St. Damage Control Incorporated

[MaximumFluoride]

The new Metallica record ir so bad and getting such shitty reviews that they are now having the Producer of it, Bob Rock, explaine just WHY it sounds SO BAD!!

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Metallica Producer Speaks Out On 'St. Anger' Sound

Source: Blabbermouth.net

METALLICA producer Bob Rock recently spoke to MTV.com about the production on the group's new album, "St. Anger". "I wanted to do something to shake up radio and the way everything else sounds," said Rock, who helped write the music and lyrics and played basslines on the album. "To me, this album sounds like four guys in a garage getting together and writing rock songs."

According to Rock, METALLICA achieved the primitive sound and schizophrenic vibe of "St. Anger" by combining old recording technology with cutting-edge editing software.

"There was really no time to get amazing performances out of [METALLICA frontman] James [Hetfield]," Rock said. "We liked the raw performances. And we didn't do what everyone does and what I've been guilty of for a long time, which is tuning vocals. We just did it, boom, and that was it."

After the basic recordings were done, METALLICA tried to add guitar solos, but Rock and the band ultimately decided to leave them all out.

"We made a promise to ourselves that we'd only keep stuff that had integrity," Rock said. "We didn't want to make a theatrical statement by adding overdubs. If we added something and it helped the mood or what we were trying to convey, that stayed. But if it distracted from that ... then we killed it. Every time we tried to do a solo, either it dated it slightly or took away from what we were trying to accomplish in some other way. I think we wanted all the aggression to come from the band rather than one player."

"A lot of the songs were done in William Burroughs cut-and-paste fashion," said Rock, referring to a style in which a piece of writing is cut into pieces and reassembled at random. "There are movements in moviemaking and in music where you take technology as an art and you actually abuse it. Some people use ProTools to trick and fool the listener, but we used it more as a creative tool to do something interesting and stretch boundaries.

"Technically, you'll hear cymbals go away and you'll hear bad edits. We wanted to disregard what everybody assumes records should be and throw out all the rules. I've spent 25 years learning how to do it the so-called right way. I didn't want to do that anymore."


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So in a nut shell they WANTED it to sound shitty. Good job. The songs were there, but the production killed them. No solos on a Metallica record?

[Brendan Jordan]

Why don't they just fade away already?

[dustin wallace]

i've only heard one song, and it was pretty bad, so i can't say much for the album itself. on the other hand, i think it's pretty cool they were given the control to make a completely non-commercial record that sounds like poo, whether they meant to do it or not. they haven't been relevant in quite a while, so it doesn't really matter to me. give me master of puppets any day of the week, and i'll be satisfied.

[MaximumFluoride]

The sad thing is that if they had recoded and mixed this correctly it could have been held up against the older records. The songs are pretty good. Nice and fast and crunchy in the right spots. I was really hoping to get them back. They were so great.

[dustin wallace]

maybe the new songs will come off better live.

[MaximumFluoride]

I'll never know, cause I'll never bother to see them live.

[jasoncross]

metalla- who?

[dustin wallace]

I'll never know, cause I'll never bother to see them live.

well, neither will i, but there will be plenty of boots floating around.

[ryanaugust]

How fucking stupid. I'm sure those dudes have a rehearsal space with an 8 track or something in it. Shoulda just threw together some mics and recorded it live in their space instead of paying that dumb fuck probably a solid million to make them sound like shit.

Metal is all about the overdubs and solos and shit- trying to make everything sound as heavy and over the top as possible. No wonder Newstead left...

[Tenebrini]

Now having read that, I believe that the sound was intentional and they're not just trying to cover their asses by isssuing statements like these. I can appreciate the artistic merit in doing something unconventional, but I still think this album sucks. They were not successful in thier efforts and now they have to live with it.

I'm working on my house today. Metallica is NOT in the playlist.

I DID just listen to "Sample This" with Brian Ewing art on the cover.