Metal Reviews

I said nothing to that effect. What I am saying, however, is that Balls to the Wall was successful in the mainstream, made a huge impact in metal, is an album known by metal fans and non-metal fans, was the band's most successful album ever, and so on...

Basically, everything the other two albums weren't. Yes, they're great albums, but that does not make them classics. A little-known band from Germany has THREE classic albums? Pffft!

Again, you're only taking american point of view. Accept wasn't never a little known band here in Europe. And all three made a great great impact in metal and not metal scene in Europe (I live it).

Fine. They're European classics.

You Euroturds don't matter, of course, so I still win.

I would hazard a guess and say that you probably (correct me if I'm wrong) consider Kill'em All, Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets classics... so there's three in a row; four, if yopu consider And Justice... so that argument is a non-starter.
Restless and Wild >>> Balls to the Wall; it came out first, it is way better, I had it before I even heard BTTW, and it had a huge impact on a lot of subsequent metal bands, believe it.
It precedes Fistfull of Metal, Kill'em All, Show No Mercy, etc, ffs.

I agree about Metal Heart; good album but not a classic. But Restless and Wild is every bit as much a classic as BTTW, even more so IMO, for the reasons mentioned above.
Mainstream success / recognition means jack-shit when it comes to Metal. Again, if basing classic status on that criteria, there would a lot of shitty classics out there.

They were fairly well known within the metal scene here, too.
I had R&W by late 83 / early 84, right before BTTW hit the scene (here at least).
We don't live in a vacuum, after all.
In the early 80's, there was a huge explosion, (probably like what was experienced with the British invasion of the mid-60s).
It spread like wildfire, thanks to tape trading and word of mouth.

Metallica has two classic albums. Kill 'Em All and the black album.

WOW ! You do live in your own little world.

Yes, I know... It was not directed to you, it was directed to Ken and all his mainstream thing. Classicness is not decided by the success in USA, in Europe or in Vietnam, it's more a matter of qualiity/influence. And here we know than R&W and BttW are both classics, and that's not a opinion, it's a fact. Metal Heart being a classic is more of an opinion.

Bt the way, the Accept record I'm more emoional tied is not a classic one: Breaker. Was my first Accept, in 1982, and the combo of Breaker, Run If You Can, Can't Stand The Night & Son Of A Bitch is one of best combination of songs I had ever heard.

No, I understood what you meant.. it's cool.
Just wanted to point out that Accept was not exactly unknown pre- BTTW here.
At least not by those of us that were savvy to what was going on at the time.

Point stands, and I am sure that you agree: Restless and Wild is a fucking classic, anybody that says otherwise is suffering from delusions, at best... at worst...? the tertiary stage of full-blown syphilis?


BTTW is good enough, but it trembles in the shadow of Restless and Wild, mainstream popularity / recognition notwithstanding.

BTW, both the Black Album and Kill 'em All fucking blow.
But especially the Black album...boring, tentative, commercial mediocrity.
It reminds me of whenever I see some white collar, corporate drone tooling his ass on a Harley- Davidson to his day in / day out routine cubicle - bound destiny of monotonous meeting minutes, just because he can afford one... necktie fluttering in the slipstream, wing tips on the stirrups, Wall Street Journal tucked safely away in briefcase... a play-it-safe, by the book, on the clock slave with everything to lose pretending to be free.
That sums up the "Black Album" for me.
Pseudo to the core.

EDIT: removed alcohol-tinged and overwrought speechifying, because in the light of morning sobriety, it makes no sense.

I thought Metallica had four or five classics... Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, And Justice For All, (The Black Album)...

I can't get enough of your wild stories. Tell me more.

Those ARE all classic albums, with the exception of the Black Album.
No matter how boringly insipid I find Metallica to be, to say those first four albums aren't classics would be ludicrous.

I'm not much on the Black Album honestly, but to me its near impossible to deny that is indeed a classic.

It's easily a classic. When there's signs on the doors at guitar shops telling you to fuck off if you play Enter Sandman, it's a classic.

I think all five are classics. But I can't listen to the black album, it seemed me weak & a little boring the first time I listened to it (just before going to see them live, where they played just 2 songs of that album, Enter sadman & Sad but true, and it was a hell of a concert), and my opinion now is worst

To be a classic doesn't mean it has to be good. Accept Breaker is better than the Black album.

Considering the amount of whining nutjobs around here who were quite forceful in their opinion that Korn's debut is a classic when I reviewed it, then the Black album sure as shit is, as are the albums beforehand.

I consider Korn's debut a classic... and a shit at the same time

Hmmm, it's (possibly) their most popular album, no doubt.
But, it is far too lacking in anything that would constitute classic stature; boring, AOR ready, MTV fare, it is just... bland (even for Metallica). Generic is the word that always comes to mind when I hear one of the half dozen or so singles from that album.
This is where they lost whatever edge they may have ever had. The most overrated album from probably the most overrated band in Metal history.
But, one mans opinion, and all that.

It's a fine opinion to hold. I loved it when first getting into Metal, then fell out of love with it after discovering heavier things, then rediscovered it and appreciated it for what it was - a feat of songwriting that made Metallica into giants. No doubt, it's not a Thrash masterpiece, but for above-mainstream Metal it's pretty much the grand-daddy of the 90s world, the sort of thing that every subsequent band wished they could do.

The fact that the black album sold millions of copies doesn't make it a classic. It was Metallica's worst when it was released and still is second to Shit Anger in that category.