Metallica ? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

I would say it's good, if only for the endless influence they have on progressive metal. Plus they do have some progressive moments.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
-William Blake

Last option.

For the last 2 years I supported barely anything that this site has done.

Originally posted by Atavachron

^ Metallica is in ProgRelated which means they were influenced by, or have a musical connection to, prog rock. ProgRelated artists don't have to have been an influence on other bands, though in Metallica's case they certainly influenced many metal and Progmetal bands.

Hey thanks!!! Approve

The planet is fine the people are f**ked.
-George Carlin-

Metallica is a great metal band but they have influenced some of the Progbands. Confused

The planet is fine the people are f**ked.
-George Carlin-

Originally posted by angelmk

20 pages for Metallica are waist of time .. it is unnecessary .. IMO Metallica shouldnt be included in the PA, but who am i to jugde .. and Prog related is very questionable category..

Thank you for your contribution.

If you have a more sensible suggestion then please feel free to post here again.

Edited by Certif1ed - July 15 2009 at 02:17

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

20 pages for Metallica are waist of time .. it is unnecessary .. IMO Metallica shouldnt be included in the PA, but who am i to jugde .. and Prog related is very questionable category..

Am I Evil??? Yes I am!!!

Exodus - Bonded by Blood

Exodus - Lessons in Violence (included on Speed Kills)

From Exodus' debut, released in 1985 - the music is very similar to that on Kill 'Em All - but the songs are dominated by one particular riff, which essentially remains unmodified. That said, the other riffs in the song are derivative of the main one - but there's not nearly as much variety as there is in Whiplash or Metal Militia (links posted above), both of which songs are called to mind. Even the solos sound a bit like Kirk's in "Whiplash".

In "Lessons in Vioence", the overarching style that Metallica forged on Kill 'Em All, with multi-part instrumental bridge can be easily heard - but "Bonded By Blood" as an album is much less sophisticated than "Ride The Lightning".

Watchtower - "Energetic Dissassembly"

Watchtower - "Asylum"

Break Watchtower's music down into its component sections and what you seem to have is a LOT of very complicated ideas.

This is not the same as complex - there is next to no complexity in the music, as everything follows or hinges off the main guitar. The vocal melody is non-existent, like the flow from idea to idea. "Asylum" has some twisted logic to it, but not so much "Energetic Dissassembly" - or much of the other music on the album, which is technical for the sake of being technical, on the whole.

It's not all like that, of course - there are some real flashes of inspiration, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

It's a good and innovative idea to produce technical sounding heavy metal, especially if you can pull off all of those techniques - but that's not what Prog is about. It's what metal is about - only rather than turning up the volume, increasing the speeed or citing classical music, these guys increased the amount of technical ability required to play the music.

Prog, in the sense Keith Emerson cites, isn't so much about having lots and lots of ideas, but more that you can take a group of ideas and "play" with them - which Metallica did. If you've ever tried to play anything Metallica wrote in their early days, you'll realise that it's technically fairly demanding too, because this was another of Metallica's remits!

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Originally posted by Logan

Originally posted by progrocker2244

Without Metallica prog metal would probably NOT exist....

I'm no expert on metal, progressive or otherwise, but I would never have thought that.

Incidentally, I think Watchtower was making Prog Metal when Metallica was making more "Prog Related music".

Watchtower certainly played some very technical metal - but I wouldn't call it Prog metal per se - the two are different things.

Watchtower also didn't release anything until 1985 - but, according to the Wikipedia article, Lars Ulrich was spotted wearing a Watchtower shirt around the time of "Justice..." - and the style of "Justice" is notably more technique oriented than "Master", so the connection is probably there.

Metallica were Prog related on their first album to my ears - and Watchtower basically wrote standard songs with lots of technical stuff. They didn't really do the "turn it upside down" thing as per Keith Emerson's quote defining Prog.

Originally posted by Logan

Metallica certainly was very influential to prog metal, but then so were other metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Megadeath (and Exodus I would think). And informed by early metal bands such as Black Sabbath. How influential was Judas Priest?

I think Metallica played Prog Metal - and while it's taking it's time to sink in, no-one has actually proven me wrong.

I don't think Maiden, Megadeth or Exodus played it - although Maiden and Megadeth certainly brought some interesting things to the table. Metallica were very different - get hold of a copy of the first Speed Kills compliation, and the first Metal Massacre compilation and see how different they were at the time.

Sabbath and Priest influenced just about all heavy metal - there's almost no escaping them.

Influence is just one tiny part of it all.

Even Dream Theater acknowledge the importance of Metallica (and Maiden, who have been here a lot longer than Metallica) in their own music - it's not just simple influence, a trademark (like Iommi's tritones and drop tuning, or Priest's twin-barrel leads and fast riffing), it's a way of writing metal. Metallica brought something entirely new to the metal party, and everyone (Watchtower included) wanted a slice.

Exodus were almost there (back in 1982) - I'll give them that, but they soon fell into standard thrash, as far as I know.

Originally posted by Logan

I just don't think that one could assume that is one band had not existed that there would be no progressive metal, and I'd say the same of progressive rock. I'm sure there would be progressive rock bands that would experiment with metal, metal bands that would experiment with progressive rock (say hybridastions of classic Prog and heavy metal), and there would those metal innovators who expand the frontiers and lexicon of metal.

This is true, of course - and the whole scene was not about one band.

But one band became one of the biggest bands in the world, never mind THE biggest metal act ever - and also the band that got metal into non-metal fans living rooms. Back in 1988, most people seemed to avoid metal like the plague, except rabid metal fans - it was like Marmite.

Then, following Metallica's appearance on MTV, playing "One", metal was suddenly everywhere, even the most hated form of it - the dreaded Thrash Metal - it really kicked off in the early '90s, following the Black album.

Iron Maiden were the spearleaders of the NWoBHM, bringing metal to new heights of popularity, but Metallica brought it to previously unimaginable heights, and with music that, until the Black Album, was uncompromisingly Progressive in approach more than style.

Anyone can write a standard song with twiddly bits, if they sit down for months and learn the twiddly bits.

Not everyone can write a truly Progressive piece of rock music - that takes real art.

Maiden's and Priest's first two albums were in the right sort of vein - pity neither continued like that!

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Originally posted by progrocker2244

Without Metallica prog metal would probably NOT exist....

I'm no expert on metal, progressive or otherwise, but I would never have thought that.

Incidentally, I think Watchtower was making Prog Metal when Metallica was making more "Prog Related music". Metallica certainly was very influential to prog metal, but then so were other metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Megadeath (and Exodus I would think). And informed by early metal bands such as Black Sabbath. How influential was Judas Priest?

I just don't think that one could assume that is one band had not existed that there would be no progressive metal, and I'd say the same of progressive rock. I'm sure there would be progressive rock bands that would experiment with metal, metal bands that would experiment with progressive rock (say hybridastions of classic Prog and heavy metal), and there would those metal innovators who expand the frontiers and lexicon of metal.

Poll Question: how do you fel about Metallica being added ?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
Metallica are a great inclusion to this site	42	[28.77%]
Metallica are a soso inclusion to this site	29	[19.86%]
Metallica are a bad inclusion (what were they thinking)	75	[51.37%]
You can not vote in this poll