What can I say? Metallica rocks.
When I first picked up St. Anger at Best Buy, the week of its release, I was disappointed. The album starts as cliche as possible
“My lifestyle determines my deathstyle”
Frantic
And while some songs have good lines
“Fuck it all and no regrets”
St. Anger
The album underperformed…
Until I read Xenocide by Orson Scott Card, in which a protagonist lives with a misdiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. Suddenly more of the album made sense:
Been here before couldn’t say I liked it
Do I start writing all this down?…
Name this for me, heat the cold air
Take the chill off of my life…
It comes alive
And I die a little more
It comes alive
Each momnent here I die a little moreThen the unnamed feeling
It comes alive
Then the unnamed feeling
Takes me away
And then, yesterday, watched Some Kind of Monster, a documentary of the creation of St. Anger
It was amazingly good.
The documentary team was hired to create a “The Osbornes”-style reality tv miniseries, which would show the wacky hijinx three musicians would have writing a new hit album.
The result was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, a psychological drama of conflicting goals and (non-humorous) unethical therapy.
Further, Some Kind of Monster gives the songs and lyrics of St. Anger new meaning. I hadn’t listened to the album all the way through since August. I’ve listened to it several times today.
Both Some Kind of Monster and St. Anger are highly recommended. Get them both!
