I used to have a cassette of the WHIPLASH single but it's long gone (either stolen, or lost in one of my moves... Lord only knows). Wish I still had it, as I haven't seen another copy of it in a very long time. Vinyl copies are pretty pricey collectibles nowadays from what I'm told.

In addition to the CREEPING DEATH 12-inch pic disc I mentioned in my previous post, I also have a plain black vinyl 12-inch LP with the CREEPING DEATH single on one side and the JUMP IN THE FIRE single on the other.

This was the version I had. I think I played the b-side of this single (Am I Evil, Blitzkrieg) almost as much as the album.

Back to Ride The Lightning....

I'll do the Ride The Lightning singles tommorrow. That'll give people some time to discuss the album.

With Ride The Lightning Metallica expanded their sound a bit and I remember at the time that at first I was a bit dissapointed that it didn't seem as aggressive overall as Kill 'em All, but I soon got over that and loved it even more than the first album. ( in fact I remember wearing out at least two cassettes of this one in high school) There's certainly a bit more musical maturity on this disc compared to the first.

Today I'd say that this would probably rank as my second favorite Metallica disc right behind Puppets

"Ride The Lightning" still remains my favorite Metallica album.
I didn't know bout the green cover, interesting as it seems. The blue works better.

This is the first METALLICA album I ever got! A friend from high school had taped the songs "FIght Fire With Fire" and "Fade To Black" for me, thus my introduction to Metallica was complete and I had to get Ride The Lightning ASAP - I had the Megaforce Vinyl version. I played this album to death!!!!!!!! Afterwards, I quickly picked up Kill Em All (and had the Creeping Death EP! Am I Evil rocks!!!)

Every song on this album is KILLER the production is perfect for the music and sounds huge!!! I remember thinking how great the production of this album was at the time (compaired to other early undergorund Metal classics)

I used to have a bootleg of a Metallica show just before this was released with them playing FIght Fire With Fire, and I remember the timing being way off on this song (Good ol Lars!!!)

This classic still gets played by me to this day!!!!

Metall - a - Fin' - Ca!!!! Metal up you A**!!!!!

Awesome album! Thats all I can really say. They offered their fans so much more than just Thrash this time around. To me every song is classic on this album.

I recently saw WHIPLASH on Vinyl a couple weeks back. I was going to pick it up but decided against it. I think it was only around $20. I never knew that they had a single for that song so I thought it was a bootleg or something.

Ride The Lightning is my favorite Metallica and is their 2nd one I had upgraded to cd. A classic release with no weak tunes that gets plenty of play by me.

My god talk about a quantum leap in terms of song writing and performance. One of my favorite metal albums of all time, this album was so good and so different from what was going on that time that deaf tone bastards at Rolling Stone even sat up and took notice.

Produced by the band with help from Flemming Ramussen. Ramussen was an interesting choice since the heaviest band he had worked with prior to Metallica was Joe Lynn Turner fronted Rainbow line up.

This album made a huge impact on me, loved every song on the album with the expection of the song 'Escape'. Listening to this album this evening it is incredible how seasoned they sound. A year of touring with everyone from Venom , Raven and W.A.S.P. paid off. The songs are better, the arrangements are tighter and production is huge improvement.

No wonder major labels started sniffing at their door after this album was released.

Kill Em' All-The debut of the band that made me a metal fan. Like PRD, I was introduced to them by the Black Album. I ended up with copies of tapes for all the previous albums and really loved what I heard. This is a great debut and contains great thrash classics. Favorites are Hit The Lights, The Four Horsemen, Jump In The Fire, (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth...Hell, I love all the tracks. The las one I mentioned there was the first of three of the greatest instrumental tracks in thrash (metal) history and I had never heard a bass guitar sound like that before or after.

Ride The Lightning-My second favorite Metallica album and another classic. Like the debut I enjoy every song on here but my most favorite song (and one of my top Metallica songs) is Escape. The Call of Ktulu is another great instrumental. Why I love The Black Album, I can see why people mourn the sound change because these albums (and the next one) are the epitome of awesomness and no other thrash band has ever (will ever?) reached this pinnacle.

Way ahead of its time, I couldnt believe this album came out in 84, when I first heard it, I was thinking later 80's, it was just much more heavier than I was expecting. Instead of 1 dimensinal thrash, this album is metallica in a spectrum with a few more colors than before...the instrumental stuff is all brilliant. Not as cool to me as kill em all just because I dig the immature thrashing, but this album rules still. Favs: trapped under ice, escape, fade to black, etc.

man, when this album came out, it blew the metal world away! The end of '84 and the summer of '85, this album was cranked all the time by me and my friends any chance we could to anger our neighbors and anyone near our cars at the time. Blastin' "Fight Fire With Fire" as loud as possible.....ah, the memories.

Although "Master Of Puppets" is probably my favorite by Metallica, my favorite James Hetfield vocals and persona if you will, is from this '84-'85 tour. The footage Ive seen from that era, man you just cant deny James was still young and hungry but really had perfected the art of the thrash metal/heavy metal frontman. He fr***in RULED back then.

The Hetfield I see now live and in videos, I just cant even make it through a whole song.......

Metallica returned with a more mature album. This was long my favorite 'tallica album, and it is also the first one I listened to. It contains nothing but classics, from the aggressive opener "Fight Fire With Fire", to the ballad-esque "Fade To Black", this album is a masterpiece! I love every second of it, and every song would be on my best-of Metallica list. 'Ride The Lightning' sets the standard high for Metallica. Back when it was released, some fans thought they had sold out, changing their sound from all-the-way thrash, to a more melodic approach. To me it's just amazing music, and they set the standard for the Bay Area thrash movement with it. And this is A MUST in every metal collection.

Killer tracks: All of them!

I tend to flip-flop between RTL and Master Of Puppets as my favorite Metallica release on any given day, but to stay on topic, today, Ride The Lightning is my favorite. This disc still gets regular spins from me. It never gets old and does contain my favorite song by the band, 'Fade To Black'.

I think this one and Kill 'em All were the first Metallica releases I purchased on cd. Got 'em both used at a local shop that I still frequent to this day.

Along with Slayer and Megadeth, Metallica's sophomore record is my favorite and in my opinion the best of their discography. MoP doesn't have the staying power of this album. I can listen to this at anytime and it still sounds fresh to my ears. Great stuff!

Here's my Ride The Lightning story:

Sometime right around Christmas of 1984 I bought a new stereo (nice Kenwood rack system), the store also sold some LPs & cassettes so I wanted to get something new to break in the new stereo with. They had Ride The Lightning up on the new release wall, something about the cover made me grab it (though I hadn't heard of them at the time). So it ended up being the first album to be played on my new stereo...and WOW...what an experience that was.

RTL is easily my favorite Metallica record, the raw agression of the first album channeled into much more sophisticated songwriting & arrangements. They hit this one out of the park....

The acoustic intro to Fight Fire With Fire was the ultimate "surprise" at the time...then when the song kicked in it was like being punched in the face...and you were grateful for it! Other moments that jumped out at me right away was the guitar solo on the intro of Trapped Under Ice..which I played over and over and the utter majesty of Creeping Death, still one of my favorite metal songs ever.

I've heard For Whom The Bell Tolls and Fade To Black a few too many times over the years, but I really loved these songs back in 84/85. Fade To Black was pretty much how every teenager felt (at least the ones I hung out with). I was never that thrilled with Escape...and Call Of The Ktulu is a little aimless...but those small quibbles aside, I still view it as an almost perfect album.

The most important aspect of Metallica though was the invisible "community" vibe that went along with it. For an aimless, depressed, withdrawn 14 year old...it was the ultimate soundtrack and Metallica was the ultimate band. Looking on the back of the albums and seeing a group that dressed just like we did...it was immediately relatable. Metallica was the first band after Kiss that I actually "worshipped". As far as I was concerned they could do no wrong in 1984/1985.

At some point after getting this record I heard Am I Evil & Blitzkrieg in a friends car...played SO LOUD that I thought my ears were going to explode. All it took was hearing Am I Evil once...I HAD TO OWN IT! The very next time I went to a record store I bought the Creeping Death single.

Ride The Lightning Singles

Fade To Black - Single


"Fade To Black" was Metallica's first attempt to mellow out a bit. The song follows Metallica's thrash ballad outline:

Slow, melodic opening--> dark lyrics--> thrash outro

The song deals with a man contemplating and then committing suicide.

It has been said that if the first chorus is played backwards, you are either paranoid or have no life at all.

Creeping Death - Single


Track Listing
A Side
Creeping Death
B Side
Am I Evil?
Blitzkrieg

This single is probably most famous for the b side covers. Diamond Head pretty much owes all its ablum sales to Metallica (don't tell Lars ) because of the cover version. Blitzkrieg, not so much.

For Whom The Bell Tolls


Metallica's last single for the album. "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is based on Hemingway's novel of the same name. The song intro is actually a bass intro played by Cliff, not a guitar intro like I thought for four years.

Fade To Black will always stay with me due to one experience. The radio station Z-Rock had a prescence in DFW for many years and they played metal and hard rock that no other station in the area did. We had The Eagle but they would never play Maiden, Priest, Pantera, Megadeth, etc. Also on Sunday nights around midnight they'd play underground music like Fear Of God, Oppressor, Slayer, Cathedral, etc. (as well as Maiden, Helloween, and others). Also every year around New Year's they would play the best 500 songs of the year. The station however, shut down and they played one last night of metal and the very last song was Fade To Black and of course when it was over, they faded "to black". The next morning I turned on the radio only to hear Tejano music.

I'll be posting the Master Of Puppets review later tonight. I have some other things that need attending to at the moment.

Metallica - Master Of Puppets


Track Listing:
1. Battery
2. Master Of Puppets
3. The Thing That Should Not Be
4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
5. Disposable Heroes
6. Leper Messiah
7. Orion
8. Damage, Inc.

In 1986, Metallica released Master of Puppets, the definitive thrash record. Along with Rust In Peace, Reign In Blood, and Among The Living, Master Of Puppets lays the foundation of thrash metal and cemented Metallica as heavy metal legends. Their third record sees Metallica becoming more and more progressive in their songwriting (the average song length is just under seven minutes); however, the thrash element is still there. Songs like "Battery", "Damage, Inc." and "Disposable Heroes" still move at 100 mph, but they don't lose their heaviness for the sake of speed. Some of Metallica's heaviest riffs can be found on Master Of Puppets. "Leper Messiah" and "The Thing That Should Not Be" come to mind.

The album's creative peak comes in "Orion." The eight and a half minute instrumental has a James Hetfield guitar solo and a Cliff Burton bass solo (relief from Kirk's "wah-wah-wah-wah" solos). This track stands out from the rest, partly because of Cliff's application of musical theory in the guitar harmonies.

Sadly, on September 27, 1986, the world lost Cliff Burton. While on tour in Sweden, the band was involved in a bus accident due to black ice/drunk driving/driver falling asleep. As a result Cliff was crushed by the bus.

Cliff lived for 24 years.

Cliff's legend and influence will live forever. Rest in peace, Cliff.



My rating:
10/10

Ride The Lightning = my favorite Metallica album. Nothing even comes close. Perfect.


This thread has been AWESOME! It's been great reading everyone's first Metallica experience. I remember all you older "heavy metal" guys in high school! I was afraid of you, but secretly loved your cult. Being a little younger, I remember seeing a commercial on TV advertising Metal-lica in 1984 (I didn't know how to pronounce it, I was listening to Top-40 still!) but I found Metallica in the late-80's, but quickly made up for it. I agree with Spectrefate, RTL still sounds fresh to these ears.

Master is my favorite Metallica album bar none. IMO a perfect thrash album in every way (of course Ride is not far off). Love every song and really couldn't single out any particular one. However, Orion is one of my favorite instrumentals (never knew James did the solo, interesting) of all time. I know that most people believe this is the most overrated Metallica album and that may be so, but I honestly can't place any Metallica album above it.