Halls of justice painted green

Continuing my trip back through the 1988 album charts.

11/09/88 : ...And Justice For All - Metallica


Our sixth visit with Metallica (one of NINE artists on six visits) and I think it's safe to say I think I'm unlikely to ever become a fan - but here we go again anyway...

God that was boring. Yes, they obviously know how to play their guitars and (especially) the drums but I'm afraid I need a bit more than that. The only spot of interest for me was trying to remember the track sampled in "The Frayed Ends Of Sanity" - I had to revert to whosampled.com to learn it was "March Of The Winkies" from The Wizard Of Oz and I'm not sure I ever knew the witch's guards were called Winkies. Apart from that - yaaaaawn.

We're at #4 with a new entry in the charts this week at the start of a six week run, which is probably the shortest run we've seen this year - and this was as high as it got. The rest of the top five were Kylie, The Smiths (a new entry - rejected because it's a live album, and really not a very good one) and the Hot City Nights and Rap Trax compilations and the next highest new entry was Europe (#12). 

Wikipedia has (of course) a huge amount on the album (296 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's their fourth album and the first after the death of bassist Cliff Burton in a tour bus accident - and his replacement, Jason Newsted, was somewhat unimpressed when he heard the final mix of the album which makes the bass parts pretty much inaudible. Critically, it was very well received and was nominated for a Grammy - but controversially lost to Jethro Tull which amusingly must have really pissed them off. Commercially, it did well making the top ten in a load of countries including #6 in the US (selling TEN MILLION copies over there!), #3 in Germany (selling a mere million) and #1 in the enjoyably angst-ridden Finland (selling an amusingly precise 51,051).

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent copy for four quid but if you want a Japanese pressing then it's going to set you back £506.57! I will not be offering up any money for any version and would be happy to pay to never have to listen to it again - would not recommend.

04/09/88 - Decent enough
18/09/88 - An utterly lovely album

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not wishing I was back in the USA, coz I come from Morecambe and the skies are grey

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/11/24 : Earth To Grace - Massive Wagons I will listen to the new entry at #1, but there's absolutely NO WAY I'm writing a whole entry on it - so instead we have this which I know absolutely nothing about. But it has to be better than the abomination at #1. Well, it's something you don't hear too much of these days - I guess "hard rock" is probably as good a description as any. It’s not going to win any awards for musical complexity but it’s quite catchy - I was r eminded of Gary Moore in his heavier days that teenage me used to like. It also certainly doesn't take itself too seriously - "Free And Easy" tells us "I don't shoot guns, it's not healthy - I drive a Ford C-Max I got off my dad and it's filthy" and "Rabbit Hole" offers up an amusingly sceptical take on conspiracy theories and then abruptly ends "Auf wiedersehen, adios - this song fucking ...
Read more

I have never believed that we should just stick to football

Image
The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... Dear England : The Olivier Theatre  Well, this is different from the usual review in several ways - I wasn't on my own (because I was accompanied by the lovely Mrs Reed) and I was in the posh seats (because I was accompanied by the lovely Mrs Reed). Somewhat surprisingly, given the high football content, this was her choice - it originally ran a couple of years ago to great reviews, but has come back updated to take into account the last European Championships.  It was also a trip to a new theatre - I'd previously been to the Lyttleton Theatre at the National, but this was my first trip to the main theatre there. And very impressive it was too as we walked down to our very well positioned, comfortable and spacious seats (Mrs Reed does need her leg room).  The stage looked impressive too - but it gave very little clue as to what we were going to get.  As the lights went down, the top ring rose to display the Old...
Read more

Woo-woo-woo

Image
Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts. 25/02/79 : Equinoxe -  Jean-Michel Jarre Our third visit with JMJ and he's gone up in my opinion with every visit so far - here's hoping that continues. Hmmm - no. Except for some bits of "Equinoxe, Pt 4" this was all rather dull - he was relying too much on synthesisers being, as Giorgio Moroder put it "zee sound of zee future". Maybe everyone back in '79 just went "wow man - this is so froody" (that's how they spoke, right?), but today it just sounds a very repetitive load of nothing. And I've absolutely no idea why "Equinoxe, Pt 8" has some oom-pah music in the middle of it. All in all, very disappointing. We're at #11 in the charts this week on his twelfth week of a 21 week run and this was as high as it got, also in its ninth and tenth weeks. The top five this week were  Blondie ,  Bee Gees ,   Elvis Costello , a compilation called Action Replay and the Cliff Ric...
Read more