TS: Sepultura - Roots Vs Metallica - Black Album Vs Anthrax - Sound Of White Noise vs Megadeth - Countdown To extinction. The So Called "Sell-Out" albums

:)

Now that's purely the milk of human kindness speaking.

Anthrax has always been faithful to its name. Something to be avoided for decades. See Gruinard Island.

Jawohl! Sehr richtig!

So you're saying the sound of being forcefed dry powder concrete mix is similar to world music.

Arise -> Chaos AD -> Roots = And Justice -> Black Album -> Load

Hey, has anyone heard the latest Anthrax album? It was album of the year somewhere or another.

Haha! Dave Q cutting to the heart of the matter!

Ian, when is the revised version coming out again?

Ned, I just received a package of three paperbacks this morning. It should be rolling into stores by March. The new section on metal in Israel, Morocco, Egypt reads well -- I'm pleased. It's amazing what a little breathing room can do. It was also nice to write in the present tense.

IAN

I think John Bush's voice is perfectly suited to Anthrax, but Armoured Saint were EMBARASSING!

Most spiff. :-)

Serbia.

Interesting, could this be a typical Euro/US divide? Quite a lot of people here were really disgusted with how generic and American Sepultura had become, it was a complete 180 for the band.

I think there are three criteria for a "sellout" album:
- major musical change into a more popular style ("bandwagon jumping")
- big commercial success (although: debatable, see "Cold Lake")
- loss of nearly all original fans (not merely disappointing them with a sub-par album, but actually losing them)

By those standards, the sellout albums for Sepultura, Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth are "Chaos AD", the black album, "Sound Of White Noise" and "Youthanasia" (*).

(*) While "Countdown To Extinction" was definitely a letdown (lots of boring songs, a few gems), it wasn't a massive change. "Youthanasia" however did ditch lots of the pure thrash and was significantly more streamlined/radio-friendly.

Noone will ever accuse The Darkness , Coldplay or Oasis of selling out for doing any of these things as they never said they would refuse to do so.

I think the pinnacle of the underground cash-in were the Earache deals that brought Carcass, Godflesh, Cathedral, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death and Fudge Tunnel to major labels. It was a great moment -- and produced some of the best metal ever made, but after that failed to score multiplatinum albums, metal was death to major labels, no pun intended. They never even got the chance to ruin their long-term careers with bad follow-up records. (Fudge Tunnel happily sold out immediately and were thankfully destroyed ).

1991-1993 is such a complicated time for metal. Heck, what am I doing sweating this beady-eyed Internet post. Y'all can go to Springfield, NJ, and buy the book for further analysis. Phil, I hope you moved a copy to the Chicken Soup display. Actually, my original editor is their editorial director now.

Mainly I wanted to follow up on Siegbran's shady elitists. Yes, the thrasher fanbase that launched all these "sell-out" bands had already moved on to Death, Morbid Angel , Cynic, and Massacre records on underground labels. And the original death metal demo hellchildren were either starting black metal bands in Norway or listening to Caroliner, so traumatized by Joey Belladonna that they began to prize "obscurity" as a guiding principle.

Compared to all these Metal Church and Celtic Frost bombs, the most disappointing piece of crap from that era is still Sonic Youth's Goo.

Anyway, hats off to bad metal. It has its moments, and it tries way harder than bad indie rock on the SpinArt label.

You can't say that about those other bands. They all had their moments but they were never the mighty Metallica. And Sepultura really never was part of this group. Everyone was fighting over which was better between Beneath The Remains/Arise and Altars Of Madness/Blessed Are The Sick back in the day when Megadeth and Anthrax sorta "got old" as kids will say.

Personally, I think Saxon fell off sharply after Crusader.

This is why one of the DVDs from the Binge & Purge set might be the best Metallica recording ever; it's a live concert from 1989, when they were playing a bunch of the Justice material, only this time, with bass.

"Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter" is pretty goofy, even for a band that has a 13 foot tall skeleton mascot.

CUT THROOOAAAAT CUT THROAAAATT

Sepultura's really a marginal band next to Metallica. Beneficiary of charity case reviews, a common ailment in the genre.

man six years ago or not, fuck that. Schizophrenia through Arise is non-fuckwithable.

George really hated Anthrax & Sepultura eh? Have you mellowed towards them yet gorge?

I love old Anthrax too. haven't heard much of the Bush era, hated Volume 8 thought.

but I mean Spreading the Disease, Among the Living are fantastic...even though Belladonna had a very unique and odd voice for metal (in that it was poppy but not in your typical 'Helloween' sort of way), I thought he fit them pretty well. Less so on Among the Living which was closer to the S.O.D. side project and less melodic, but still....

I could never listen to Anthrax because of Belladonna.

Roots is such a weird and singular-sounding album. Anyone who calls it a sellout is a dipshit the highest order

i like roots but i'd rather just listen to timbalada

Roots isn't a sellout, it's just BOOOOOORING

Chaos AD > Roots

Chaos I still haven't heard outside of Refuse/Resist. been meaning to get it.

really kinda dig roots but yeah Chaos AD is the pinnacle of Sepultura imo

if i were ranking them best to worst

roots
countdown to extinction
black album
sound of white noise

sound of white noise is most likely my favourite anthrax record. unlike many, i don't think thrash benefited particularly from a "good old dose of humour" and i found the early to mid-year anthrax releases to be tedious and irksome to the core. SoWN struck me as a much more mature and focused affair than anything they'd coughed out previously, and i think it was unfairly maligned for being different and a byproduct of the grunge era, when in retrospect it was a logical and inspired step forward.

sound of white noise is the only anthrax album i can stand

This thread makes me want to listen to more Sepultura

Countdown >> Black > White Noise >> Roots

I've done a bit of a 180 on Roots. hated what I heard of it when I came out (and I honestly hate Max's vocals, because he turned his pretty unique bellow into a generic nu-metal scream), but mere generic nu-metal this isn't. percussively, it's interesting, but there are a lot of interesting sounds on the album.

the riffs aren't particularly memorable like classic Sepultura but they aren't meant to be.

some interesting chat on FB where some nutters said chaos ad was the sellout album where they got off the bus.

no, not siegbran lol

the black album is definitely my least favorite of these. sound of white noise is amazing

Its a great record unlike their others

Who is the singer in Anthrax now?

Joey Belladonna.

And yeah it's funny to look back on Sepultura jumping on two consecutive bandwagons - first the groove metal/hardcore thing, and then nu-metal.

it's really cool that they worked with carlinhos brown and brought in batucada percussion, wish i liked the music better.

some interesting chat on FB where some nutters said chaos ad was the sellout album where they got off the bus.

It's edging towards sellout a bit but it rules and I would've stayed on that bus for a couple more stops.

I saw Joey Belladonna sing the National Anthem at a Vikings game not bragging just saying

through broad stripes and bright stars
through the perilous fight
He's coming, corrupting
Aaaa-mong the liii-iii-viing