| Dear Readers, HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you and yours! We hope some of the reviews we've brought you in the last few months, as well as this month, will help you make your music gift choices. We've also brought you short reviews of some of the new Christmas albums released this year. Just in case you add one new Christmas album a year to your collection like I do. I suppose commenting on complaints about trends in music isn't a very Holiday type of editorial, but then again, you do have those music gift choices to make, and this time I plan to name specific albums which may help you with your selections. Several major league bands have released new albums in the last 6-8 weeks, and because these bands are so popular, I wanted to air my usual opinionated views on the trends I've seen. The first one that came to mind was "Metallica's" new release "ReLoad." I've been hearing people moaning and complaining ever since "Load" was released last year. Whether in chats, on bulletin boards, in newsgroups or letters received by AMZ, the bottom line seems to be that fans think Metallica sold out with "Load" and went for a more "mainstream audience." They also "broke their code" and started putting out videos of the songs from that album. Now that "ReLoad" is out, I decided to do a little experiment. "Metallica's" all time best-selling album "Metallica" (the black album) has been on the Billboard Top 100 Album Chart for six years now. There is no doubt that album is the best one they've released. I'm very much a Metallica fan, so of course I've got all the albums. But I decided to work with the last three - "Metallica," "Load" and "ReLoad." I've spent a week listening to these three in the following order: "Metallica," "ReLoad" and "Load." Now, I'm one of the few fans around who actually liked "Load" - at least most of it. But getting back to my experiment. When I've spent more than three hours listening to all three albums one after the other, I have to say that "ReLoad" definitely has a harder edge that comes close to "Metallica." (By the way, right now I'm talking musically, not lyrically.) But "Load" has it's share of hard edges too. Yes, there are a few songs on "Load" that aren't typical "Metallica" songs, but bands have a right to grow and experiment just like the rest of us. I'd be willing to bet there aren't a whole lot of "Metallica" fans that are in the same exact jobs with the same exact responsibilities as they had ten or fifteen years ago. If you are, more power to you, but to me that's ultimate boredom. So why do you expect the music you listen to from ANY band to stay the same forever? If I move on to the lyrical portions of these albums, "Load" actually has some of MOST bad-ass lyrics of the three albums. The music style may not be the same, but the lyrics haven't "lost their edge." "Metallica" probably has the least edgy lyrics, and "ReLoad" falls somewhere in between. And I guarantee that musically all three albums do NOT sound all that terribly different when you listen to them all together. These guys are great musicians, the put all they've got into their albums and their concerts (I've been there, I know!), and to trash them for trying to do things a little bit differently isn't really fair. If you're truly a fan, you grow with a band - you don't bitch about how they don't sound the same as they did 5 albums ago. To quickly move through a few other bands I've heard trashed for changes in style the next on the list is "Aerosmith." Supposedly "Aerosmith" hasn't put out anything decent since the early 80's - they lost their rough edge. If this band lost it, how did we get such socially conscious and what I consider edgy songs as "Janie's Got A Gun," "Livin' On The Edge," "Amazing" and a whole bunch of others. And their newest album, "Nine Lives," has some really good songs on it -- the edge is there. You have to pay attention to what you're listening to. What about "Ozzy" with "Mama, I'm Coming Home?" That's sure a far cry from "Bark At The Moon!" In my personal opinion, if you like a band, you grow with them or go elsewhere, but don't trash them for growing and becoming more polished. Experience does that to a band - or anybody else for that matter. My, I'm on a roll this month! There's another "Trend" going on right now that I totally agree with angry fans on this time. Even though we've covered these albums and concerts, it doesn't mean I agree with what these bands are doing - putting out new releases that are re-hashes of old albums with a few new tracks thrown in. Whether it's "Fleetwood Mac" with "The Dance" using live cuts of old songs with a couple new ones thrown in, or "Jane's Addiction" with "Kettle Whistle" using their demos and basement tapes of previously released songs with a couple new ones, or "Ozzy Osbourne" on "The Ozzman Cometh" with some REALLY old "Black Sabbath" basement tapes, songs off his last couple albums, three "previously unreleased tracks," and an interview from 1988 in this two CD set, not to mention the bunch of "new" Greatest Hits from just about everybody and their brother. Basically what these bands are doing is ripping off their fans. Some of them decide to have "a reunion," release a new album, and then go on tour. They're out for the bucks and we all know it - even if we did like the artists when they were together the first time around. This is happening so much much anymore you better be damn sure you look at what's on those albums before you buy them. If you like the old stuff great! If you want demos of old stuff fine! But to all those bands doing this, don't come out with press releases and hype about "NEW RELEASES" when the stuff on the album isn't new! I don't consider two or three unreleased tracks a "new release." It's a Greatest Hits, or LIVE album with a couple extra songs thrown in so they can give it a different name and release it as "new." Gimme a break! And to top it off, the minute the album is released people are waiting at the music store to buy it and breaking all kinds of records for ticket sales for the concerts. People, wake up! Do you really want to be used this way? It ain't cheap, especially those concert tickets, and what are you getting for it? Think about it! Time to get off the soap box for another month. The opinions expressed in this editorial are mine as Editor of this magazine. If you disagree with anything I write here, whether you're a fan, band, label, P.R. Firm or anyone else associated with the music industry, feel free to write to me at the address below and your comments will be published. Please send your comments, questions, or anything else you can think of to ACCESS to the MUSIC ZONE at marellg@music-reviewer.com See You In Cyber Space! Mary Ellen Gustafson, Editor |