1. “The Solo,” James Hetfield

Video still (5:12), Youtube

© 1992 Warner Bros.

 

 

 

 

James Hetfield is the singer, chief songwriter, and front man of Metallica. He wrote “Nothing Else Matters” and is the predominant figure of not just this video, but all their songs, and their entire ethos. This is fine. It’s consistent with the logic of most bands: a guy drapes chords around a diary entry and finds three other guys to fill in the low and high ends. Traditionally, the guitar solo — appearing at approximately 2/3rds into it, whose melodic evocations serve as a tight stringy emotive refrain — is reserved for the lead guitarist, in our case Kirk Hammett; though, here, James had to not just perform the lead solo, but dedicate its duration to filming the nuances of the various facial expressions which all worked together to corroborate this personal rapture towards his own notes. Kirk Hammett is a very competent guitarist and could have easily done the solo. True, one could argue that James wrote the solo, but that is not the point. The point is James has overstepped the guitar solo boundaries. Every time I watch this part of the video I feel repulsed.

—

2. “The Meta-mirror,” Lars Ulrich

Video still (3:14), Youtube

© 1992 Warner Bros.

 

 

 

 

What makes Lars Ulrich’s douchebagness simply eerie — as compared to those who concede, even relish, to being so e.g. Kanye West, David Lee Roth, Keith Richards — is that he presents himself as a serious, perhaps even moral, figure in the music industry, making the smug douchebagosity that much more uncanny. (Sting, Chris Martin, and Bono also suffer from this; and Beck is headed there.) Here, in an odd Diderotian breaking-of-the-fourth-wall gesture, Lars looks into the camera as if it were a mirror, adjusting his mane with a self-confidence that makes one wonder if he’s aware of how sparse his hairline is. The message seems to say: You’re lucky to have the view of my mirror. You’re lucky we’ve decided to do this “casual b-reel footage” video in which our extreme pedestrian mellowness is an unlikely and refreshing break, being that we are the gods of music.

—

3. “Political Photo Op,” Kirk Hammett

Video still (4:08), Youtube

© 1992 Warner Bros.

 

 

 

 

Metallica’s politics are somewhat vague and contradictory. Metal (as with other subversive-ish genres e.g. punk, goth, and rap) is implicitly “rebellious,” which would logically stand as anti-country or -government; also, they are from the California Bay Area, one of the most liberal places in the Unites States, so one must balance the cloudy lightning-stricken darkness with all this pleasant weather. Much of their motifs (e.g. the Black Album “Don’t Tread on Me” Snake — its flag also seen in said video; “Blitzkrieg,” off Kill ‘Em All, named after Nazi-Germany militia methodology) seem more in collusion with American conservative pro-war reactionaryism. The sausage fest of metal fans comprise of both the most emasculated and homophobic. The camera holds on this shot a little too long, as Kirk Hammett takes a little too much time stuffing what appears to be a $5 dollar bill in a Veteran’s donation box, such that we can clearly see this supportive gesture that reeks of condescension. A five dollar beer will make you feel better, but a five dollar bill will make you feel better about yourself. This was perhaps the best $5 dollars ever spent in the history of public relations. All is fair in love, war, and marketing.

—

4. “Basketball,” Jason Newsted

Video still (1:54), Youtube

© 1992 Warner Bros.

 

 

 

 

Even their basketball is black. This is how serious metal is. Jason, the eternal kid brother of Metallica, does a backwards hook shot whose point is left unclear, edited out before the basketball goes or doesn’t go through the net. I imagine the bonus features including demonstrations of their unexpected deftness at Jenga, frisbee, hacky sack, and other things the Grateful Dead would probably be good at. For every unhappy acne-faced boy too shy for girls but too cool for school, he can take a black sharpie and draw the Metallica logo on his binder, thus joining a secret society, an adolescent’s peek into the near profound — of double bass drums and the thick palm-muted crunch of an open low E-string grinding away at a riff. This secret society, of course, is not so secret, but tell that to 5. a kid who just discovered something big, and who cares if the world already knew. Virgin taste always tastes the best. I took my allowance and bought the world I would live in for the half decade or so, opaque plastic beige cassette tapes as light tombstones balanced on my bed, squinting at the tiny lyrics. Metallica’s legacy may be constrained to their first four albums, and their subsequent ventures proof that it’s better to burn out than fade away. I’ll never apologize for pop-’s stigma and prefix before metal, or anything else, a sweaty shirtless me in my room going fucking ballistic, lanky arms flailing so many times at invisible cymbals I must have, statistically, at least made one basket.