Album War: Megadeth vs Metallica!

OK. It is time to take breath a reader. I need a few before this begins…  The moment has come for me to pen my contribution to this most ancient and violent of arguments. It’s Megadeth arrayed against Metallica - two of the most well known metal bands of all time.

I have seen sensible people go red in the face raging about this subject i.e. WHO IS BETTER? This question, unfair or not, makes rational humans go apoplectic. Against my better judgment I am going to plough my own furrow in this brutal sectarian divide. Here goes…

(Before I go on certain caveats need to be explained: A brief perusal of the table below will reveal that not every release by either band has been included in the Metallic Table of Deth. What I have included are the proper albums; not cover albums, live albums, or otherwise albums – actual albums of original material. Furthermore, I will be comparing albums ad hoc, as seems appropriate.

                But how blatantly subjective you cry? Damn right. This is music. Don’t like it? Don’t care;)

 

Provocation 1:                   Killing Is My Business is better than Kill ‘Em All…

Already I can hear teeth gnashing amongst the ‘Lica fans. Seriously, listen to KIMB and tell me it isn’t the most astonishing thrash metal album EVER.  KEA is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no denying the astonishing nature of KIMB. Check out ‘The Four Horsemen’: it’s basically a ditchwater version of ‘Mechanix’. Both songs rock though…

Searching… Seek and Destroy!

Provocation 2:            Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying is better than Ride The Lightning

Having a fit yet? PSBWB is another tour de force from Megadeth. All the tracks are amazing except the grotesque cover ‘I Ain’t Superstitious’ – that one doesn’t count. RTL is brim full of iconic songs like ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’, ‘Ride The Lightning’ and ‘Creeping Death’, but please, whose idea was it to start the album with ‘Fight Fire With Fire’? That song is awful, as is ‘Trapped Under Ice’. Ouch. It’s a fantastic sophomore effort from Metallica (and Mustaine), but unfortunately the standard from PSBWB is too strong.

If there’s a new way… I’d be the first in line.

Fact 1:                           Master Of Puppets is better than So Far, So Good… So What?

Did you really suspect it might go the other way? After two excellent albums, Megadeth let everybody down with this glammy-nonsense. Very little mitigates this third effort, which took ten years to go platinum. Metallica, however, finally stepped away from Mustaine’s lengthy shadow and produced another brilliant album all on their own.

RIP Cliff Burton 27 Sep 1986

Fact 2:                                   Rust In Peace is better than …And Justice For All

AJFA is a much maligned album amongst ‘Lica fans and I can see why. It isn’t as bad as they say; but it’s not as good as some say either. It does have ‘One’ on it. On the other hand you have RIP, which kicks ass! ‘Holy Wars… The Punishment Due’ is probably the best Megadeth song EVER. Songs like ‘Hangar 18’ and ‘Tornado Of Souls’ provide the supreme backing cast. RIP simply blows AJFA out of the water. Just try and disagree.

Paid by the Alliance… To slay all the Giants!

Bodge 1:                       The Black Album is better than Countdown To Extinction

The 90’s marked a softening of the thrash which marked the 80’s, and is probably why these two giants of metal became more broadly popular. The standard on CTE is good and features a few excellent tracks like: ‘This Was My Life’, ‘Sweating Bullets’ and ‘Psychotron’. Alternatively we have the BA; it does contain some poor tracks, but it has too many great songs to be beaten by CTE. Behold tracks like: ‘Sad But True’, ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ and ‘The Unforgiven’ solo.

Noticed my comparison system so far? Now it collapses.

Provocation 3:                   Youthanasia is better than the Black Album

For five years after the BA, Metallica failed to do produce a genuine album; probably because they were too busy playing ‘Enter Sandman’ to vast crowds. In the meantime, the irrepressible Mustaine went and produced Youthanasia; arguably one of their best, if not best albums. Teeth gnashing? The natural sequel to CTE, Megadeth’s 1994 effort is stacked with brilliant tracks: ‘Reckoning Day’, ‘Addicted To Chaos’, ‘The Killing Road’, ‘Blood Of Heroes’ and the list goes on…

Lost my mind… I lost all my money… I lost my mind to the Killing Road.

Bodge 2:                              Cryptic Writings is better than Load and Reload

Things start getting really dicey now… Metallica finally fired out some stuff in 96’ and 97’ whilst Megadeth released CW in 97’. Basically, CW is better than the two ‘Lica albums because it has more good songs and less bad songs. Honourable mention goes to ‘Fuel’ and ‘The Unforgiven II’ – it’s not salvation for the latter of two poor albums, but at least it’s something salvaged.

Ooooh, on I burn… Fuel is pumping engines, burning hard, loose and clean.

And here’s the ends because I can’t continue being subjective without being objectively unfair...

Part Two coming up!

 

Travails of a Band

Why do you do it?

Why do you lug heavy equipment from house to car, from car to bar, bar to car, car to house – over and over and over? Why bother play for another unappreciative audience? Why expose yourself to judgement without reward? Why are you constantly replacing strings, sticks and petrol? Why fritter away precious days off work? Why are you fruitlessly burning your time, money and effort, in the most ambitious of enterprises?

It certainly aint for the money; because remuneration is all but unheard of for the unheard! 

This is why:

  
1. Because you fucking love it. 
2.        Because you get a buzz from playing live. And when it’s done you are struck with a sense of   anticlimax – you can’t wait for that next gig.

3.       Because you believe that your music is awesome. People need to listen to this shit.

4.       Because your mates support and turn up for you so you had better do them justice.

And finally...

It doesn’t matter if they don’t bring back TOTPs just for you. It doesn’t matter if those lucky people out there frown and disapprove of your efforts.

Music is bigger than that.

If one person enjoys your set then your calling is satisfied. If just one person is moved to move, headbang, or groove to your song, then your work is done.

You play your songs because you love them. You enjoy them so much that you want others to have the same opportunity. And when someone does enjoy your stuff, you have shared something with them, whether they anticipated it or not. Treasure that, because all it takes is one open-heart to justify all your efforts.

KEEP GOING YOU LIVE MUSIC LOONS!

Dubstep O'saurus

Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, a man became obsessed with dubstep. To the exclusion of all other forms of music, this crazed loon would consume his free time doing nothing but discover dubstep. He trawled YouTube playlists, perused forums, sought recommendations, and did many other myriad tasks in the name of dubstep.  

Autobiographical introductions aside, it is time to announce that the treasure trove of dubstep the above fanatic constructed is now available for online dissemination. Click the link below to find yourself a musical experience you knew you liked, but never admitted. (For best results acquire decent sound system - much bass required:)

Art Bugmann's Awesome Dubstep List

Musical Honesty

When I first started engaging in music sometime in the early part of secondary school, I leaned decisively towards what can loosely be called the 'Alternative' part of the then musical spectrum. Bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Deftones etc... were foremost in my tastes. Why was this? Part of the reason was my nauseous aversion to 'Pop' music. Very much wearied by prancing boy/girl bands, bored senseless by ballads and inane lyrics about relationship troubles, I would rather give myself a nasty Chinese Burn than listen to Five, or Blue, or Steps, or S Club bloody 7. Keep your dancing troupes and expensive videos and give me a power chord!

     However justified this loathing may have been, it engendered a prejudice towards all musical genres other than my own - which I suppose was 'Metal'. Prejudice is a frankly stupid thing to perpetuate, but it did do one thing for many in my generation - it saved us time. Instead of investigating each band on its merits, most of them could be rejected out of hand because they belonged to a category you had decided to dislike. Being so young we had no time for anything other what we had chosen to adore.

     But time is exactly what we do have. As you get older you start confessing that there are many songs that you like, but which don't fall into your 'usual' category. What you find is that you don't have time to be prejudiced. It's a total waste. If you like something, so be it, and who cares what your youthful arrogance thought? The nirvana you are closing in on is 'Musical Honesty' - a place where it matters not what others think or what you thought. It's a place where you aren't afraid to make a musical u-turn and like something you had previously hated. So go forth, and let the only filter be this: enjoyment, or not.

Writing Music and Lizards

Once upon a time I would pick up my acoustic guitar and jib along, stringing notes and chords together until voila! - I had discovered something to my liking. Then I would install the riff into a music program and go from there, adding drums, bass, piano, trumpet, etc... There was no theory involved whatsoever. The only thing that mattered was this: DOES IT SOUND GOOD? Yet behind this innocent maxim lay a real contempt for musical theory. Is it in C Major? Psssh! Is that a D Minor even? Whatever! As long as it was music to my ears then so be it. Scales were just cages in which a blooming musician might wilt; where creativity might never escape its scaly confines. However, there are two conditions closely related to the supposed freedom offered by scale-disdain:

1. Because you're thrashing around in a limitless musical landscape, I found that each and every song I settled on was different. Maybe this in itself isn't a bad thing, but if you grouped your songs together they would make for an appalingly disjointed album. One track would sound like Deftones, another like Nirvana or even Greenday. This bridges well into my next point...
2. Because you haven't a structure to guide your efforts, you would tend to write things that sounded like music you liked. If you're constantly listening to Megadeth and Metallica (who's better btw?), the odds are you would reproduce a particular phrase of their's. This is really frustrating because you don't want to commit to something that has already been done, so all that creativity which you had quite naturally enjoyed was wasted.

The latter point needs a little qualification because it is also true that by sharing a scale with a favourite band, you might also trap yourself in a never ending circle of unconscious reproduction. Let me assure you, having to continuously disgard riffs because they sound like something else is a demoralising place to be.

      So what are the advantages of using specific scales? Well, alternative to the above, you can employ a scale divergent from your beloved band to create tunes totally different from your regular listening. This is probably a step too far because most people want to be inside the same genre as their adored bands, but not exactly like them. This is where scales come in handy because you can employ the same style as (insert_band), but in a different scale, which can often give a complementary, rather than slavish sound. 

     The next boon offered by scales are there anti-desiccation properties. Unlike amphibians, who have to remain in watery environments, scales offer reptiles protection against dehydration. (HA!) Anyway, the next boon offered by scales is related to the first point up above. If you want to have a thematic continuity in your music, a good way of achieving this is through using the same scale(s) consistently. For a long time I have employed G and sometimes C Major. G Major is definitely my most abused scale and I can jam inside that indefinitely. But using G does chain you to happier sounding music - which was fine for a while. Recently I switched to an E Minor Harmonic. This scale gives you a much darker, more ominous sound. Humourously, I discovered that in reality it differs from G Major in only one note, so perhaps I am not as adaptable as I think I am:) 

     To finish then: once you have stopped hacking at your instrument and have figured out some creations of your own, do not be prejudiced against structure. Do not be prejudiced against the unstructured either, because you will probably find that those freebooting tracks fit inside a scale you were not aware of! And remember - DOES IT SOUND GOOD!