Metallica, . . . And Justice For All

By Christian Lipski

Fall 1988, I’m in my room in the Le Chateau co-op after class, having stopped off at Tower Records to get the new Metallica album. I had been into Kill ‘Em All and was excited about the first record from the great metal band that I would buy new. Little did I know that eventually all three things would disappear: the Co-op association would close down Chateau, Tower Records would go out of business, and Metallica would stop being great. The third of these happened in the Fall of 1988.

I think I listened to the album twice. As everyone else did, I bought the album because “One” was pretty kick-ass. And of course the video was chilling. But like so many albums in the pre-online-preview days, I was unaware of what else was lurking on the vinyl. I sat there looking at the album art, marveling at the lengths of the tracks. Metallica had had long songs before, but these were long and boring. Urgh—that feeling of having wasted my money. I was really looking forward to a Metallica album that I could claim as my own, that I had “been there” for from the beginning, but I ended up with the album that represented “too late.” Metallica did what Guns N’ Roses would do with Use Your Illusion: get too far removed from their origins and become way too self-indulgent. At least Metallica sold their double album for the price of a single album.