 List Price: $18.98
Lowest Price: $9.79 
Album Description: The band's 1996 album coupled with the four track CD single'Live In London', featuring 'Bleeding Me', 'Damage Inc' andcovers of Queen's 'Stone Cold Crazy' & Killing Joke's 'TheWait'. 18 tracks total. The single is a slimline jewel case;'Load' is in a stand Amazon.com: With Load, Metallica takes a dramatic left turn with their music, continuing in the direction suggested by Metallica, their previous album. The songs on Load have groove; they're slower, with far fewer of the lightning-fast riffs that have been Metallica's trademark since their inception. While songs like "Ain't My Bitch" and "Wasting My Hate" are up-tempo and full of the vitriol one would expect from the quintessential heavy metal band, "2 X 4" is hard rock with a blues beat, "Hero of the Day" sounds positively mainstream, and "Mama Said" is an actual, honest-to-god ballad. While some diehard fans may find this mix unappealing, there's plenty to like about this album, including its laid-back, rhythmic orientation, and James Hetfield's characteristic growl tempered by his growing maturity as a vocalist. -- Genevieve Williams Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-30
12 Years Later...
I've been listening to Metallica for 20 years now and have to say that Load has grown on me over the years; "The Bleeding of Me" in particular pretty much sums up a man's struggle with work and life - something that I couldn't have identified with back then. The album is mature and worth a good listen to. If you want thrash, listen to the early albums if you want to listen to a maturing band this is a great example of their work in the pre-Trujillo era. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-22
I love Metallica, the problem is....
when this album was released, I listened to it day in and day out, learned every song, and tried to convince myself that I loved it, but the truth is, these songs are Metallica going too far. This album is over produced, with lots of studio tricks and sound layering, everything that Metallica is NOT. Also, these songs do NOT translate well at all to the stage, I've heard many of them live and they make me cringe. However, that being said, there are a few things worth having, "Outlaw Torn" and "Bleeding Me". Buy those two tunes for your ipod. I don't listen to this CD at all anymore. Reload is actually better, but still falls flat of what makes Metallica a great band. They fell into the million dollar, over-produced, egotistical recording trap when making Load and Reload. Rating: 
Date: 2008-05-16
Metallica's continued decline.
UUGH!!!
Someone please tell me what this disc is supposed to accomplish?
I'll tell you. It accomplished in destroying Metallica's reputation.
I knew this would happen. They were out of ideas, the sucess of their sell out "black" album completly destroyed the group. Metallica became a heavy version of Motley Crue or Poison. With poofy hair and makeup for good measure. Too bad for them, it ruined thier reputation with all the fans that made them what they are. And all the jock rockers with their five minute attention span abandoned them.
Where would they go after this?
I didn't think it would get worse, but sadly...IT DID! Rating: 
Date: 2008-04-24
underrated 90's rocker
I'm one of those annoying 80's Metallica fans. My favorite Metallica album is Ride the Lightning, and over the many years of listening to Metallica I've spent more time listening to the band's first three albums than the rest of their catalog. But I have a dark secret that most 80's Metallica fans don't have; I really, really like Load. In fact, I think Load is Metallica's superior 90's work. Load is a much better album than The Black Album.
Unfortunately, Load is not a metal album. Load is a straight up rock album, with splashes of blues and country, and even a little early grunge thrown into the mix. That's right; I hear splashes of Soundgarden and Silverchair on Load.
Because Load is not a metal album, and Metallica previously established themselves as a metal band in the 80s, problems have inevitably arisen. This always baffles me, because Metallica's 1991 release, The Black Album, is not a metal album either. The fact is, Metallica's last _metal_ album was ...And Justice For All.
So, logically, if The Black Album wasn't metal, why would fans expect Load to be metal?
The answer is strangely complicated. For some reason, a lot of Metallica fans cling to The Black Album maintaining that it was the band's last good album, their last metal album. This is absolute crap, and reveals quite a bit about how shallow a lot of Metallica fans are. The truth is, The Black Album is a solid rocker that doesn't compare to any of the bands 80's works, and it is full of radio-friendly rock songs. One thing that The Black Album is not is metal. The Black Album has more parallels to the alternative sound that was emerging in '89, '90 and '91 than it does to the metal albums that were being released in those three years. Obviously, I don't expect everyone on Amazon to agree with that statement. However, if we accept that Load resembles something closer to "The Black Album" than "Master of Puppets," then we have already established a good foundation. Any Metallica fan that likes The Black Album but doesn't like Load is either lying, or doesn't understand rock and roll.
Let us pretend, hypothetically, that Metallica secretly released Load under a different band name; Muffins. Now, the band Muffins doesn't have a bunch of 80's fans comparing their mid-90's rock album to some mid-80's metal album.
The truth is, Muffin's album Load is a top notch rocker. Released in 1996, Load has flares or rock, blues, country and alternative. The song Bleeding Me has a spacey 70's rock vibe. Hero Of The Day is a straight up modern day ballad. The song Cure has a lot in common with some of the grunge tunes released by Soundgarden and Silverchair, and the entire album feels like it's been spiritually touched by ZZ Top. All these elements sound pretty awesome, especially if they are all combined into one sweet compact disc, right?
Load is a long album; however all of the songs are good. You don't have to worry about skipping any tracks. The reality is that Load is a straight up rocker with infinite appeal for fans of bands like AC/DC and ZZ Top.
What Load is not is a 90's metal album. Metallica fans, especially Metallica fans stuck in the 80s, are the worst candidates to review this album. My advice to all 80's Metallica fans is to realize that when metal disappeared into the underground in 1990, and grunge emerged as the radio-favorite, Metallica stayed in the mainstream. If you want 90's metal, go dig for some of the stuff that stayed under the radar. Death's Human came out in 1991, and is miles ahead of The Black Album if you are in the market for 90's metal.
(no pun intended) Cliffnote: if St. Anger was released by the hypothetical band Muffins, it would still suck. St. Anger is just a bad album, regardless of prior expectations or the band name on the album cover. Just though I'd humor the idea.
Rating:
Date: 2008-03-30
5 stars
just wanted to give this a 5 star after all the other reviews i like all metallica cd's some better than others - some worse , but still like them all |
