“Diluted”: the Metallica albums James Hetfield thought Cliff Burton would hate
Metallica was never a band used to repeating the same record every time they entered the studio. They may have started out in the same heavy metal underground that birthed bands like Slayer and Anthrax, but they were far more interested in seeing where they could take their long songs than worrying about whether the heavy metal purists would be satisfied with everything they did. However, while Cliff Burton was known as the voice of reason during his short time with the band, James Hetfield felt that the bassist wouldn’t have approved of them making one of the most drastic musical shifts.
Granted, it’s not like Burton was some wise sage amongst the band. He did have a knowledge of music theory that certainly helped the band throughout their career, but nothing was really off the table for him to add to the band regardless of genre. Even if he did contribute something to the song, it was normally in layering harmonies rather than trying to write the heaviest riff possible.
And looking at what he was listening to at the time of Master of Puppets, he wasn’t afraid to take a few chances with his favourite music. Aside from the traditional Black Sabbath and Diamond Head records blaring out of every rehearsal room, Burton was afraid to stick on something like Kate Bush from time to time or even lift entire riffs from David Bowie when shoehorning ‘Andy Warhol’ into ‘Master of Puppets’.
So when Metallica ended up making a turn towards lighter music on The Black Album after Burton’s tragic bus accident, it wasn’t like he would have disapproved. They were still following their hearts when making tracks like ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and ‘Wherever I May Roam’, but when they landed on Load, something had definitely started to change.
They still had that same fire as they did on The Black Album, but the tone was much different. Aside from people getting up in arms about them bothering to cut their hair, the songs themselves felt closer to what was going on at the time, either having stylists making them look like the metal version of U2 or harmonies that sounded closer to Alice in Chains.
Even though Hetfield wrote the lion’s share of the lyrics and riffs, he felt that Burton would have never agreed to do something like this, saying, “There’s some great, great songs on there, but my opinion is that all of the imagery and stuff like that was not necessary. And the amount of songs that were written was… it diluted the potency of the poison of Metallica. And I think Cliff would have agreed with that.”
Still, there are some ways that Load could have been made into a proper version of Metallica that Burton would given his blessing to. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ flirts around with progressive movements, and even though it sounds stranger than usual, having ‘Low Man’s Lyric’ as the ballad on the record is the kind of nutty idea that was insane enough to work on ReLoad.
At the same time, the band did end up fulfilling one of Burton’s wishes, eventually turning many of their songs into symphonic pieces once they performed S&M. So while their Load era is seen as a sellout by some fans, it does have an important place in Metallica history for its different detours alone.
