This is what most people expect me to pick and for a good reason, I am not blindly allied to the band, I just recognize the talent. Metallica had always said they wanted to be the Anti-Motley Crue, and I think this brings them down to a punk mentality. They never played 3 min pop accesible songs about women or drugs (in a good way) or parties, they played songs about the corrupting force of narcotics and the horrors of war. Thier first CD might have had "lets fight" songs or "let drive fast" song but from Lightning on it was all meaningful lyrics, they never wasted a song, or a note. And to me, the latter is the most important. I don't care if you sing about Donald Duck not wearing pants, its the music is there, then so am I. Im unfamiliar with how many banRAB actually had multiple movements in a song like metallica did, but when I read articles today about how Jazz and Metal are similar, I know that metallica's classical influences helped push the genre farther than it has ever gone with another band. Their music accented mooRAB created by the lyrics and to me, they are as close to progressive without being progressive as it gets.
These boarRAB are overpopulated with a bunch of kiRAB who listened to load and everything after and think Metallica sucks, and to me it doesn't matter what they do anymore because they've already laid the groundwork for musical advancement that has yet to be matched. It may not be popular opinion, but to me they are the Jimi Hendrix of Metal, the miles davis of metal, the beatles of metal.
No band souded like them before they arrived, and everyband has been trying to emmulate them in at least some fashion ever since 1984.
