Say what you’ll about Metallica, however no different metallic band has taken as many probabilities as they’ve over the past 40-plus years.
From serving to to forge a wholly new sound with their landmark debut Kill ’Em All to altering issues up on an infinite scale with 1991’s mega-successful Black Album to teaming up with an orchestra on 1999’s groundbreaking S&M album, difficult themselves is embedded deep in Metallica’s DNA.
Even when it looks as if they’ve made a misstep, historical past has proved them proper. The controversial mid-90s one-two of Load and Reload drew loads of criticism on the time, but all however probably the most dug-in haters should admit that each these information are nice. Some Type Of Monster? Top-of-the-line music documentaries ever made.
Typically they haven’t received it proper, however the intention behind their choices is inarguable. St Anger isn’t the best Metallica album, nevertheless it’s the album they needed to make at the moment. Their Lou Reed collaboration Lulu is often derided, however what number of different bands can be keen to step so dramatically out of their consolation zone? Even drummer Lars Ulrich’s much-mocked choice to tackle Napster on the peak of file-sharing appears like a prophetic warning concerning the grasping, self-serving nature of the web and the gradual devaluation of music.
Brief model: Metallica hardly ever ever make dangerous calls, even when it appears like they do. However there’s one notable exception – a howlingly dangerous rap-rock collaboration that even Metallica don’t speak about as of late. Its identify? We Did It Once more.
Some background. the band had been approached to seem on the soundtrack to 1993’s Judgment Night time, a so-so thriller whose mediocrity as a movie was inverse proportion to the brilliance of its soundtrack album. The latter featured a bunch of killer collaborations between among the greatest and finest names from the worlds of rock and hip hop, from Religion No Extra and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E’s menacing One other Physique Murdered to Slayer and Ice-T’s Dysfunction, a fearsome medley of songs by mohawked Brit-punk hooligans The Exploited.
Whether or not Metallica regretted lacking out on being a part of that cross-cultural love-in isn’t clear, however they weren’t going to make the identical mistake twice. When hip hop producer Swizz Beatz tapped them up in the beginning of the 2000s to seem alongside multi-platinum rapper Ja Rule on a music for Beatz’ upcoming compilation album, G.H.E.T.T.O. Tales, they seemingly jumped on the likelihood.
Some context is useful. Metallica had been in hassle on the time. The periods for the long-awaited follow-up to Load/Reload had been torpedoed by the departure of bassist Jason Newsted in 2001 and James Hetfield’s subsequent departure for rehab to take care of alcohol and different points, all of which is documented in painful element in Some Type Of Monster. So their heads could not have been within the recreation.
Information of this unlikely collaboration started to trickle out in late 2001. “Rapper Ja Rule has entered the studio with Metallica to report a brand new music,” trumpeted NME.com, including that Ja Rule mentioned of the collaboration: “I spin two 12-bar verses with Metallica on their new large, large report they received that’s loopy.” On another day, that will have been large information. However the story appeared on September 11, 2011, so it’s hardly a shock that it slipped via the online.
Chatting with Radio104 WMRQ in Hartford, Connecticut in 2002, Lars make clear how the collaboration happened. In line with the drummer, Swizz Beatz had been given his personal report deal on the again of profitable singles with rappers DMX and Jay-Z, amongst others, and the Bronx-born producer had a “laborious on” to do a rock observe.
“He known as up a few yr in the past and requested if we’d give him an outdated Metallica music that he might form of minimize up and do all that sort of stuff with after which have someone rap over it,” Lars defined. “This was simply once we began doing the stuff for the brand new report [St Anger] and we had been like, ‘You already know what, as an alternative of simply, this is someone rapping over Enter Sandman or Unhappy However True or no matter, why do not you come to San Francisco and select among the new materials that now we have been engaged on?’. And he could not imagine it.”
Swizz Beatz met up with the band at their studio. “We had been principally letting him have the run of the shop,” mentioned Lars. “And it was actually cool, as a result of it was simply form of like dipping our toes into a complete different world, and this man, Swizz, he’s such a sweetheart… none of this bullshit 500-member entourage and all that sort of crap. It was simply one other dare, what I imply?”
In line with Ulrich, Swizz Beatz initially deliberate to make use of New York rapper DMX on the music earlier than opting to go along with Ja Rule, who had lately scored a US No.1 together with his 2001 single All the time On Time.
“[Swizz Beatz] needed that riff from one music that riff from one other music, and he was like, ‘OK, that’s it,’” recalled the drummer. “After which he went again to New York and he known as us a few week later and mentioned he received Ja Rule to rap on it… we heard a few of this Ja Rule’s man’s stuff and it was, like, ‘That’s actually cool.’”
Outtakes from Some Type Of Monster really present the music coming collectively. Lars Ulrich, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett and St Anger producer Bob Rock meet Swizz Beatz and Ja Rule within the studio. “Now the factor is, all people’s recreation for no matter you need to do,” Rock tells Swizz. “Let’s simply see what occurs right here, quite than put any limitations on it.” Swizz appears up for it too. “You’ll be able to play that at a celebration,” he says of an particularly gnarly James Hetfield riff earlier than beatboxing excessive of it.
Noble intentions for positive, and all people seemingly desires it to work. “That’s actually fucking cool,” says Lars of the music because it comes collectively. “That’s going to fuck with all people after they hear our shit later.” Ja Rule isn’t any much less enthusiastic. “Ja Rule meets Metallica – it’s motherfucking historical past!” says the rapper as he lays down his vocals.
That’s a barely optimistic view of how issues turned out. It will be greater than a yr earlier than We Did It Once more lastly emerged, buried behind G.H.E.T.T.O. Tales.
Little fanfare surrounded its launch, which is just about what it deserved. We Did It Once more is a shocker: a lumbering, Frankenstein’s Monster of a music that stitches collectively a handful of cast-off Metallica riffs, throws in a tough-guy Hetfield vocal that sounds prefer it’s been fished from down the again of the studio couch, and leaves Ja Rule to try to maintain all of it collectively. It feels like 5 totally different songs in a single, none of them any good. (Lars’ drum sound additionally sounds suspiciously just like the one he’d use on St Anger, so possibly we must always have paid extra consideration).
Lars Ulrich gave the impression to be placing distance between Metallica and We Did It Once more even across the music’s launch. “It actually would not have a lot to do with us, it is not our report label, it is not something, we form of simply gave this man [Swizz Beatz] a few riffs and informed him to form of run with it after which now we have been form of taking part in ball with him every time he asks,” Lars mentioned in 2002.
What’s irritating about We Did It Once more isn’t how dangerous it turned out to be, it’s how good it might have been. The mix of a metallic band up for making an attempt various things, a sizzling hip hop producer and a rapper having fun with main business success ought to have been inventive gold.
As an alternative, it turned out to be the worst factor the band ever put their identify to. The one optimistic is that Ja Rule’s suggestion the music would seem on Metallica’s “new large, large report” proved to be false, as a result of, god is aware of, St Anger received sufficient of a kicking because it was.
Right this moment, no person brings up We Did It Once more, not at the same time as a punchline. It lurks on the furthest fringe of Metallica’s again catalogue, peering glumly via the window and questioning what went fallacious. It’s by no means been performed reside. and Metallica definitely haven’t dabbled in hip hop once more. “Motherfucking historical past”? Not even shut.
