Billboard Beatdown: Metallica - “The Four Horsemen”
Today’s Billboard Beatdown goes old school, and you can’t get much more old school than Kill ‘Em All-era Metallica. This one takes me back to a very specific time and place in my life. Junior high school. Kent, Washington.
This was the hardest, heaviest, most evil thing I had ever heard in my entire life. I still remember sneaking this tape into the house, dubbing it (Shhh, don’t tell Lars!), and listening to as loudly quiet as I could. The music demanded volume, not being detected by my parents demanded quiet. I considered listening to it through headphones, but that meant listening to everything through headphones. I was pretty sure my folks would put it together if I only put headphones on at certain times. What can I say? That was my life.
I still have vivid memories of the dingy, hardwood floor of the oddly-shaped bedroom in our rental house. My bedroom was rectangular. It was longer than it was wide. At least that’s how I remember it now. My Emerson dual cassette boombox with detachable speakers sat atop my dresser. I would stand right in front of the dresser, substituting proximity for volume, and alternate between air guitar and air bass. Damn, I was talented. It took Hetfield, Hammett, and Burton to do what I could do on my own. At that time, my favorite part of the song was when it slowed down and Cliff Burton’s bass climbed the ladder and Kirk Hammett’s lead took on a more bluesy tone than is typical of him (the segment right after the “Time has taken its toll on you…” stanza).
I was a total hair metal dork at this stage in my life, and Metallica represented something far more sinister than my Def Leppard and Cinderella cassettes were offering. These guys played louder, harder, and faster than anything I was listening to at that time. The first line from Kill ‘Em All is “No life ’til leather/ we’re gonna kick some ass tonight.” That single profanity was enough to get me grounded and the tape confiscated. It’s also a hell of a cool gauntlet to throw down at the beginning of an album.
“The Four Horsemen” took that opening salvo and took it up a notch. No longer were we kicking ass, we were talking about death, destruction, annihilation, and the apocalypse. This was about as metal and forbidden as it got for a 15-year old geek being raised in the Christian, suburban home. I couldn’t process all the differences between Metallica and the hair metal community and what they meant, but I saw them. Even though I still loved my music, I knew there was something costumed and dramatized about the way they did business. We didn’t call it hair metal then, but part of me knew that’s what it was. I just didn’t care.
At that time, to me, Metallica seemed above all that. These were ugly fuckers with hair that was long without being big. This was music that went beyond image. These guys looked like the kind of guys who just might kill ‘em all. Being the dork that I was, I was both drawn to and afraid of the menace in the music.
Twenty years later, I no longer worry about my mom finding out I listen to Metallica. “The Four Horsemen” doesn’t seem quite as evil as it did back then, but it is a signpost for me. It reminds me of a time in my life when I was sheltered enough to think this stuff was really evil. It reminds me of a time when I was in search for an identity. I was an awkward kid, looking for an identity to try on and that was the one I chose. In my defense, I was also a big fan of electric guitar music and you weren’t going to get that on rap records or dance music. It is one more reminder that my search for identity almost always began and ended with music. It reminds me that I was the baddest air guitar/air bassist on the planet. It reminds me how thankful I am my parents didn’t have a camcorder when I was a kid. The still photographs are plenty mortifying (no, I’m not posting any them). The only video evidence of this awkward stage of my life lives inside my memories. I wouldn’t burn those to a DVD even if I could.
Oh, and you can tell Lars I later bought the CD. He can hang up with his lawyers now.
Billboard Beatdown: Fanboy alternatives to the top of the Billboard Charts.
Filed under: Tags: Billboard Beatdown, Metallica
I didn’t grow up in the same era as you but I loved Metallica up until (and including) the Black album. It does seem pretty tame by todays standards, but I’m pretty sure Lars of 25 years ago would kick Lars of todays ass.
Thanks for the comment, Alec. I don’t completely subscribe to the “rock and roll is a young man’s game” theory, but listen to early and late-period Metallica and do the math.
I was with them through Load. I thought they still had some ideas on that record. After that, they really slid in my eyes.
I was never a metal fan but Metallica always seemed a cut above. Good music is good music.
Am I still cool if I came to Metallica through a book? I dug Johnny Got His Gun in school and when I found out that “One” was sort of based on that and the video used clips from the movie I had to give it a listen.
Never became a huge Metallica fan afterthat, but bought a few records.
Before the black album, I remember exactly two kids in my junior high who knew who Metallica were as the wore denim jackets with their patches sewed upon them. I can’t say they were very popular. And that’s your random memory for the day.
Brewster, you never were cool so don’t worry about it.
Vivid random memories. The denim jackets with the band patches were killer, weren’t they?
My parents would have never let me get those kinds of patches on my denim jacket. I am convinced that’s what kept me from coolness. What’s your excuse again?
Thanks, Jon. I know what you mean. I have certain artists whose work I like even if their particular genre doesn’t normally get it done for me.
Ah, but see the truth is I really was cool, it’s just that the redneck cowpokes I went to school with couldn’t tell.
Denim Jackets with Metal stickers = way cooler than letter jackets
uh….i used to have a Ted Nugent belt buckle.
I was a big bowl of uncool either way. That was a stresser for awhile, but then I reached a point of realizing I could be happier than some kids because I was so far from it I was above it all in some strange way. Does that make any sense?
The Nuge belt buckle is the epitome of cool.
Wow. You know, it was that very song (The Four Horsemen) that lured me away from Top 40 radio forever. When my best friend said, “listen to this” and played me the “choose your fate and die” riff on his electric guitar in his basement…. I just widened my eyes.
“What the hell is THAT?!” I said… and a love of Kill ‘em All began. I never really thought of it as evil…. more like, just gnarly. They just like to talk about things that are grisly and dark, but they never really seemed to advocate any kind of bad behavior except headbanging and excess.
When I listen to Kill Em All, Lightning, and Puppets these days, I still hear an incredibly dynamic band with classical training and sensibilities. Plus, a sense of how to think of things to say that just sounded cool and jaded. Which I loved. I still do.
Okay wait, one more Metallica story. I had a crush on a Christian girl in High School, and she was bagging on Metallica one day. I contested that they really weren’t satanic, and that she should LISTEN to a Metallica album. Of course I gave her the soft-core black album.
She came back the next day and I said, “So?” She said, “What about ‘The God that Failed?’”…. I stammered something about it being about society and disappointment, but I had to admit she sort of had a point.
now EVIL: i picked up a copy of Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads last weekend. geezuz, some hair-raising stuff there.
Thanks, Daniel, those are great stories. You should have gone mix tape with the girl so that you could properly sanitize it (not Satan-ize it) so that she’d be suitably impressed.
I prefer my murder ballads sung by Lanegan, Saleski, but there is some good stuff on that record. I’ve actually not heard it all, but rather songs from it.
Fucking classic, man. Probably the best song on Kill ‘em all for me, it’s a juggernaut.
Ah Metallica, sigh, undoubtedly the most important band in my musical development. Discovered them when I was 15 and I’ve never looked back. They don’t get quite the same amount of listening these days as when I was firsting raging to Master of Puppets, but I’ll still throw on an album every now and again.
Who cares? Kitkat bars.
i’m partial to And Justice For All myself.
Nice review, but when Kill ‘Em All came out, there were no Cinderella cassettes…..
POSER!!!
Ahh, Mike… I never claimed to get Kill ‘Em All the day it came out. I most certainly did not. I was comparing this Metallica record to things I was listening at the time, and I was listening to Metallica and Cinderella at the same time.
I assure you, if I were going to pose it would be in the form of something far cooler. That said, thanks for reading and commenting.
I too got into Metallica in Junior High. I started with Ozzy and Sabbath in the 5th grade. By 7th a friend who knew how much i liked the Doom and Gloom of Ozzy era Sabbath, gave me 3 tapes. Metallica “Kil Em All”, Anthrax “Armed and Dangerous” and Slayer “Haunting the Chapel”..
By 8th grade i had bought a guitar. I became a huge Thrash MEtal fan over the next few years and by “Master of Puppets” (which incidentally, like Sabbath’s Master of Reality, is the 3rd LP and the Hardest, obviously metallica was attempting to follow Sabbath’s blueprint, even the name does..Master of “fill in the blank”) metallica was easily my favorite. by the time Master had come out, i knew almost every metallica song on guitar, including most leads. Not so much with Slayer and Anthrax..
THEN BURTON DIED..
Then came the garage days covers.
then “And Justice”.
then the Grammy Appearance were Hetfield sang and removed the curses to one. kirk played the wrong notes on the lead and made some mistakes. they sounded bad and nervous yet i could tell they werent rebelling against anything. they wanted to be on that stage playing to people sitting down in black suits..
i knew they were done.
Metallica never seemed evil to me. Slayer however with Chemical Warfare was quite a extreme band and by the time they releases Reign in Blood and South of Heaven, slayer was quickly becomeing my fav Thrash MEtal band.
I’m 34 years old. I still listen to Metal. I was NEVER into hair metal..bands like slayer and metallica offered me Hard, Angry Metal without the makeup and posturing.. they were regular looking dudes who were all about the music..
i still listen to Slayer. I also listen to alot of death metal, like Nile, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, etc.. I dont listen to any old Metallica anymore and everything after AND Justice is commercialized, boring POP metal. Now all these years later Metallica is seen as a few things.
the inventors of thrash
the best metal band
revolutionary
..
Metallica has not been thrash since 89. Metallica didnt invent thrash, listen to Diamondhead’s first LP with Am I Evil. Metallica stole their sound. Their technicality is subpar and is why they went commercial. The havent been revolutionary in any sense since 88-89. They are the ac/dc of thrash metal.. Simple to play, easy to listen to.. and over the years Slayer has gotten better, more extreme and are still angry.
I say that Slayer should be given more credit since they are still ding it. Metallica gave up on their roots only 8 years into their game. They commercialized themselves. I have not heard Kill em ALL in many many years, but the last time i heard it all i thought was how dated and boring it is.
So in closing i will say in life i learned that gaining popularity equals getting credit for things you dont deserve and the larger than life status gives way to a skewed and biased history… Slayer’ s influence created a new genre of METAL.. (Death metal), Metallic’s legacy will be they got Jocks and Def Leppard fans to buy a “heavy” LP (the black one) and they made millions of dollars watering down the genre they initially perpetrated. Some kind of Monster proved to me that they must have been fakes all along. Who knew they were really EMO dudes..
Thrash metal was a heady genre for those who wanted extreme music that was about technicality and brutaliy. Metallica hasnt fit that mold for almost 20 years. It is insulting to give them crdit for anything more than what the truth is.
Hail Slayer, F metallica.
Wow, ChemWar, that’s pretty in depth. I think you might have missed my point. I was writing from the perspective of someone in his 30s looking back on his teenage years. My perception of Metallica as “evil” came in large part due to the sheltered existence I’d experienced to that point. When I look back on it now, it seems a bit silly.
I’m not interested in crowning Metallica or Slayer as the kings of anything.
While my preference at the time were the British acts, missing seeing Metallica on this tour is one of my big regrets. They were playing Cleveland(Ohio) on the day I came back from my first quarter in college in Toledo(Ohio) and my friend would have got me a ticket but I passed since I already owed him a bit of money(and didn’t have any). MUYA.
Hey “Chemical Warfare”
SLAYER SUCK! YAY LET’S ALL SING ABOUT BLOOD AND THE DEVIL, WHILE BANGING AWAY ON DRUMS AT 600MPH WITH CRAPPY GUITAR SOLO’S!
Just Kidding
Metallica Rule