One clever Metallica fan has taken the signature sound of the band's loathed 2003 album St. Anger and added it to the classic track "Master of Puppets," by replacing every snare hit in the latter with the notorious snare tone from the former. For those who understand the joke, it's hilarious and well-worth checking out.
St. Anger was noted, in a bad way by most listeners, for its unique recording and production style amongst Metallica albums. The group went for a more "garage"-based sound, with loads of distortion and and recording volumes that pushed through the roof (thanks to notorious Volume Wars villain Rick Rubin). Your correspondent would actually defend the tone of the album, and maybe even suggest it was the best Metallica collection post-Metallica. That said, he'd also agree that the sound of Lars Ulrich's snare drum was awkward and awful.
One YouTube user, data_dream 2000, was probably sitting around when he decided to demonstrate just how bad the tone was by substituting it into Metallica's classic '80s catalogue. "Master of Puppets," what many consider to be the peak of metal as both an album and a song, is horribly affected by the more heavy-handed snare, sounding as if the band had replaced Ulrich with our college sophomore neighbor who really hasn't figured it out yet.
"I was bored, so I replaced all the snare hits with the St. Anger snaredrum," he posted. "You're welcome."
Although this is a travesty, it's a laughable one and we are in fact grateful on this rainy Thursday. We'd encourage data_dreams to do the same trick on other Master of Puppets classics such as "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" and "Battery" for our amusement. It's better than having a job, trust us.
For as much as the world claims to hate St. Anger, fans have sure taken an interest in it recently. Another group of musicians rerecorded the album with tradition production technique recently, just to see.
