Joe Posnanski of SI.com

Most of my regular readers are probably not aware of this, but my favorite sportswriter, Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski, spent the majority of the fall in residence in State College, PA.  The reason: he’s writing a book on Joe Paterno, one of the most iconic coaches in college football’s celebrated history.

This post is not about Joe Paterno, although I have some gut feelings about the whole situation regarding former Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky and the child molestation allegations against him, the way the situation was handled by those in power at Penn State, and the fallout from it all.

My takeaways from that whole situation can, in general, be summed up as follows:

1. Child abuse in any form is abhorrent, and my heart goes out to the victims, and, if Sandusky is indeed guilty, whatever punishment he receives can never undo – or pay for – the great harm that has been done to those boys; and
2. I’m sad that Joe Paterno didn’t handle the situation in a way that reflected both the true best interests of the university and those of the victims, and I wish that he had done so.

Pardon me, but it’s a fucked-up situation, and although Paterno passed away last month, and it’s a shame that his career (and life) ended like it did, I have a difficult time getting past that fact.  I have deeper thoughts on the matter, but I’m not going to air them here.

Anyway, this post is actually about Joe Posnanski.

I’ve followed Joe for a few years now, and soon after I discovered him, I fell in love with his writing.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that I agree with him all the time… but how often does that really happen, anyway?  In general, there are several aspects of his writing that I appreciate, including his sense of humor, his (usually) unrestrained verbosity, his great understanding of the complexity of the evaluation of sports history, and his personal conviction that the embrace of new statistics (sabermetrics) can help us to better understand the comparative performances of players.

Although I don’t know him personally (of course), I also feel that I know him better because of his podcast – started in March of last year and running through the beginning of his fall residency in State College, the Sports Poscast was a great source of entertainment and insight for me last year, and I eagerly await his next show (which, according to a recent tweet, is likely to arrive soon!).  For all of his self-deprecation regarding the length of his shows and the fact that people generally would never want to listen to them (which is utterly absurd), the Poscast went even further in humanizing Joe for those of us who don’t know him – I feel like I know him better now than I did at this time last year, and I’m certain this would not be the case if he hadn’t decided to start podcasting.

When the Sandusky scandal came into the public light, the first person I thought of who was not immediately mentioned was Joe Posnanski.  My thoughts about him went something like this: “Man, it sucks for Joe that he spent all that time away from his family [Posnanski currently lives in the Charlotte area] only to have this happen.”

I felt that Posnanski must be crushed by what happened during that week or so, which makes perfect sense.  The effects were immediate and lasting.  After the scandal erupted, Joe went silent – both on Twitter (@JPosnanski) and his blog – for a while.  He even announced that he was doing so, and I felt that it was completely understandable.  If I were in his position, I would have felt the same way – I’m sure that he never imagined that something like this would happen when he took on the task, signed the book deal, and so on.

With the passage of time, Joe has come back a bit, writing engagingly about this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballots, some bits on the football season, boxing (including the recently deceased Joe Frazier), and so on.  However, he seems to still be affected by what has happened in State College, and…

I miss him.  That’s what this post is about.

For so many reasons, I wish that this hadn’t happened.  From the very basic level (I wish the crimes hadn’t occurred) to this external level (I wish this hadn’t happened to Joe Posnanski) and everything in between.

It has been encouraging to watch Posnanski come out of the woodwork, and his recent posts and tweets – especially those tweets directed at @KenTremendous (Michael Schur) – show some of that humorous side that I’ve missed for so long.  From what I can tell, the next Poscast will feature yet another interview (and draft) with Schur, and I can’t possibly express how much I am looking forward to that show.

This past week, Prince Fielder signed a nine-year, $214 million contract with the Detroit Tigers.  The deal is the fourth-richest contract in Major League Baseball history, and pays him a yearly-average salary of $23,777,777.78.

In Fielder, the Tigers pick up one of the most productive (offensively) and durable first basemen in baseball: averaging 160 games played between 2007-2011, he has a career line of .282/.390/.540 with 200 2B, 230 HR, 656 RBIs, 1904 TB, 566 BB, 799 Ks over six full seasons and 39 games in 2005.

Shortly before the signing was announced, Fielder was reported as being most heavily courted by Texas and Washington, although Tom Verducci (SI.com) reports that Fielder was stealthily being recruited by the Dodgers – and, had Detroit’s Victor Martinez not suffered a potentially 2012 season-ending torn ACL within the past week or so, Fielder might be a Dodger today.  As with Albert Pujols earlier this offseason with the L.A. Angels (and Cliff Lee with Philadelphia last year), a mystery team took home the big free agent prize.

* * *

I remember when the Phils’ season ended: on the final play of their final postseason game against the Cardinals, Ryan Howard tore his left Achilles tendon attempting to run out a grounder.  At the time, my thoughts (purely as a fan) came together in this way:

Man, it’s too bad the Phils signed [the now declining] Howard to that contract extension 18 months ago – if they hadn’t, they’d be among the favorites to sign either Pujols or Fielder, either of which would be a significant upgrade.  And now Howard’s hurt through potentially the start of  the 2012 season…

I didn’t write about this – at the time I was focused on other things going on in my life, but it was ‘potential blog material’ that I never got around to completing and publishing.  Nevertheless, for the past few months I’ve carried this line of thinking with me as if it were the final word on the subject.

Recently, though, my thinking has changed, albeit slightly.  This was sparked by a comment by Philly GM Ruben Amaro, who this week told Philly.com that “if I would have had to put an 8- or 9-year deal on Howard’s deal right now, that would be a little disconcerting. Right now, we have Howard for the next 5 years. I kind of like that idea rather than having to do an 8- or 9- or 10-year deal.”

Howard’s contract extension, which kicks in this spring and calls for Howard to be paid $20 million per year in 2012 and 2013, $25 million per in 2014-2016, and $23 million in 2017 with a $10 million buyout, has been called one of the worst in baseball by some of the best sportswriters, including Joe Posnanski (Si.com).  And while I feel a little better about his contract now, I still agree with that line of thinking.

However, let’s look at it a bit more closely.  Howard, who turned 32 this past November, will make, at the bare minimum, $125 million through age 36  - almost 37 in 2016 when the contract matures – if his 2017 contract year is bought out.  At age 37, if not before, he will likely be way past his prime, but at the moment he is still a cleanup hitter who commands respect, particularly from right-handed pitchers, since he has the potential to change the momentum of the game  with a swing of the bat.  He is certainly grossly overpriced, but while the Phils are basically stuck paying him until he turns 37, they will most likely have no reason to pay him much – if anything – after that, and in all likelihood he will finish his career with a different team if he plays beyond 2016.

Albert Pujols, who is two months younger than Howard, has a much more distinguished baseball resume and is unquestionably a better player in every facet of the game.  In December, he signed a ten-year, $240 million contract with the Angels, which also calls for a ten-year, $10 million personal services contract to begin at the expiration of the player contract.  As such, he is under contract to play for Los Angeles (AL) through 2021, and at the end of that season he will be almost 42 years old.  While Pujols is widely considered to be the best player in baseball at the moment, and as such players of his caliber can potentially be exceptions to the rule, he is also considered to be beginning the decline phase of his career.

Effectively, the Angels are paying Pujols twice as much as Ryan Howard to play for twice as long, and the possibility that they won’t get anywhere close to double the return on the dollar is very high.

Fielder’s contract is slightly different, if only because of his age.  While the other two are in their early thirties, Fielder will be 28 in May, and is effectively four years behind Howard/Pujols from an age standpoint – in a vacuum.  However, there are other factors, and the number one factor is Fielder’s weight.  While he has flirted with various diets over the years, he is listed as being 5’11″ and 275 lbs, which is markedly different from Howard (6’4″, 240) and Pujols (6’3″, 230) and is considered heavy even for a first baseman.  Countless fans, writers, and baseball experts wonder when that will begin to catch up with him, and how he will age, compared with the other two.  While Fielder and Howard have fairly similar career stats, Howard has been playing at the Major League level for two more full seasons, and has experienced a career decline over the past few years, while Fielder has yet to hit the wall.  Pujols, on the other hand, is clearly a better baseball player than Fielder or Howard, but last season showed signs of decline with career lows in Hits, 2B, RBIs, batting average, OBP, SLG, TB, and walks, and career highs in GIDP.  It remains to be seen whether Pujols’ 2011 season was a slight bump in the road or the beginning of a long decline, but it seems safe to say that the Angels did not sign him for what will be his prime years.

In that sense, it seems that Detroit wins here – they still have the best chance of getting prime production from their first baseman, which can’t really be said of the Angels and Phillies.

On the other hand, Amaro is correct, in that the Phillies will be effectively dumping a roughly similar situation sooner than the Tigers and Angels, although it can be argued that Fielder and Howard are very similar players, likely to have similar career trajectories, and that Fielder’s contract ends at roughly the same time in his career that Howard’s does in his.

Ultimately, while Amaro claims that he is very happy (and really, there is nothing else he could say at this point), I’m inclined to believe that he is more accurately relieved, because Howard’s contract doesn’t quite appear to be as much of a potential lemon as it did back in October, assuming that he is able to resume his former playing abilities when he recovers from his injury.  However, I still have a hard time defining that contract as a good deal for the Phillies, and I don’t think that will change as long as Howard continues to be almost completely helpless against pitches on the lower outside corner of the plate.

Tim Lincecum’s new 2-year contract

This week, Tim Lincecum turned down a five-year, $100 million contract with San Francisco in favor of a two-year, $40.5 million deal.  While the contract means that both sides avoid arbitration (and is thus a win-win outcome), Harry Schulman of SFGate.com suggests that Lincecum’s rejection of the five-year deal means that he takes all the risk.  As the offseason approached, it was common knowledge in baseball circles that Lincecum would be content with a one-year deal while the Giants were interested in a long-term contract, but this two-year contract is ultimately in the Giants’ best interests.

Lincecum’s next contract will start in his age-30 season, and while he is still considered a young pitcher, he is, in actuality, a veteran with almost five full seasons, a World Series Championship, two Cy Young awards, and four All-Star games under his belt.  Those who have seen Lincecum pitch know that he has an unorthodox delivery, and the lasting effects from the strain that he puts on his muscles and joints when he pitches is still unknown.

The Giants were looking to lock up Lincecum for five years, which would have bought out the rest of his arbitration eligibility and what could be considered the rest of his prime seasons, and they offered him a generous contract in their attempt to do so.  However, I believe that Schulman is correct, and that Lincecum is taking all the risk here in hopes of a bigger payday down the road.

Perhaps, after the 2013 offseason, there will be a bidding war for his services, and it is likely that he will elect to leave San Francisco in order to achieve such a contract.  However, while it’s probable that Lincecum will pitch at a high level over the next two years – garnering draft picks for the Giants if he leaves – he’s still declining $60 million guaranteed over those other three years, and only a monster contract will eclipse that.  As such, the Giants, who have had such success with homegrown starters in recent years that they traded away Jonathan Sanchez this offseason, will likely be in a decent position as they approach the 2014 season, all things being relative, while Lincecum will have to have two more seasons defined by excellence and durability before he gets his chance at the big payday that puts him in the same salary – and contract-size – range as Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia.

My parents' cat likes to curl up under soft warm fuzzy things...

If I feel completely uninspired, how do I blog?

I have at least two blog posts about photos that I need to create.  The photos are taken, as I said last month.  I just don’t feel like writing them up.  At the moment, those potential posts feel kind of purposeless.

I have been thinking about making a brand new blog about….. well, I don’t know.  Something completely anonymous and less restrained.  But, while there is this desire to have a new blog, I am not particularly inspired to actually sit down and write anything new.  So there is no purpose there either.

Maybe I just want a differently styled blog.  Because… (don’t tell anyone, but I’m tired of the way this blog looks*).

- – - – -

Why do I blog?

I enjoy blogging.  That is the first and most important reason.

I’ve written a lot about music lately, all things considered.  But I don’t feel like anyone really wants to read what I’ve been wanting to write about over the past couple of weeks, which is somewhere around six more posts on my thoughts about Metallica and how I appreciate where they are as people, musicians, and creators.  There is, however, a voice in my head that tells me that there is nobody for whom my opinions on those subjects matter other than myself.

Can you see the censor there?

If this is my blog, which exists in order for me to write for my own pleasure and satisfaction, why do I censor myself like this?  There is a problem.  It’s a problem that I’m not sure I can change here… and at the same time, I don’t know if I could change it on a brand new blog, because self-censoring is a problem that I’ve struggled with throughout my creative life.

What’s also true, to answer the “why do I blog” question, is that I blog for other people.  I blog because I crave feedback, I crave community, I treasure those people who take the time to comment.  I have to come right out and admit that, when I publish a post, I am often yearning for some type of external validation.  I can’t deny that I do this.

This ties into the censor thing.  I censor myself like crazy.  The positive side of self-censorship is that I rarely stick my foot in my mouth, I can stand by what I say, and I am generally comfortable with what I say.  It’s a safe way to communicate.

As such, it’s not really a journal.

Not that I initially ever set out to make this a personal journal.  I originally made both of my blogs (this one and my previous) to be ‘whatever’ they could be; a place for me to write about things that… well, that I felt like writing about.  It’s a poor description or definition of what I do, but I just wanted a place to write stuff.

I’ve had people – well-meaning people (including family members), who are impressed by what I write or by the conversations that we have – tell me that I should be a music critic or reviewer.  What I have a difficult time convincing those people is that there is an astounding amount of music that I know nothing about… and I also don’t like a great majority of the music that is produced every year.  I am woefully uninformed, which means that I’d be a poor music reviewer on the scale that would do anything for me.

That’s not to say that I only listen to the few artists that I’ve written about – I have a ridiculous music collection – but my ear is, admittedly, not very close to the ground, and my knowledge of music history is very spotty, and my thoughts lately have not been in as many directions, musically, as they used to be when I was in my twenties.  So that’s why there have been very few music reviews here at Dischordant Forms.

I’m completely un-hip.  And I’m fine with that, personally.  It just doesn’t necessarily make me a good music reviewer, as far as I know.

- – - – -

As a ‘blogger’, I’ve been generally happy with my ability to write about certain subjects in the limited way that I have.  I started blogging late in the game – I know that some people, including some of my friends, have blogged here or there about various subjects for closer to ten years than five.  I started less than two and a half years ago.  Before that, while I took opportunities to express my opinions – mainly in conversations or letters – I had never blogged before, and it was a little scary to start a blog, but I’m glad I did it.  I’ve written, and I’ve improved, and I’m happy about that.

However, I’m at a place in my life where the answers to questions such as “OK, I could say this, but why?” are too often along the lines of “Who cares?” or “Sure, I could, but I don’t feel like it.”

This blog is mine, it’s written for me.  But it’s colored and distorted greatly by some inner drive to write something that is valid / impressive / acceptable by people other than myself.  That comes entirely from within; it’s not something that others have done to me (commenters and readers are not to blame here!).  Nevertheless, it’s real and it’s powerful, and it contributes to my failure to blog on a regular basis.

And I think that I am at a place where I feel like my blog is sort of broken.

- – - – -

This post won’t resolve itself at the end, which is something I try to do with most of my posts – I like to close them out.  This post is an ‘up in the air’ post.  It’s also a type of post that I, personally, don’t really enjoy reading on other blogs.  To my brain, it reads like a ‘sorry I haven’t posted much lately’ post.  But it’s not.  I’m writing this in the wee hours of the morning after a month of dormancy on the blog, and it’s more of a “thinking out loud” post than anything else.

Although, if someone has stopped reading by this point, I totally understand.

- – - – -

My tendencies as a blogger are likely connected with my status in life.  I am not a working musician, techie, avid gamer, photographer, activist, outspoken on political matters, entertainment guru, writer, fitness instructor, or anything like that.  I don’t fit into a niche anywhere in life, and my blog posts reflect that.  And there’s certainly a beauty in that little bit of diversity, but there’s not really any consistent passion or expertise here either.

Back in November, Andrew at Systemic Babble (whose blog provided inspiration for my original foray into blogging) said that he was not sure if he would continue blogging.  At the time, I shot him a comment to the effect that I was sure I’d see him blog again, but he hasn’t as of this point in time.  And now I’m in a place where I can relate to those sentiments a little better, even though he and I are very different people with different lives, in different places (in so many ways).

I think that writers of almost every stripe deal, to varying degrees (and in varying ways), with the fact that others may read what they write.  While a blog can be public, I have found that I’ve had the same problems with journaling, as far as feeling comfortable writing without boundaries.  Over the past several months, I’ve been able to shed that to some extent, privately…

Anyway, some people write explicitly to communicate with an audience in some way.  Others write for their own enjoyment but share it with others.  Still others write very privately, and fifty years after they die someone publishes their private letters and journals for the world to see.

OK, not always (or often)… but sometimes.

The age we live in impacts my ability to compose uninhibited – someone might read my journals after I’m gone, decades from now, and I feel some type of obligation to make my writing legible and coherent and respectable (even if I’m only thinking about family or friends here; I’m not presuming that anyone would want to publish any of my private writings…).

And it’s amplified in today’s age, the age of readily available information and digital permanence.

- – - – -

I feel like I will never win my personal fight against self-censorship.  It will probably be reflected in everything that I write, particularly that which I put on this blog, for as long as I do so.

This is not a ‘this is my last blog post’ post, by the way.  This is, as I said above, me ‘thinking out loud’.  I sometimes don’t even check in on the blog for weeks at a time, but I do think about blogging and writing and being creative every single day.  It’s very important to me.  As such, I will continue to sporadically blog here, most likely, and I’m glad for the ability and opportunity to do that.

However, I might start some other project, and I might keep it completely separate from this.  There’s something within me that needs to come out, and if it comes out as a blog, it will probably be somewhere other than this.

Dischordant Forms is my blog, though – my ‘whatever’ blog, still.  And every once in a while, particularly when I feel good about what I’m doing and when I want to share some thoughts or photos, I will do so.

I think the site is definitely in for a rather radical design overhaul, though!*

*Edit: design overhaul has begun – the process of simplification can be a healthy thing!

My first set was taken on November 11th, which was Veterans Day.  It got pretty cold the night before, and we had a bit of snowfall, so I decided to take my camera with me when I went out for my morning walk.

My previous photo post was taken at the Chestnut Hill Cemetery, as I tend to go there during my morning walks because the cemetery is on a hill, and I get some good inclines to walk up, down, and around.  I generally approach the cemetery from the footbridge at Dodge Creek, and this set of pictures is mainly from that part of my walk.

(Click to enlarge if you like.)

Dodge Creek, looking northeast as I approached the footbridge

The footbridge at Dodge Creek. I was the first one to cross it that morning, so I thought I'd take a picture! (Then I walked across... Bwahahaha!!)

Chapel at Chestnut Hill Cemetery

Snow and trees in the Cemetery itself.

Dodge Creek, further north and east.

The final photo was taken from the bridge that crosses Dodge Creek – I thought this was a nice view as the creek winds its way out of the woods toward town (which is the opposite direction from where I faced when I took the shot).

I hope you enjoyed these photos.  I have some others that I took more recently, and I’ll include them in a future post.

Over the weekend, as I read with interest the details of the Angels’ massive spending spree of last Thursday, I came across Whitley’s piece entitled Pujols cashes in but his image takes a costly hit.  I don’t normally read The Sporting News, likely because its writers and site interface don’t impress me, but when I came across a link to it at FanNation, I read it.

It’s a terrible re-introduction to the quality of writing at The Sporting News.  First impressions do stick with one, after all.

Anyway, here is a sample of the journalistic excellence I experienced – this is from the beginning of the piece:

Just call him Fat Contract Albert.  Mr. Pujols is going to Anaheim, where he should officially change his name to Albert Pujol$.  Sorry to be snide, but weren’t we all hoping this free agent story would turn out differently?

This was A-Pujols, not A-Rod.  He was a good soldier, not a soldier of fortune.

Pujols had everything a ballplayer could dream of in St. Louis.  Everything, it seems, except an extra $30 million guaranteed.

. . .

A guy’s gotta look out for his family, right?

Whitley goes on to point out that everyone hoped that he’d be the guy who was Mr. Cardinal for life, and would break all of Stan Musial’s club records, and so on.  Everybody knows that, but he had to be all sore about it anyway.  He also took some shots about Albert likely needing Botox at age 41 in order to still look good in the batter’s box, and so on… but the main thrust of his article is that Albert, because he is for some reason expected to be morally superior to every other athlete, is the greediest bastard on Earth because he took what actually looks like a much better deal to sign with the Angels.

He closed with this:

He could have been The Man.  Now he’ll go down as just another mercenary.

* * *

Frankly, I’m stunned that a sports writer is so upset that Albert Pujols isn’t the Cardinals’ version of Derek Jeter.  No matter the sport, it is rare these days to find a superstar in team sports who stays with his team for his entire career.  I don’t need to give examples – most players move.  Additionally, here are some facts about this scenario that we have seen all along:

• Albert Pujols wanted to be paid like the best player in the game.  That was known.  It was tossed around like common knowledge on TV and in sports articles all over the internet for the past two years.
• Albert already gave the Cardinals a very, very team-friendly contract in 2004, and to expect him to give them another hometown discount was probably too much.
• Albert has declined to sign with the Cardinals for well over a year now.  Perhaps, if he was as in love with playing for the St. Louis Cardinals as David Whitley thought he was, he would have made a new commitment with them before his contract expired after this past season.
• Albert was obviously not offered what he hoped to get.  And, from what has come out of Pujols’ camp over the past few days, it sounds like Albert was not impressed with the general lack of excitement that the organization (led by owner Bill DeWitt) showed toward making him a Cardinal for life.
• On the other hand, Angels owner Arte Moreno apparently did several things to show that he really wanted Pujols in Anaheim: he showed a great deal of excitement when he talked to Pujols, he offered the richest total contract and guaranteed it for ten years with no deferred payments, he included a personal services contract for Albert, post-career, and it’s also rumored that he put that sweet offer on the table and stuck a deadline on it.
• Albert sat there with the best offer he had gotten, felt confident that this was an organization that truly wanted him, and agreed.

Pujols and his wife were shocked and insulted when, early on in talks about a contract extension, the Cardinals offered Pujols five years, $130 million.  Albert was interested in being a Cardinal for life, but that meant he was looking for ten years.  The Cardinals were so far off base that they may have killed their chances of retaining him there and then.  And apparently, their latest offer, before he signed with the Angels, deferred over $30 million without interest until after the contract had expired.

Yeah, I’m not sure how badly DeWitt really wanted him back.

* * *

I’m a Cardinals fan, and I’ve been dissatisfied with how the Cardinals have gone about this.  Of course, I’m normally dissatisfied with how they handle other types of negotiations, as well, over the course of seasons and off-seasons.  Am I angry with Pujols for leaving St. Louis?  No, absolutely not.  Did I want him to stay?  Of course!  But come on!  When he didn’t have a contract extension before this past season started and the Cardinals instead exercised his option, I was pretty sure he was gone.  He was at least going to test the market, and try to get what he thought he was worth.

So, yes, David Whitley.  I know you can’t believe it, but he went after the money.  And the respect.  The commitment.  From the organization.  The length of the contract.  The timely paychecks.  Are you really, really that surprised?  And did you really have to be so disrespectful about him when he burst your child’s-dream Mr. Cardinal fairytale?

Thanks to you and your lack of professionalism… I’ll stick with Sports Illustrated and other sources for my ‘sporting news’ and opinions.

* * *

One last thing…

I know that many Cardinals fans, particularly those that live in the greater St. Louis area, are upset that he left.  It’s understandable.  However, think on these things for a moment:

You got to see one of the greatest players of our lifetimes play in your city for eleven years.  Not only that, he has played with integrity, intensity, and he is a champion in many ways.

More importantly, he gave back to the community in the form of the Pujols Family Foundation, which raises money to help poor and disadvantaged, those with Down Syndrome, and those with life threatening diseases or illnesses.  From what I have read, apparently local support for this great foundation has already severely eroded.  I find this whole thing sad.

It’s sports, people.  It’s not the end of the world.  Don’t take it out on his foundation, because you’re only hurting the people it helps.

Metallica - Beyond Magnetic EP

Prelude: The Anniversary Shows

Last week (between December 5th and 10th), Metallica played four shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco for fan club members, in order to celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary.  The shows were studded with stars, old friends, old band members, and heroes of the band members, and included set lists comprised of a wide variety of songs from the band’s career, as well as select covers.

Fans got to see every living current or former member of Metallica with the band, as Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine joined his old band for the songs “Phantom Lord”, “Jump In The Fire”, “Metal Militia”, “Hit The Lights,” and show-closer “Seek And Destroy” on Saturday, December 10th.  Former members Ron McGovney (bass), Hugh Tanner and Lloyd Grant (guitars), who were with the band for short stints at its birth, joined the band also on this night for the final song and various other songs from Kill ‘Em All (1983), as did longtime bassist Jason Newsted, who joined the festivities during all four shows.  Additional guests included Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler, Saxon’s Bill Byford, longtime Metallica producer Bob Rock, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains), Pepper Keenan (Down/CoC), Gary Rossington (Skynyrd), Glenn Danzig, Lou Reed, Mercyful Fate, John Bush (Armored Saint), Apocalyptica, Metallica fill-in guitarist John Marshall (Metal Church), and Sean Harris and Brian Tatler of Diamond Head.  It was quite the celebration and reunion!

For these shows, Metallica pulled a few songs from their catalog that had never been played before, including “Carpe Diem Baby” (Reload, 1997) and the Cliff Burton tribute “To Live Is To Die” (…And Justice For All, 1988).  They also introduced some previously unreleased content, which has created a lot of buzz in metal circles.

At each show, they debuted an unreleased song from the recording sessions that produced their latest album, Death Magnetic (2008).  From what I understand, fan club members were emailed the songs after each gig, and they quickly showed up on YouTube.  This week, Metallica officially released the four tracks as the Beyond Magnetic EP, exclusively through iTunes here in the U.S.

The Beyond Magnetic EP

The buzz around these songs is that they are… really good.  After Metallica’s recent collaboration with Reed, Lulu, which features songs written by Reed and arranged by/with Metallica and was roundly criticized for being very challenging to listen to (because the songs just aren’t that good), this EP is breath of fresh air in comparison.

Beyond Magnetic clocks in at 29:08 with four seven-minute songs and an 8-minute tribute to Layne Staley, “Rebel of Babylon”.

The first track, “Hate Train”, is a good solid song with strong, heavy riffs mixed with thrash sections that go a long way toward restoring faith in the band’s ability to write interesting music.  Other than during a mellow breakdown at around 3:30, Hetfield’s vocals are strong throughout.

Track two, entitled “Just A Bullet Away”, was referred to under the working title of “Shine” during the sessions, as seen on the “Mission Metallica” videos that came out as part of the promotion for Death Magnetic.  This track has a 6/8 feel for most of its duration, with galloping, marching riffs, although the song does break down at the four-minute mark for a mellow part, like the previous track.

“Hell And Back”, the third tune, is a mid-paced song with some dynamics, as it starts out somewhat quietly before gaining some heft for the choruses and much of the duration. It’s a good song, but difficult to write much about.

“Rebel Of babylon”, the aforementioned tribute to late Alice In Chains vocalist Layne Staley, is the most epic in scope out of this collection of songs.  It combines a mellow intro that builds into slow riffing, and then some fast thrash riffs that, used liberally throughout the song, recall moments from …And Justice For All.  The chorus, with its line “Don’t let it burn out tonight!” followed with “Kill me one more time/Stigmata/Kill me one more time/Neo martyr/Gonna die young/Gonna live forever/Kill me one more time/Rise up, rebel of Babylon!” are delivered powerfully in a higher register.  THIS is the kind of music that James Hetfield’s voice is made for.

The mixes on the EP are similar to those on Death Magnetic, although they are described by the band itself as “rough mixes”.  The vocals are, like those on the past two albums, among their driest ever – to say it another way, there is no reverb on Metallica vocals post-2000, and so these are fairly raw, pure sounds in that respect.  The guitars are not softened and buried like they were in the mid-90s releases, but rather have a heavy, raw edge to them and sit nicely in the mix.  And, unlike their counterparts on the album, the tunes on Beyond Magnetic are not over-mastered, to the point where the horrendous digital clipping that plagued Death Magnetic is, thankfully, not much of an issue here.

Overall, these songs are some of the ‘riffiest’ that Metallica has written in twenty years.  **Since …Justice… in 1988, which was an exercise in “how many riffs can we stick in these songs”, the band has gone from “let’s be economical and make strong songs out of fewer riffs but still be heavy” (Metallica); to “we have many, many simple riffs, so we wrote so many song-y hard rock songs that they’ll take two albums to release them all (Load and Reload); to “two of our best songs from the Load sessions didn’t get released for some reason, so we’ll record them with an orchestra” (S&M); to “we’re so unable to write good songs or riffs that we’ll see if we can kill our fans by repeating riffs so many times that they scream in pain” (St. Anger); to finally putting together a body of work that pulled together a newly-recovered hunger and aggressiveness with their more recent songwriting skills and their classic arrangement skills on Death Magnetic.

**Yes, I’m being snarky here.  I actually liked large portions of all of that music, but it was interesting (and rough) to watch them devolve and then re-grow as a band over the past two decades.

This EP is absolutely a companion to Metallica’s latest.  The songs were written three or four years ago, but if their recent live performance and release is any indication of the direction that Metallica is still going – as well as indicating that the band likes the songs! – fans have a reason to be cautiously optimistic about their next album, which is currently expected in 2012… although we all know how that tends to go with this band.

The “What-if”s concerning these songs and Death Magnetic

In some ways, it’s a shame that one or more of these songs didn’t make the cut for Death Magnetic.  I’ve read several comments that argued for certain songs to be dropped in favor of “Just A Bullet Away”, generally in the following order of ‘most desired to be trashed’:

1. The Unforgiven III
2. My Apocalypse
3. The End Of The Line
4. Cyanide

Personally, I really enjoy “The Unforgiven III” and I’m glad it’s on the album.  On the other hand, my least favorite song from Death Magnetic was, by far, “The Day That Never Comes”, which was the first single and video from the album.  I skip that song every time it comes on now.  If that had been dropped in favor of “Just A Bullet Away,” I would have been cool with that, but I think my favorite song from the EP is “Rebel of Babylon”, and if they had stuck that in place of the instrumental “Suicide & Redemption” (which I do like, by the way, but not as much as some of these songs), I think that it would not only make the album better, but its lyrical tone and epic nature would fit perfectly, both as ‘the epic song before the thrashy closer’ and within the overall theme of the album.  That’s my two cents.  But I loved listening to Death Magnetic as it was (other than my previously mentioned least favorite track), so this is all just for fun anyway.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed listening to these songs, and will probably listen to them many, many times in months to some.  If you’re a Metallica fan, this is your contemporary Metallica sound.  Lulu was not.  This is.

* * *

Ok, so this ended up not being so “mini” – but I thought it would be when I started it!  Ah well, the title stays.

My first huge resource was @SystemicBabble‘s now-retired blog, Of Teeth and Claws.  My second was John Patricelli’s BigBearButt.  From those two excellent blogs, I branched out and began following dozens of blogs, and eventually started one myself, which subsequently became consumed with WoW itself and was eventually retired at the beginning of this year.  My current blog, which is clean and free from that game’s influence and spam traffic, has been much more personally rewarding than the previous one.

Blogging about games is fun.  But it’s not something that I’ve done much of this year, and I’m just now getting around to putting it out there and saying that, hey, I don’t fit into what has become a hyper intellectual area of discussion.

* * *

Out of that process of searching for interesting and informational sites, I’ve been privileged to get to know, through their blogs, Andrew and Tesh, who have both been gaming for much, much longer than I have, and have a much deeper understanding of the ins and outs of game design, game play, and so on.  Their content interests me – although sometimes they discuss things that are beyond me – but above all, it has been their personalities and writing styles that have appealed to me over the past few years.  Each was something of a blogging hero to me, particularly in the early days of my old blog, as they were each inspirational to me via the examples set by their own blogs.

Tesh is working on a game right now called Zomblobs, and it looks amazing.  You can read about it here, here, and here.  He also has a paper game that he developed called Alpha Hex, which looks interesting but is something I confess that I’ve never tried (although, if I found someone to play it with, I might be inclined to!), and he has worked professionally on the Kelflings games.  He is one of my very favorite bloggers, and I will always follow him – until he stops saying things, I guess.

Beyond that, and a few of the other bloggers that I enjoy…

I don’t know.  I can give no compelling reason for someone to actually read this post.  My thoughts on the subject are few, they’re defensive, and they feel like they’re breaking down.

What I’m trying to say is that my relationship with the gaming blog-o-tweet-go-round (etc.) is slipping into almost complete disconnection.

* * *

The inspiration for this post finally being written is from a comment by @SystemicBabble on Twitter.  Here is his comment:

I wish that all MMO players could just wake up and see the matrix for what it is.

Now, there was no context provided, other than the fact that I know that, since quitting WoW quite a while ago, he has become increasingly anti-MMO.  And I’ve read many of his criticisms, and I agree with some of them.  However, I found this comment to be insulting, and while my feelings in this post come from reading a lot of material over time, it was this comment that broke the dam and compelled me to write.

With all due respect to him, we come from different places with regard to his issues with MMOs.  I’m not anti- like he is – nor am I brainwashed or clueless if I choose to slap down my $15 for a month of playing time.  No, I’m right here, I’m very aware, and I am wide awake.

And if I truly just don’t understand why he said what he said, well then… the rest of this post should cover that.  I’ll be dumb and happy, by choice.  I’m tired of this.  Games do not define me as a person.

* * *

I’m tired of reading people’s damning criticism of certain types of games – particularly when it comes to a comment like this, which seems to imply that those who play a certain genre fit a negative category (in this case, “controlled” or “brainwashed” or “addicted” or whatever else he might mean) – and perhaps that’s just a flaw in my personality.  But, when it comes down to it, I play the games that I enjoy.  What critics or bloggers say about games doesn’t ultimately influence me.  I don’t play a lot of games anyway, because that’s not how I’m wired.

However, I did try to rewire myself for a time.  I tried to be a WoW blogger.  I tried to argue my views on the designs of the games that I did play.  I wrote speculatively, based on my limited understanding of what is “good” or whatever. And I made lists of games that I really wanted to play and never got around to playing most of them, and I felt badly about that.  But really, that’s not me, and I apologize for anyone who read some of the crap I wrote, particularly when I was writing Sunmurma.

Over the past year, I have read thousands of posts about hundreds of games and the fascinating world of video game design.  But, here and now, I am pledging not to soil the internet with my uninformed musings from this point forward. The truth is, I’m not an avid gamer, and I don’t have the interest, so I generally don’t try out much of what becomes available.  So I stick with what I enjoy, and the few games that I do play, I play because I enjoy, regardless of what others say (with all due respect to those who put a lot of time and thought into their criticisms).  I feel better admitting that to myself.  My friends know that there are too many games that I’ve bought and not played, or played very little, and that’s not a way to live.  It’s not because the games were bad – it’s just that I don’t have the inner drive or interest to be that person.

That said, when I feel like playing a baseball game or a golf game, I’ll play one.  When I feel like playing Fable or Burnout 3, I’ll dig out my old XBox.  When I feel like playing Fable 2, I’ll do that.  When I feel like playing solitaire on my DSi, I’ll do so. When I feel like playing PvZ, I’ll play the demo for a while.  If I feel like MMO action, I’ll fire up the WoW sub, because it’s the only MMO that I can play on my computer, and I really don’t give a flying crap if it costs me $15 if I have the spare $15 and I enjoy my time playing.  If there’s some other crappy game that I feel like playing, and I can afford the time/money to do so, I will.  But I will never let the opinions of others influence whether I enjoy or ignore a particular game genre, and will instead stay true to myself and follow the simplicity of me and my desires in that regard.  I think I’ll be happier that way.

Because gaming… is not an area where I need to challenge myself and push my own boundaries.  It just doesn’t matter much to me.

And if I do write about a game, I’ll be influenced by my own experiences, and that is all.

* * *

Apologies for the scattered nature and lack of focus in this post.  Thanks for reading.

Fin (rant).

Heritage

With the release of their latest album, Heritage, this fall, Swedish progressive metal band Opeth took their sound in a different direction than on their previous efforts.  Only their second release that does not have any of frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt’s trademark harsh vocals, Heritage is also Opeth’s first full-on progressive record, eschewing not only death metal vocals but also heavy guitars and rhythms.  The music is still melodically and technically complex, not to mention dark, but not in the style that many fans of Opeth have come to love – and expect – from the band.

As such, the record has caused some divisions among fans.  Some (like myself) love great music, interesting music, experimentation, etc., and are not tied to metal as a necessary denominator.  Others simply don’t like it.  Still others want to hear more “traditional” Opeth records in the vein of My Arms, Your Hearse or Blackwater Park or Watershed.  All of these perspectives are understandable – people like Opeth for different reasons, and, while most of the band’s fans would probably classify themselves as metal fans, their music naturally attracts a variety of fans because it pulls from a wide variety of influences.

However, the band has caused something of an uproar on its tour this fall, because, in the spirit of the current album, they are only performing songs from their catalog that don’t contain harsh vocals.  Fans hoping to see Opeth fill their setlist with a hefty dose of death metal along with some choice “clean” numbers have often been disappointed that there is no death metal involved.

“The Devil’s Orchard”

* * *

Early in November, Åkerfeldt talked with Simon Rushworth, editor of Rushonrock.com.  Feel free to check out the interview in its entirety here.  The interview contains several general questions about the tour, the record, the band, and metal itself, but there were two consecutive questions that brought forth some interesting answers from Mikael with regard to his vocals.

(Rushworth asked): “How do you incorporate the new material into the set?”

Åkerfeldt: “We mix the new songs in from time to time rather than play a bunch together. But we’ve chosen older songs that go well with the new material. There’s clean singing all the time – no screaming. We have a fair number of songs that fit together well from across our career. We have 25 songs for this tour and we play 12 or 13 each night. Five or six of them are from the new album.”

(Rushworth): “Is this the end as far as Opeth and screaming and/or growling vocals are concerned?”

Åkerfeldt: “I can’t say really. I’ve never turned my back on anything and I’m not going to start now. It’s not like I don’t like that style of vocal delivery any more. But I just can’t develop any more as a singer if I keep on screaming. In fact I think I got worse at that as the years went by. But if the future songs require those vocals then that’s what I’ll deliver. It seems like a long shot at this stage.” (bold emphasis mine)

Mikael also said, earlier in the interview, that “I did write a couple of songs just trying to find my feet and they were metal sounding songs and not very good. So I decided to start from scratch.”  And I don’t remember where I saw this, but he stated in a different interview that, after he had written those songs, he was showing them to the band and bassist Martin Mendez said to him something to the effect of, “This isn’t the new album, is it?” with a dubious tone of voice, and Mikael scrapped the songs shortly thereafter.

What interests me here is that Åkerfeldt, while not making a binding statement, was not averse to the idea that he may never record his death metal growl again, and that future Opeth albums might only contain clean vocals, which would likely mean music of a more experimental, less death metal nature, a la Heritage or Damnation.

His reasons for the change are compelling.  He feels that the longer he uses harsh vocals or growls, the more they harm his singing voice and hamper its development.  Åkerfeldt has always had strong growls and a beautiful singing voice, and it was awesome to watch him recording Deliverance (as well as singing live) on the Lamentations DVD, going from harsh to clean or clean to harsh.  I found it remarkable, because there are great differences between the two styles.  Unlike certain metal singers like Phil Anselmo or Chuck Billy, who have gravel in their voices when they sing and are that much closer at all times to a scream or growl, Åkerfeldt has a death metal growl and a strong, very clean singing voice, so it was always fun to watch him switch between them.  However, I could see where it could cause problems or wear and tear, particularly over the course of several tours.

How do I feel about it?

Well, I like Heritage, and I’ve always loved his clean vocals, as well as his melodic sense as a singer.  I’ve also always liked his harsh vocals, but if he abandons them for a time (or forever), and finds singing full-time an inspirational experience, and makes several more interesting albums, I’m not terribly concerned if screaming isn’t part of those equations.  Ultimately, I’ll take more Opeth over, say, no Opeth because he isn’t satisfied with the “metal” songs he’s writing, or whatever.

However, that’s just my opinion.  I know that others are upset that Opeth isn’t playing death metal on this tour, but it’s actually possible that Opeth might not be playing death metal on its tours for a while, at this point.

Lou Reed & Metallica - Lulu

When Metallica and Lou Reed announced that they had come together to collaborate on an album of songs, I was excited.  I was interested to hear what they might come up with – and, truth be told, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  However, given that Metallica were collaborating with Lou Reed, I assumed that there might be some weirder tracks and some simple song structures, but some tunefulness as well.

In September, “The View” was released as a single from the album, and I wrote about it here (you can also hear the unedited song on that post).  At that point, knowing Metallica’s penchant for not even coming close to releasing the strongest songs from their new albums as first singles over the past several years, I felt that if “The View” was representative of the potential of the album, it had a chance to be a better album than I had originally hoped.

Man, what a convoluted sentence that was.  But that in itself is indicative of how I feel after listening to Lulu, letting it sit, and listening to it again in parts over the past several weeks (it released in North America on November 1st).

James is the table – “The View” video:

Preliminary thoughts

As it turns out, “The View” is absolutely the strongest song on the album.  When it was released for download in September, it received mixed reviews (to put it kindly).  I thought that it had a nice combination of riffs, the lyrics weren’t bad – they sounded to me like like something Lou would write, and I’m thinking in particular of his lyrics on Magic and Loss (1992) – and Lou sounded both demanding and vulnerable while James’ vocal delivery was quite strong in the choruses.

I didn’t actually pick up the album until the second weekend in November, which is when I began to have access to my computer again.  I had committed myself to buying it, even though I was not terribly confident that it would be any good (and I did have a little trouble actually pulling the trigger).  And I don’t regret buying it – I’m glad to have experienced it.  That said, it is going to be difficult for me to willingly listen to most of it from here on out.

Metal fans: this is not a metal album.  It’s not even a Lou Reed album, and it’s certainly not a Metallica album.  It’s an experiment, an exploration, an exercise in artistic expression.  It’s a group of artists, who admire and respect one another, getting together to experience a creative climate that is foreign to each of them.  The results are not necessarily intended to be great in anyone’s minds but those of their creators.  The joy and satisfaction comes in the exercise, the process of creation.  I have a lot of respect for that type of experience.  Perhaps it has made each of the participants better musicians in some way.  But this is not an album of solid rock or metal song structures, standard aggressive lyrics, and so on – it’s explicit: the lyrics and sounds are uncomfortable to digest through much of the album, to varying degrees of effectiveness.

However, this is – truly – not a main work for either of these entities.  Lou Reed has always marched to his own beat, and there are elements of his other work in this album: the occasional dirge or droning, 18-minute song (a la “Sister Ray” or “Like A Possum”); the rapid-fire phrases that don’t necessarily rhyme or match the music in any discernable way; the lyrics that don’t shy away from sexual, violent, or taboo topics and word choices; singing vulgar lyrics from the point of view of a woman; etc. There are a couple of songs on this album that I am pretty certain would make decent Lou Reed (with his band) songs, and, indeed, I wish there were a version of this album available that consisted solely of Lou’s own recordings of the tunes, whether they be the demos that he sent to Metallica originally or some finished product with his longtime mates Mike Rathke (guitar), Fernando Saunders (fretless bass) and Tony “Thunder” Smith (drums).  I’m almost 100% certain that I would ultimately prefer either of those options to this recording.

The songs

There are moments that I enjoy on Lulu.  ”The View”, as mentioned above and in my earlier post, is the first.  The second is the main section of the closing track, “Junior Dad.”  The nineteen-plus minute album-closer doesn’t really get started until 55 seconds in, and is little more than a droning wash of sound after the 10:45 mark.  However, for more than nine minutes, I enjoy the song.  Without digging too deeply, the lyrics read like a prayer to a long-lost deadbeat failure of a father, but to me they ring a bit more universally than that particular relationship.  The musical accompaniment is a slow, gently distorted bed of coals under Lou’s singing (yes, he basically sings the whole song…), and provides a perfect complement to the subject matter.

Finally, there is track nine, entitled “Dragon”.  Clocking in at more than eleven minutes, the song starts with Lou talking over ambient droning and washes of distorted guitar before picking up at 2:45 or so with a pretty cool riff that nevertheless sounds like a segue to the end of a good mid-paced hard rock tune – for the next nine minutes. Ultimately, this song works better than the majority of Lulu‘s tracks – the pace and the character of the riffs work well with Reed’s vocal delivery.

To my taste, these three are without question the best songs on the album.  There are other moments that I like – the drumming in parts of the ambient spaces in “Pumping Blood”; a couple of the riffs in “Frustration”; and so on – but in general, there are many moments that fall way below even the “artistic” scale…

Opening the record is “Brandenburg Gate”, which is the type of track that I would skip on a Lou Reed album.  It is a boring, forgettable album opener.  After “The View”, “Pumping Blood” rips for a couple of minutes and then dies away into noise and drone, rising and falling while Lou rants on and on about pumping blood – it’s supposed to be macabre, I guess, but it eventually just kind of grows annoying to me.

The middle of the album is, to me, a solid block of music that is virtually unlistenable for various reasons.  ”Mistress Dread” is more than six minutes of Metallica basically alternating between two fairly simple thrash riffs that are played at breakneck, “Hell Awaits” or “Rise”-ish speed – for over six minutes – while Lou talks/croons very slowly. For more than six minutes.  Did I mention that?  It’s kind of bizarre, and awkward to listen to.  I can’t listen to it straight through, to be honest.  Then we come to two songs, “Iced Honey” and “Cheat On Me”, that I think I would prefer to hear as Lou Reed solo band tracks.  In these, as well as in the previously mentioned “Brandenburg Gate”, I really, really wish that James Hetfield hadn’t added vocals (“ICED HUNNEEE!!”; “Small Town GIRRRRLLL!” in the first track; etc.) – to my ears, they bring globs of cheese factor to songs that already don’t work well with Metallica.  In general, this three-song block is an automatic skip for me, from this point forward.

“Frustration”, the title of this post, has some interesting lyrics at the beginning before falling in quality as the song progresses.  The first riff under the vocals basically copies the main lick that dominates “Iced Honey”, a I-to-minorIV repetitive lick that is ultimately lackluster – I’m sad to see that this riff was used in one song repetitively, but to see it twice is unfortunate.  Then again, Lou is known to reuse riffs and even whole songs on the same album (here again I’m thinking of Magic and Loss), so it’s not surprising.  The initial heavy riff is pretty cool, and when they play it later in the song it has some good energy.  However, this isn’t one of my favorites on the album.  A couple of competent riffs do not make a good song.

“Little Dog” is something of a departure from the rest of the album in that it’s the quietest track, with the main licks being played on a down-tuned acoustic with distorted guitars adding color.  It’s not a bad song, and I would listen to it again, but it’s not a strong song either.

The summation

And that’s the album. Ten songs, 87 minutes.  I would listen to “The View”, “Junior Dad”, “Dragon”, and “Little Dog” again.  And maybe “Frustration” and even “Pumping Blood” once in a great while, but those would likely be very rare occasions.  On the other hand, “Brandenburg Gate,”  ”Mistress Dread”, “Iced Honey”, and “Cheat On Me” are all songs that I will never listen to again – there is virtually nothing that appeals to me about them, artistically or sonically, while in my opinion the other six tunes have interesting qualities that will bring me back to them to varying degrees.

Final thoughts

As I said above, this is not a typical album for either of these artists.  While I’m murkier about whether Lou Reed considers it his next project – he’s worked with so many people that it feels less like a side project in his case – this is definitely not a Metallica album.  I came into it expecting little, hoping for much, and in the end having a listening experience that brought moments of inspiration, but more moments of frustration and disappointment.  It reminds me of when I listened to Reed’s The Raven (2003), because whenever either of these artists releases an album, I hope to be challenged and inspired, but ultimately I want to like the work.

Unfortunately, while the lyrics have a certain cohesiveness – and they should, since they were written for use with a play – the music is disjointed stylistically; the atmospherics get tiresome; some of the riffs are beyond stagnant; the drumming ranges from effective to extremely poor; James’ vocals are sometimes appropriate and strong (“The View”) but usually weak and cheesy (the rest of the songs that he sings on); Lou sometimes overloads my brain with his haranguing raps, while on other occasions (“Mistress Dread”) his vocals are so deliberate that he makes me feel like I am listening to the song while I’m extremely hungover.

It’s not a metal album, and it’s not really a rock album.  It’s a work of sonic art.  It is vaguely related to Metallica’s music, as well as Reed’s sonic experimentations (particularly from the past ten years), but it’s certainly not the best of either artist.  And that doesn’t mean that it’s easy or fun to listen to, or that it’s good.  I’m truly glad that they made this album – because I like when artists experiment and take themselves out of their comfort zones – and I’m glad that I got a chance to hear it.  But I don’t really enjoy listening to it like I had hoped I would.

As far as grading it… I have a hard time putting numbers, letters, thumbs, stars, or anything else to music.  I have seen thumbs downs, half-stars, 1.5 stars out of five, 1.5 stars out of four, threes or fours out of ten, and so on. According to Metacritic, the album has an aggregate score of 41/100 as of today.  Kerrang gave it a 60/100, and Uncut gave it an 80.  The Buffalo News gave the 1.5/4 stars that I saw, while Blabbermouth gave it a 3/10 and its readers have given it less.

There are many different perspectives on the album, but I don’t know that I’m willing to embrace anyone else’s.  I stated my own opinions on the subject in the previous paragraphs, and stand by their validity.  Grading this is more difficult because it’s a collaboration, a side project, or whatever one wants to call it.  It’s likely a one-time thing, and as such is an aberration in their respective careers, particularly in the case of Metallica.

That said, I like parts of it.  I don’t really like the whole of it.  It disappoints me, frustrates me, but I do enjoy certain moments.  However, if you are expecting Metallica’s Death Magnetic 2, Lou Reed’s New York 2, or anything anywhere close to a combination of them, don’t – just don’t even waste your money or time – because you’ll be way more disappointed or outraged than I could ever be about this record.

* * *

And now, it’s time to listen to something else for a while.  ^.^

Post Script

For an excellent, well-written take on the album from one of Metallica’s peers, hop over to Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick’s blog and check out his review and his perspective on the validity of the project.  I was very glad to read this – it’s more mature and level-headed than just about anything else I’ve read about the record.

The Constitutional Convention...

Those readers who view my actual blog rather than reading my posts in a reader or via email subscription may have noticed that I like to keep a short list of what I’m reading and listening to near the top of the blog page.  I use a widget for this called “Text” which allows me to use basic text in that space.  However, the formatting options are extremely limited, and sometimes I run into space and wrapping issues.  As such, I sometimes refrain from listing a book or record for aesthetic reasons, particularly when a title or the name of an author/artist is too long and can’t be adequately abbreviated.

One of the first books I’ve borrowed from the local library is a paperback entitled The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison, by Edward J. Larson and Michael P. Winship (clicking the book cover to the left takes you to its Amazon.com page).  It’s one of three very different books that I’m reading at the moment (one is something of an autobiography and the other is a collection of crime short stories).

At this point, I’ve barely begun the book.  However, one thing intrigues me, and it’s not really about the book as much as it’s about me.  I’ll get to my point in a moment…

I’ve read many hundreds of books, and my favorites include biographies and several genres of fiction.  I generally consider myself to be a voracious reader with decent comprehension.  One of the genres that I’ve enjoyed over the years is historical fiction, and history, particularly that of Europe and North America, has interested me throughout my adult life.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

In school, I enjoyed my history/social studies classes for the most part.  However, for some reason (lack of concern, most likely), I feel that I didn’t learn as much as I wish I had – I hesitate to blame my education when it’s more likely that I am the cause of my lack of detailed knowledge and/or retention regarding history (and other subjects, for that matter).  As an adult, I’ve tried to dig into the early history of the U.S. and Europe at times, but I’ve generally failed to get very far.  My biggest failure in this regard was when I attempted to read The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon several years ago – the set contains a massive amount of information in an obtuse writing style on densely formatted pages.  In short, I became both bored and frustrated with it after several tries that took me less than 25 pages in – I was upset with myself, really – and so, sadly, it sits in a box in storage for the time being.

I’ve succeeded in reading some historical material – I haven’t completely failed at this – but each time I attempt a book like this, I wonder if I’m going to finish it and/or get anything out of it.  I was not a history major, and I was a ways a terrible researcher in school, and that has come back to haunt me many times as an adult who reads for his own interest and edification.

According to Larson and Winship’s preface, they edited Madison’s notes to make them a bit more readable (using modern spelling, punctuation and capitalization, breaking long passages into paragraphs, edited some extraneous material, etc.), in order to allow the narrative to come to the forefront.  This is probably good for lunkheads like me.  I likely won’t be writing a paper on this book, but I’d like to come out of it with a better understanding of what happened in Philadelphia during the spring and summer of 1787.

I’m not sure how to express my point any more concisely… I feel like I should be able to dig into something like Decline and Fall…, but I never could, and it made me feel kind of… stupid? unskilled? Something like that.  Does anyone else experience something like this with a certain book genre?

Anyway, that’s on the reading list, and in spite of my trepidation, I’m excited to read it.