Thanks for all the Memories

It's funny how music can take you places into your past. While I listened to music in my childhood, and I still listen to some of those songs, I don't consider myself to having had any personal musical taste until 8th grade. Prior to then, I just listened to whatever was on. (This completely absolves me from any responsibility of owning those 3 albums of New Kids on the Block.)

In 8th grade I discovered Heavy Metal. My entry into this realm of music was Metallica's Black album. Some people would say that it was the Black album that Metallica jumped the shark. While they may have had the shark in their sights, I don't think they truly jumped it until Load. I don't think I ever listened to St. Anger all the way through, I deleted those MP3s probably 30 seconds into the first song.

A friend told me that their new album wasn't bad, and that I should check it out. So I did. When I heard the first licks from the guitar on
"That Was Your Life" I was taken back to Matt Davis's living room. I was wearing a denim vest over a black tshirt and I wore Lee jeans with giant holes in the knees. My hair was shaggy as I had just decided to grow it long, and we were listening to ...And Justice for All on his dad's stereo system. That's the same living room where I first learned to play D&D and Magic the gathering. I can still clearly remember the smell of that house.

Next I jumped to my own bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed listening to the Black album with the inside cover in my hands reading along with the entire album trying to memorize the lyrics. The music was coming out of my little black boom box with the tone knob turned all the way to treble.

A flood of other memories followed. First hearing Ride the Lighting on a church trip to Denver. Looking at the albums that I didn't yet own in the little music section that the grocery store had. Recording hours and hours of Metallica specials that aired on Mtv. Drawing stylized M's on my notebooks in school. Listening to my friend Tony try to play Anesthesia on his bass guitar.

I'm not going to make any great claims about this album. Older fans may want to give this a listen before dismissing it. If nothing else it makes for good reminiscing, and something to write about.