenetic. Washington is blowing now and I’m turning it up. No other solos? Kind sounds more like a composed big band for the climax.
53. Rodrigo Y Gabriela closes it off with some classical gas.
And that’s it? I feel like I heard four hours’ worth of intense nazal gaving over three songs and the rest of the Black Album had the slightest of perfunctory looks.
You know, this is a great cause that all profits go to some charity but honestly Metallica could have nominated any charity and said, "Please, donate to this" and maybe I would have slang ten bucks and the band could have forsaken this Godhead exercise in its entirety.
Back in the day there was a Black Sabbath compilation called “Nativity in Black”, officially endorsed by the Osbourne family, featuring Zeitgeist metal bands (plus Busta Rhymes!) honking through the hits. It sucked. Hydra Head Records also did a vinyl-only double a-side singles series “In These Black Days” of some truly ferocious 90’s metal bands tearing apart and reinterpreting the Sabbath canon. Copyright blocked by the Osbournes, good luck finding the entire thing, I reckon I downloaded the tracks off Napster (! I’m no doubt exaggerating and found it on Soulseek). I heartily recommend the Neurosis, Botch, and Converge tracks if you want something awesome that adds to the original.
Anyway, maybe I’m trying to say, why cover a song so it sounds absolutely identical to the original when the original was already a good song?
You're welcome.
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