Doris

I'm three days behind on the 31 days of Metallica project whatever, I started my weekend by sleeping for exactly 15h and a half, I only got myself out of the bed to get some lunch and make tea, I am, therefore, partying hard. So I am going to be mega-productive today and write a proper post (while still in bed) on one of my favourite LPs of all times, ...And Justice for All.

Released on August 25th, '88, ...And Justice for All is Metallica's 4th studio album and the first recorded since Cliff Burton's death. It differs from their earlier work through more complex instrumentals and more elaborate guitar riffs, giving the former thrash metal trademark a more progressive sound.

The main lyrical theme is political injustice, as the cover artwork suggests, portraying a cracked statue of Lady Justice, sometimes named 'Doris' by the fans, bound by ropes, with her scales filled with dollar bills.

Justice is nothing less of a materpiece throughout all of its 62 minutes and 25 seconds. Right from the very beginning, it hits you with what is the mother of all intros, the guitar solo opening Blackened, then unfolding into 9 tracks of heavy, complex riffs and constantly changing tempos, telling stories of war, corruption, and limitation of freedom of speech. Justice features One, my favourite track off this tracklist and of all the tracks ever released Metallica, based on the fate of a solider who was left limbless by the war, blind, deaf, mute, hooked to machines and unable to communicate with the outer world, despite the fact that he is fully conscious. The other tracks that stand out are Blackened, rather agressive, speaking about mass destruction, Eye of the Beholder, on the subjectivity of freedom, Harvester of Sorrow, about mistakes and grim happenings repeated as a mark left by an earlier generation, and To Live is To Die, a mainly instrumental composition written in the memory of former bassist Cliff Burton.

...And Justice for All is a definite classic, ageless heavy metal, a shout of protest still heard loud and clear through the decades. Horns up.

When a man lies

He murders some part of the world

These are the pale deaths

Which men miscall their lives

All this I cannot bear to witness any longer

Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home?

Exit Light, Enter Night

Metallica's most played song on the radio, Enter Sandman is a kickass classic, powerful, and with every note falling in its exact place. A milestone for the band, it was the first single from The Black Album/Metallica (self titled) album in '91, when the band headed towards a slightly more mainstream direction. The song became a huge succes after its release, battling Smells like Teen Spirit for popularity at the time.

Kirk Hammet wrote the intro trying to capture some of Soundgarden's energy into a powerful guitar riff, so after various attempts, Hammet recorded the final version of the solo on a tape that he later showed Ulrich, and the songwriting took off from there.

The band quickly put together the rest of the instrumental part, but the lyrics took a longer while, as Hetfield said that the commercial sound needed a dark story, so that it would be balanced. He first wanted the theme to be death, with references to crib death and destroying the perfect family. However, the band then decided to make the song the opening track for The Black Album and the first single, so they changed the lyrics' theme to something lighter, which was a child's struggle with nightmares.

Dreams of war, dreams of liars

Dreams of dragon's fire

And of things that will bite

Wicked

Single Covers

One (...And Justice for All, January 10, 1989)

Wherever I May Roam (The Black Album, October 19, 1992)

Creeping Death (Ride the Lightning, November 23, 1984)

For Whom the Bell Tolls

30 years ago, on the glorious month of October, unspecified day, the band Metallica was oficially formed. Therefore, any day of October could be Metallica's 30 year anniversary, so we should have a 31 days long party.

ahgdjhgsadjgasjhdgasghdajgdjahgdjagjhsda YESSSSSSSSSS, who's in?

30 years of musical revolution, almost twice as much as I've been around. Metallica is forever going to be my favourite band. They completely changed heavy metal, they're flawless, they're the Chuck Norris of music, I could spend this whole month just ranting about them and their music. Which is what I'm going to do. Metallica posts only for the next month, cheers to that !

As you are, as you were

Happy 20th aniversary, Nevermind!

Nevermind the fact that it was actually yesterday.

On september 24th, 1991, Nirvana released the masterpiece that today is one of the most iconic records in the history of music. Smells like Teen Spirit, Come as You Are, Lithium, Polly, Something in the Way music played by angels. Only the angels wore bleached jeans and used shirts, forgot to shave for a few days and were a little bit stoned. But still.

Bitch

The original classy bastards.

Slash's Snakepit

One of Slash's projects back from when he was still a part of GnR. Original lineup also has GnR bandmates, drummer Matt Sorum and guitarist Gilby Clarke + Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez + Jellyfish's Eric Dover as a lead vocalist.

Could you even dare to ask for more? Press play if you haven't done that already and be thankful that this kickass piece of music is now part of your life. Or be an audio junkie like me and go listen to the whole '95 album. You are most welcome.

Friday-1, I'm in love

Roses are red, violets are blue, the Cure are lovely, and I'm an ignorant.

I only knew them from Misfits' soundtrack, but today it just hit me out of the blue that I want to listen to The Cure. So I did. All day so far. I'm sorry, office mates.

Why were they not on my list of great bands before? I do not know.

For a full bio go here, I hit the exit button pretty quick though, I'm going to take the time to go through all the "technical" details some other time, for now I'm just going to ignorantly enjoy their music after haven't had done so till today. "Lullaby", "The Lovecats", "A Forest", here, in case anyone wants to listen to alternative rock slightly goth rock at times with post-punk influences and turning pop sometimes, depending on which phase of The Cure the song was released in. Lullaby is my personal favourite so far. And look at their wicked album artworks.

I want to host a tea party where everyone wears ripped clothes and dark make-up, sips tea out of tiny teacups with flowers on them and talks about life beyond death and obscure old records and books, all while listening to The Cure. Which would be quite eerie.

Space may be the final frontier / But it's made in a Hollywood basement

Red Hot Chili Peppers have fascinated me ever since I was a kid and saw Californication on VH1 for the first time. Of course, back then i had a pretty general opinion on music and didn't really understand their message, but a few years after, I really started listening to these guys.

They're amazing. The exact kind of artists I love, creating a whole new musical genre of their own, inspired by real-life experience. I don't exactly know how to put it into words, the kid i was when i first heard Caliornication loved them just as much as I do now, even though now I also get the meaning behind the music.

Red Hot Chili Peppers are a mixture of alternative rock, funk and hard-rock, and the list of bands and people that influenced them varies from Bob Marley to Bad Brains and Led Zeppelin to Miles Davis and Elvis Presley. Each RHCP member had a different musical evolution and brought his own style and musical preference into the band, which resulted into what RHCP sounds like today.

The lyrics were written by the vocalist, Anthony Kiedis, which I find to be a very interesting man with a very interesting story. He spent his teenage years in LA and had one of the Hollywood's favourite drug dealers at the time for a father, who provided bands such as Led Zeppelin and The Who. He lost his virginity at age 12 with daddy's 18 years old girlfriend and consent, and at 14 he almost died from his first cocaine dose. Up till 2000, since he has been clean, he spent his life struggling with addictions, the 1st wake-up call being his band mate Hillel Slovak's death due to heroin overdose, still, that only turned him into an on and off user for a while. His life experience, as well as the other members' life experience as RHCP evolved, reflects into the lyrics, with themes such as love, romance, sex, drug abuse, politics, globalization, loneliness and dealing with death.

Kickass people making kickass music, putting the knowledge they gained since '83 in the songs as a sign of aging, but keeping the young energy alive. I can pretty much see them at 65 still rocking out on rooftops, making weird faces in photos, dressing tacky-punker clothes and releasing trippy music videos.

9 days left till the new album, I'm with you is out.

(Awesome artwork, by the way, 1st pic, the one with the fly on the pill.)

Till then, Stadium Arcadium:Jupiter and Blood Sugar Sex Magik are back in my playlist.

Ain't No Sunshine

Bill Withers' original "Ain't no Sunshine" in 1971 has known, over time, quite a number of covers of various genres, from worldwide known artists such as Lenny Kravitz and Michael Jackson (back from when he was a kid) to more obscure bands that had a different approach to the original song resulting in tracks such as Atlas' smooth-jazzy-funky cover (my personal favourite) or Subsonica's dub sounding version, or, another great one, the drum'n'bass cover belonging to Bachelors of Science, which, i admit, slightly ashamed of my 21st century ignorance, was my first contact ever with this masterpiece. That doesn't change the fact that Bachelors of Science did an awesome job, though :)

The original song was inspired by the 1962 movie Days of Wine and Roses and its characters struggling with alcohol addiction, as they miss something that is obviously harmful to them.

P.S Sidenote on the original clip, that drummer is awesome xD as the people posting the comments noticed it too, "He knows something we don't." *drummer grin*

The Ultimate Experience

Adding another blog post on the biography of Jimi Hendrix to the internet would be somehow unnecessary, since the gentlemen working for Wikipedia and Rolling Stone have done an impecable job already.

Today i felt like doing nothing, which leaves plenty of place for enjoying history written in musical lyrics and guitar tabs by someone who started out as a man who really enjoyed experimenting with sounds.

'42-'70, the time when the earth was walked by one of, if not, the best guitarist of all times, as Rolling Stone claims. He was a true guitar god, completely changing the view upon playing the instrument for the artists that followed. Being left-handed, he played a regular guitar upside-down. Unicity was a keyword for all his shows, always a theatrical presence, playing the instrument with his teeth or behind his back, Hendrix sure knew how to set the guitar on fire (literally, sometimes, like he did at the Monterey Pop Festival).

I don't really know much about Hendrix as a person, and I honestly do not care, his music, a true masterpiece of blues and psychedelic rock, has won him my respect forever. I'm going to dedicate this week to listening to everything ever released, before and after his death.

Meanwhile, my favourite song remains The Wind Cries Mary, which, weirdly, is said to have been written after an argument between Hendrix and his then girlfriend over her cooking. The food must've been awful since she left afterwards and he had to write a song to bring her back :) here's the song, in case you don't know it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXstzHzkXk. Beautiful.

Until It Sleeps

This song quickly made its way to my heart a few days ago, after hearing it again in a while. It is the 4th song from Metallica's LP Load, released in 1996. The lyrics, written by Hetfield, speak about both his parents' death due to cancer, and the pain described can either be Hetfield emotional struggle or his parents physical pain through the disease.

Another amazing song added to the list of amazing songs written and performed by Metallica.

Metallica-Until it Sleeps