Original Rock/ Metal reviews

breffni666

Where would one find old "at the time" reviews of metal albums e.g Metallica's Master of Puppets in MH or Kerrang or other publications. Was the album lauded at the time as the masterpiece it was/is or was it a grower. Would love to seee the old origanal reviews of old metal/ rock albums to compare with what we know of them today.

Motley Crue

I'll give you an interesting one, the review from Kerrang for Metallica's self titled album in 1991....I'm not sure where you'd find it (I know a poster had a picture of it a few months ago on this site) and they basically slated it and called it one of the worst albums ever made

Malice

This thread might help. The Usenet archive on there only goes back as far as 1989 but Usenet itself has been around since 1980.

Welsh Megaman

Motley Crue wrote: »

I'll give you an interesting one, the review from Kerrang for Metallica's self titled album in 1991....I'm not sure where you'd find it (I know a poster had a picture of it a few months ago on this site) and they basically slated it and called it one of the worst albums ever made

On the contrary Motley, they gave it a good review (I have all the back issues of Kerrang form 1991-1994). I'll type it up/scan it in full later on - in work at the moment.

Motley Crue

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

On the contrary Motley, they gave it a good review (I have all the back issues of Kerrang form 1991-1994). I'll type it up/scan it in full later on - in work at the moment.

Umm...maybe it was a different publication. I seem to remember it getting slated because they put the "review" in their tour programme of the subsequent tour. But yes, I'd be delighted to see it

Maybe it was a letter from a listener. Could you look, if you have it, in the 2 issues after the Black album review came out and maybe there's a letter written to Kerrang about how bad the album is - this "fan" didn't hold back, I do specifically remember reading something like that

I think he also used the line "if Freddie Mercury heard your version of Stone Cold Crazy he'd throw up!" so it was obviously in the short time between the release of the Black Album and the death of Mercury

Welsh Megaman

Motley Crue wrote: »

Umm...maybe it was a different publication. I seem to remember it getting slated because they put the "review" in their tour programme of the subsequent tour. But yes, I'd be delighted to see it

Maybe it was a letter from a listener. Could you look, if you have it, in the 2 issues after the Black album review came out and maybe there's a letter written to Kerrang about how bad the album is - this "fan" didn't hold back, I do specifically remember reading something like that

I think he also used the line "if Freddie Mercury heard your version of Stone Cold Crazy he'd throw up!" so it was obviously in the short time between the release of the Black Album and the death of Mercury

Will do, I remember reading somewhere that Black Sabbath's first few albums used to be regularly slated by the press especially Rolling Stone (although they've been known to be prickly towards heavy metal). Crazy, as they are now considered blueprints of an entire genre!

dcr22B

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

Will do, I remember reading somewhere that Black Sabbath's first few albums used to be regularly slated by the press especially Rolling Stone (although they've been known to be prickly towards heavy metal). Crazy, as they are now considered blueprints of an entire genre!

That's definitely true. Was watching "Seven Ages of Rock" this morning and Geezer Butler was saying that all the music publications at the time hated Sabbath and their peers.

Welsh Megaman

Ah, the good ole days when Xavier Russell would use k's instead of c's.

hidinginthebush

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

Will do, I remember reading somewhere that Black Sabbath's first few albums used to be regularly slated by the press especially Rolling Stone (although they've been known to be prickly towards heavy metal). Crazy, as they are now considered blueprints of an entire genre!

dcr22B wrote: »

That's definitely true. Was watching "Seven Ages of Rock" this morning and Geezer Butler was saying that all the music publications at the time hated Sabbath and their peers.

Keeping in the theme of Sabbath, I heard that they were so hated in the States when they first went over that they once got a terrible review for a gig... they didn't play! The reviewer showed up early, and left before they came on, and slated them in a review, whereas Sabbath actually cancelled the gig due to unforseen circumstances.

Also, what's the "very strange edit" halfway through "Sad but true" mentioned in the Kerrang article?

jpm4

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

Ah, the good ole days when Xavier Russell would use k's instead of c's.

<big image>

What the hell was the IDEA of putting random WORDS in upper case??

Malice

Krist all those Ks kan make the piece kwite hard to read. Was your man trying to be klever? He just comes akross as a klown instead.

jack presley

I've an old Kerrang book called the 'Direktory of Metal' which is basically an A-Z of metal up until about 92-93. For their top 50 bands, they give a little synopsis of their album's reviews that originally appeared in Kerrang. Here's a bit of what they said about their albums up until then (except the Black album as the full review listed above)

Kill em all - "Mirror, mirror on the all, who's the fastest of them all? Motorhead? Venom? Metallicaaaaaaaaarrrrgh! KKKKK"

Ride the Lightning - "One of the greatest, most original heavy metal albums of all time KKKK"

Master of Puppets - "If you like to believe that even your worst mania has at least some hidden meaning...'Master of Puppets' is most definitely the album for you KKKKK".

...and Justice for all - "Lars' drum sound is really odd. Will finally put Metallica into the big league KKK"

Welsh Megaman

Malice wrote: »

Krist all those Ks kan make the piece kwite hard to read. Was your man trying to be klever? He just comes akross as a klown instead.

He used them for all his reviews until grunge arrived. Then it started to look a bit silly.

MetalDog

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

He used them for all his reviews until grunge arrived. Then it started to look a bit silly.

Kurt and Krist didn't mind though . . .

xtradel

That review was one diffikult kunt of a read.

Lucifer31

Still have the St. Anger review Metal Hammer put out in 2003. I bought the album on the merit of it - listened to the album - read the review again, and concluded: I've been duped. They rated it (incorrectly) very highly.

hidinginthebush

Lucifer31 wrote: »

Still have the St. Anger review Metal Hammer put out in 2003. I bought the album on the merit of it - listened to the album - read the review again, and concluded: I've been duped. They rated it (incorrectly) very highly.

I seem to recall an interview that kept saying how it was faster than Slayer, groovier than Pantera, amoung other things. I was disappointed when I listened to it, to put it nicely.

Motley Crue

xtradel wrote: »

That review was one diffikult kunt of a read.

Yes I totally agree, I don't have a clue what was going on....did anybody find that "letter to the editor" blasting Metallica yet?

mike65

Xavier Russell was always my least favourite Kerrang scribbler (along with Dave Dickson)

hidinginthebush

mike65 wrote: »

Xavier Russell was always my least favourite Kerrang sKribbler (along with Dave Dickson)

FYP

Kess73

hidinginthebush wrote: »

FYP

Should you not have had Dikkson?




You can take that sentence anyway you like.

Welsh Megaman

Motley Crue wrote: »

Yes I totally agree, I don't have a clue what was going on....did anybody find that "letter to the editor" blasting Metallica yet?

I think I found what you're looking for Motley, in K!357 (dated September 7, 1991)





The Hammersmith event he is referring to was a kompetition to attend an exclusive playbakk of the 'Blakk' album (sorry).

lord lucan

Is this the one you're thinking of Crue? It was printed in the Tour Programme from the Wherever We May Roam Tour in '92.

jpm4

hidinginthebush wrote: »

I seem to recall an interview that kept saying how it was faster than Slayer, groovier than Pantera, amoung other things. I was disappointed when I listened to it, to put it nicely.

I think Kerrang did something similar - 4 Ks I think. I do remember reading an interview K did with Lars sometime later when the journalist made some passing reference to St Anger being a load of s**t. Lars pointed out that Kerrang had given St Anger a good review at the time, fair play to the little f**ker.