You've all liked Metallica at one point in your lives... Whether you were actually around and able to see them in their pre-Black album prime (probably wearing an outfit made exclusively of denim and leather) or you became a fan of Load and ReLoad in middle school when you started painting your fingernails black and wearing Manson T-Shirts, there was a period when you listened to them long enough to have a favorite.

Mine is battery. intro to finish, one of the harder and more complex songs and one that induces such a long and massive bout of headbanging that my neck isnt the same for a week after i hear it.

Enter Sandman...

Bleh - Sandman is my LEAST favorite.

Gotta love "Of Wolf and Man" and "Whiskey in The Jar".

please, add more choices as necessary!

This is a very hard one. Metallica was the band that got me into metal and I know I'm not alone on that. I too LOVE Battery because it's so brutal. The flamenco style intro is very deceiving, and when the distortion sets in its a 4 minute panic attack until the end.

One is one of my favorite songs of all time. I never thought it could be better, but they did an AMAZING job on the S&M CD. If only one song worked with the orchestra, it was definitely One. The clean intro, the solos, the machine gun riffs near the end...the song is just amazing. This is Metallica in its best songwriting phase. By far the best epic metal song ever.

Kill Em All was still a good CD, but Metallica hadn't found their complete sound. I loved The Four Horsemen, Seek and Destroy, Cliff's bass solo, and Metal Militia, but I definitely wouldnt say that any of these songs are their best. Seek and Destroy is awesome for cruising around on a Saturday night though.

On Ride the Lightning I think they really got into their groove. The Ride the Lightning song is pure chaos and contains some of the best Kirk Hammett solos IMO. Everything about Fade to Black is amazing. I have fond memories of seeing them in concert, and saving our joint until this song came on. For Whom the Bells tolls is another great song for when you just want to rock out. They did real good with all of their war songs.

Master of Puppets has got to be one of the most recognizable songs in metal. This was my favorite CD...every single song on MoP is amazing. The intro was one of the first riffs I learned how to play, and I sounded like **** but looked cool doing it. This is one of those songs thats pretty long (around 8:30 or 9:00 IIRC) but it doesnt feel like it. It has such a great rhythm and feel to it that it still seems to end too soon.

Everything started to go downhill on Black. It was still a good album, but they started to change who they are. Track lengths dropped, as did the overall complexity and speed of the songs. The Unforgiven and Wherever I May Roam were two astounding songs on an otherwise average album. Yes, the rest of the tracks were OK, but nothing stood out like most other tracks on previous albums.

Everything after Black pretty much sucks balls. There's no getting around that. Garage INC was cool for the B-sides and covers, and S&M was good for the added effect of the orchestra, but Load and Reload were complete garbage.

As for the question at hand...if I could pick a few it would be One, Fade to Black, Sanitarium, Harvester of Sorrow, and Master of Puppets.

I guess if I HAD to pick one, I'd go with Fade to Black. I LOVE that song. The intro is the first solo I ever learned. I still play it every day. The song is just amazing. Metallica has had many good songs though, I didnt even list half of them in this monstrosity of a post.

EDIT: Here's me playing that Fade to Black solo if you haven't seen it. Still not perfect, but I'm a lot better than I used to be http://youtube.com/watch?v=rkwr_UnYWOU

awesome, thanks for sharing!

Fade to Black FTMFW!

Such a powerful song.

Blackened, just because it sounds so brutal for the time it was written. Battery would be a close 2nd.

BOOMSHAKALAKA wrote:Enter Sandman...

redtop91 wrote:

You guys havent listened to much Metallica, have you?

xekushnr wrote:
You guys havent listened to much Metallica, have you?

BOOMSHAKALAKA wrote:

ROFL. Sean =

I'm not going to tell you what your opinion is, just that its wrong. There are much better Metallica songs than Sandman. This is fact. If you havent listened to all of every album that came before Black, please do so.

xekushnr wrote:I'm not going to tell you what your opinion is, just that its wrong. There are much better Metallica songs than Sandman. This is fact. If you havent listened to all of every album that came before Black, please do so.

Well in all seriousness, I haven't heard all their songs...only a few. I only recently got into them last year...yeah I know I'm late as hell.

When I finish listening to a lot more of their songs, I'll get back to you.

BOOMSHAKALAKA wrote:
Well in all seriousness, I haven't heard all their songs...only a few. I only recently got into them last year...yeah I know I'm late as hell.

When I finish listening to a lot more of their songs, I'll get back to you.

Thats all I ask. I hope you know that most of my post was a rib, but there are honestly much better songs. You will be pleasantly surprised if you like Sandman.

i havent listened to much, but the only song i like period is one, because out of all the metallica ive heard its the only song with any creativity and doesnt sound like its trying to hard to be a metal song

Some love for Burton on my part.

Can't believe everyone forgot about Pulling teeth, at least Blackened was listed along with Battery but how about "Mechanix"? or the original version of "hit the lights" with Dave Mustaine?

1unar3clipse wrote:Some love for Burton on my part.

Can't believe everyone forgot about Pulling teeth, at least Blackened was listed along with Battery but how about "Mechanix"? or the original version of "hit the lights" with Dave Mustaine?

I mentioned it in my longwinded post. Its great, he was an amazing bassist, but for best Metallica song? A Cliff Burton solo? You've got to be kidding me.

xekushnr wrote:I mentioned it in my longwinded post. Its great, he was an amazing bassist, but for best Metallica song? A Cliff Burton solo? You've got to be kidding me.

eh from a bassist perspective its the most notable track on the album.Want to argue? I'll argue my point.

-Before Cliff they had a wiener of a bassist named Ron Mcgoveny who literally got traded by the band for Cliff when they saw the band "Trauma" playing at the whisky in 1982 from the band after some time along with Dave mustaine being kicked out (who wrote most of Kirk's Licks from the first albums)

-Cliff was the driving force behind the band getting known, airtime, shows, much more media play. without Cliff being introduced into this band it might have fizzled into nothing-ness. He was even the one to make the call to change the original album from "metal up your ***" to "kill em all" after the label warned that the original name would market low and threatened not to release it with that name.He effectively changed the history of this band.

-After cliffs death they would hire the ex Flotsam and Jetsam bassist Jason Newstead (future Voivod frontman) along with taking Kirk Hammet earlier from a support tour with Exodus.

-the intro alot of people love on "for whom the bell tolls" is cliff fyi

Its not that I think that his solo is the best, but of all the musicians in the group cliff was by far the best to manage the band in its early trash years.His solo "pulling teeth" was so good the band HAD to have him after they heard him play at the whiskey in 1982.

p.s. Les Claypool tried out for the band but was told he was too overqualified to fit into the band.

Yeah, I know about all of that man. I've been a huge Metallica fan for at least 7 years. My point is that a bands best song is not a one man track. Even if you're a bassist, how is a song with no lyrics and noone else playing (except Lars later) the bands best track? Maybe they wouldnt have become anything without Cliff but I highly doubt that, they just probably would have sounded a bit different. Dont get me wrong, I'm a huge Cliff fan and have a bunch of videos of him. I even listed him as one of my favorite bassists in that thread. But I really dont think you can consider that the bands best song. You are entitled to your opinion though.

xekushnr wrote:Yeah, I know about all of that man. I've been a huge Metallica fan for at least 7 years. My point is that a bands best song is not a one man track. Even if you're a bassist, how is a song with no lyrics and noone else playing (except Lars later) the bands best track? Maybe they wouldnt have become anything without Cliff but I highly doubt that, they just probably would have sounded a bit different. Dont get me wrong, I'm a huge Cliff fan and have a bunch of videos of him. I even listed him as one of my favorite bassists in that thread. But I really dont think you can consider that the bands best song. You are entitled to your opinion though.

when the band itself has been re-staffed nearly 90% Lars and James being the only original members still recurring at this time, I don't think its such a bad choice when it was the only bass solo in the bands career, and its creator had such a vivid impact on the band. So I guess its not really if you think I can consider it the bands best song because it is an opinion, on an opinion based thread where everyone else is going to name the three same songs.

If anything I added a little diversity to the Enter sandman, Blackened, One, fade to black, and battery-fest.

1unar3clipse wrote:Some love for Burton on my part.

Can't believe everyone forgot about Pulling teeth, at least Blackened was listed along with Battery but how about "Mechanix"? or the original version of "hit the lights" with Dave Mustaine?

xekushnr wrote:
I mentioned it in my longwinded post. Its great, he was an amazing bassist, but for best Metallica song? A Cliff Burton solo? You've got to be kidding me.

You do realize that Dave was a guitarist and Cliff was a bassist right?

themadscientist wrote:
You do realize that Dave was a guitarist and Cliff was a bassist right?

Who are you talking to?

themadscientist wrote:You do realize that Dave was a guitarist and Cliff was a bassist right?

Uh yeah? Seen Megadeth enough times to know, I think I even mention that Kirk used solo material written by Dave.

Did you read my posts?

xekushnr wrote:Who are you talking to?

I think he was talking to me.

1unar3clipse wrote:
Uh yeah? Seen Megadeth enough times to know, I think I even mention that Kirk used solo material written by Dave.

Did you read my posts?

I think he was talking to me.

Regardless, I thought it was pretty obvious we both knew what we were talking about. We just happen to disagree on the subject. I'm sure there will be more diversity as the thread gets more votes...lord knows I have a very tough time deciding my number one song.

Metallica is easily my favorite band of all time. I have been a die hard fan for 20 years now, ever since my freshman year in high school back in 88'. I find extreme enjoyment out of every song on every album leading up to the Black album. I have not purchased any of their work after Justice, which in my mind is their best album from a technical point of veiw! It really is impossible to pick a favorite. Just when you think you have a favorite, even after listening and playing it on a guitar ten thousand times, another song sparks your interest that you use to overlook. The Call of Ktulu is an example of that. When I was a kid this song got overshadowed by Creeping Death, Master of Puppets, For Whom the Bell Tolls etc. You find new respect for these other songs later down the road.

I won't pick a favorite...... I just won't do it!

xekushnr wrote:Regardless, I thought it was pretty obvious we both knew what we were talking about. We just happen to disagree on the subject. I'm sure there will be more diversity as the thread gets more votes...lord knows I have a very tough time deciding my number one song.

Next vote thread should be about Death, or Venom... Exodus maybe?

^Blah. Thrash>death. Any day.

iwantans13 wrote:^Blah. Thrash>death. Any day.

Thrash is lame 80% of the time being the "hard" alternative to Glam...

also:Venom= Black Metal

Death= Death Metal

I made two Genre suggestions, you should throw out some ideas, rather than claim something like Thrash>death.

How about forgetting all the sub genres and play some 'effing rock.

I get so tired of the metalcore/thrash/black metal/death metal "scene" bull****. If the band can play, and they sound good, I don't care what "type" of music they're making. I'm just gonna kick back and listen.