“Every song is good”: The Metallica album James Hetfield said had no bad songs
There’s no such thing as having a perfect record in any genre of music. There are often artists that rise to the occasion and make a record that could stand alongside the classics, but even the most celebrated albums of all time have a handful of tunes that some people would consider duds. But for a band that has had a quality rollercoaster throughout their career like Metallica have, James Hetfield knows the handful of occasions where they nailed every aspect of a project.
When talking about the best tunes in an artist’s catalogue, sometimes the band themselves might not be the best people to ask. Songs are like musical children for many artists, and even if they’re not among the finest works of art in their catalogue, the artists themselves might have personal favourites that will make everyone else’s ears bleed.
For instance, there’s a good chance that every member of Metallica holds St Anger close to their hearts. The whole thing might be the harshest listening experience they ever committed to tape back in the day, but considering it took place during their group therapy sessions and helped them stay together as a band in many respects, it’s nice to look back on it as one of the darkest times that they were able to overcome with flying colours.
Hetfield has even stated that some songs from their most celebrated material don’t work. Despite it being one of the highest-selling metal releases of all time, The Black Album had a few songs that the frontman was never a bit fan of, and he even made wisecracks at the expense of the Load era of the band, which he considered a case study in them being able to whip anything into decent shape.
If you’re looking for the real meat of Metallica, though, that means going back to the 1980s. They had already been young and hungry on Kill Em All, but every project up until The Black Album saw them hunkering down further and further until they had their thrash riffs down to a science. And while And Justice For All might be the most intricate record they ever made, nothing was topping Master of Puppets in Hetfield’s mind.
While Ride the Lightning does deserve to be ranked not too far behind it, the band’s third outing had the magic songs that no one could argue with for Hetfield, saying, “I think Master of Puppets represents a certain time in history. Maybe [it] was the record that a lot of the early fans identified with. I think there’s still an innocence about it and just a real ‘fuck you, world’ attitude to it still. Plus the songs — they have that energy, that fire; they’re still youthful, but we were still growing, and the songs got grander and bigger, and [we added] more character to the songs. I think every song on that record is really good and it stands up to time.”
And it’s not like Hetfield is exactly wrong either. Master of Puppets falls in the sweet spot when they are at the absolute peak of their powers, and while not every tune has the same anthemic quality, it’s saying something when the two worst songs by default tend to be either ‘Leper Messiah’ or ‘Damage Inc.’, both of which still kick ass and have interesting sections that most other thrash artists would never have touched.
As far as Hetfield’s comments about the album’s attitude, though, that’s most likely never going to be going away. Right from the opening strains of ‘Battery’ to the last note of ‘Damage Inc.’, you can hear the passion, anger, and reverence the band has for what they do, and that kind of fire is something that will never be extinguished as long as kids are willing to bang their heads.
