One of two original tracks premiered at the orchestral S&M is included (“No Leaf Clover”), yet nothing would be as satisfying as seeing something like “Battery” in its place. There are two entries here from the covers collection Garage Inc., a rocked-up rendition of the traditional “Whiskey in the Jar” and a cover of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page”, which may be of interest to fans because it’s not likely they got much airplay when they were released, with their liberal, barely-censored use of nudity (they’re all girls, if you needed reassuring). “Fuel”, however, is terrible it uses grainy footage from a grand-prix and is so poorly written that it qualifies as their second worst single ever (behind “Some Kind of Monster”, which gets its own paragraph below). By the end, in fact, it has the band standing on four giant separate pillars playing their respective instruments and it’s just the slightest bit pretentious. But at least it’s fresh, unlike “Unforgiven II”, which seems like a way to rehash their recognized classic, making it notably mopier and less majestic than the original. It must have been fun for the band filming “The Memory Remains” in a revolving room, and it’s the band’s first single as of yet to include a guest vocalist, the folksy Marianne Faithfull, which is really laying it on at the listener’s expense… but the music is marred by blandness and repetition, making it impossible to enjoy. Let’s get this straight exploring your own psyche when you’re a big rock star is allowed, right? And if “Hero of the Day” is essentially understated and faceless, it’s an anthemic, soap-opera like clip again filmed in monochrome, while “King Nothing”, the last of the Load entries, has them all rigged-up in the snow wearing sunglasses (err, hello U2…). “Mama Said”, which was apparently never aired in America, makes for interesting viewing, as it’s a plainly acoustic country-tinged ballad that features him in a cowboy hat musing about his relationship with his mother. The transition into the Load/ ReLoad years is immediately apparent on The Videos: no longer does percussionist Lars Ulrich rule the rhythms like he does in the first six singles, and Hetfield’s singing style has a complete makeover. Fans who’ve always wanted to know how to play the interwoven electric/acoustic guitar riff of “Nothing Else Matters”, yet never could find the right tab, can finally find satisfaction here, via bare-bones footage of the band in the album’s recording studio, featuring the frequent close-up on Hetfield’s fingers.Ī decade later, they were copying Alice in Chains, with an animal menagerie taken straight from “Angry Chair” in the clip “Until it Sleeps”, with the darkness and religious symbolism borrowed from Live. Metallica obviously realize that mixing a stylized plot into their videos is distracting - I mean, are we meant to watch the storyline or listen to the music? - so the other singles are matched with filming of live and backstage highlights from the tour supporting The Black Album for the viewer’s pleasure. “Enter Sandman” is given big-budget video treatment, combining flashing stills of the band performing with a narrative that suits the sludgy riffs and James Hetfield’s twisted lullaby lyric… though I didn’t really need to see a child almost getting run over by a truck. Then it’s into Metallica’s mainstream days, a journey beginning with an indulgent five cuts from the mega-selling Black Album. Introducing a video clip that segues black and white footage of a band ‘jamming’ (that description’s self-pegged) with a war movie ( Johnny’s Got A Gun) that Alice in Chains later copied in their own hit “Rooster” to prove a point, “One”, from the band’s last thrash set, 1988’s …And Justice for All, is even more chilling when presented on the big screen, one of those rare songs that you can’t truly know until you’ve seen the clip, all seven minutes of it. How appropriate that their most influential and fondly-remembered video is also first. But for better or worse, their video singles have nearly all been strong, and this DVD proves it, doing its job admirably in being an accessible means of checking out the workings of an influential hard rock band. Considering The Videos, a comprehensive run-down on Metallica’s MTV history spanning the years 1989 to 2004, and the aesthetic approach they’ve taken to some of the videos here, it’d be really interesting to see what sort of take they’d do on their thrash classics, if only they’d recorded film clips in those days… “Fade to Black” or “Master of Puppets” come to mind.
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