yeah, Though I love Metallica and know relatively little about metal (compared to people on these forums) I do kind of wince everytime I read an article about Metallica that says they invented thrash. Metallica just made it accessible to a wider audience.

One thing that made the albums Kill 'em All, Ride the Lighting, & Master of Puppets great was Cliff, he really helped push James, Lars, & Kirk to write killer stuff & not the standard 4/4 thing. Cliff was a classically trained Pianist & understood music & with ...And Justice for All, The Black album, Load, Reload, & St Anger they didn't have that driving force that pushed them 2 they had Bob Rock who I think was having them go in a more mainstream direction I heard in an interview I think it was with James he said that with Load & Reload they didn't try to write the epic 8 min songs they kind of sat back & let it flow & didn't worry about writing the greatest riff ever & I think Bob had a little bit to do with that because if you listen to The Black album its still got some of what their first 4 albums had & that is because they didn't want to listen to Bob they didn't want some one else in there telling them what to do but them go listen to Load, Reload, & St Anger & it is more mainstream & that is when they were listening to Bob & taking his advice.
But what ever the out come is of their new album Metallica will still be one of my number one favorite bands.