1001 Albums Summary

I think Metallica's 1991 self-titled offering is a very funny starting point. Self-titled albums sort of piss me of though, with an exception for debut albums. Was everything up to this point not "Metallica" enough for Metallica and this was when they really felt the stars align? The self-titled practice may also be appropriate for a band deliberately creating the last album they ever will, but I am not aware of any instances of that. The only track I already knew going in was the first track "Enter Sandman." Not without good reason, it's probably the only metal song anyone who does their eight hours in pleated khakis can name before saying something by Guns N' Roses and admitting defeat. The rest afterwards was fine but nothing stuck out to me too much. The start of "The Unforgiven" had a cool western opening that would have been at home in a Clint Eastward western, but then sort of goes into some standard riffs. A pattern in general I noticed here was that each track has a solid and interesting hook but when you open the can it's all spam. Delicious but totally homogenous meat. I can know what people say abou Lars Ulrich and I sort of agree, but I'm not ready to roll out the guilloutine just yet. I'll wait until I hit Metallica again on the six-hundreth and sixty-sixth day before passing divine judgement. I have a bad history of misunderstanding or straight up not comprehending lyrics in my native tongue, so going forward don't expect much analysis of prose and content. That said, I feel like everything here was completely digestible. I like that several tracks seem to be written from the first-person POV of abstract concepts. P.S. Thankful there's an edit feature, even if it's weird. Guess I should write these in a notes app and sit on them for a bit before posting. Just wanted to add that "Nothing Else Matters" is a needed change of pace to break up the album into clean halves, and "Of Wolf And Men" is probably a furry tf anthem or something idk.

Before this album most of my knowledge of The White Stripes came from a The Simpsons bit. "Get Behind Me Satan" was fine. I didn't connect to it much in any way. The last track "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet) was probably the closest I got. It's sentimental in that specific way I'm a sucker for. There is a twang to Jack's singing that I appreciate, but "Passive Manipulation" made me realize I might prefer Meg as lead vocalist. I wish that track was longer. The instrumentation all seems pretty simple (positive). There was a marimba (I think) used in a couple tracks in the first third that gave the vibes of like some sinister beach. "Red Rain" incorporated a xylophone in a really stilted but pleasing way. Jack White is really good at creating new vocal and auditory stims: "I'm thinkinAboutTheDoorbell".