Album Rating: 4.5

There's no doubt in my mind that at this point Mustaine surveys the continued and elevated level of success of his former bandmates and attempts to emulate it. He's heard The Black Album numerous times and absorbs every nuance of the recording. The album will be used as a sort of template in establishing a path to absolute Metal dominance for himself. Taking a cue from Metallica, Dave begins penning much more accesible music for a new album. He starts veering away from the progressive Thrash he only recently became very adept at, and starts to move towards more melodic Power Metal. The band releases 'Countdown To Extinction' and it proves to be their highest selling album ever, achieving double platinum status. See a trend developing here? Metallica moves towards Prog, Dave follows and conquers. Metallica moves towards album and singles chart success, Dave follows and conquers.



Now where up to the point in the storyline where the servant becomes the master, the star pupil becomes the teacher. While Metallica marches down their parallel timeline, offering up nothing new and milking the heck out of that dang Black Album for the next few years, Megadeth quickly capitalizes on the gains achieved on 'Countdown'. The band puts together another two albums on the same high level. Both are carefully constructed collections which evidence a band of such highly professional stature that the balance which is struck between the more aggressive Thrash material and the more accessible Power Metal stuff melds seamlessly. 'Youthanasia' and 'Cryptic Writings' display a band on the absolute top of its game, and one that is no longer in the shadow of its mentor. I think that by 1994 Megadeth is the the significantly better band.



Part IV below

Album Rating: 4.5

That's why it's so very odd that Mustaine and Co. will look towards Metallica one more time for musical direction. The next and final parallel move between Metallica and Megadeth will occur during the Load-Reload era. Here, Metallica abandons their entire gameplan from the previous decade and tries to adapt to the Alt-Rock musical environment of the 1990's. Metallica, a band which was once regarded as being the absolute ideal for 'trendsetting' originality, now morphs into a group of 'trend-following' conformists. Some might applaude the band for its daring and experimental nature, but most see it as a betrayal of the fudamental musical values the band began with. I personally think that if Hetfield desired to record this material, he should have done so under his own name and not that of the band. But, Mustaine obviously sees the Load-Reload collection as a solution to the public's waning interest in Heavy Metal and looks to record his version of it. In 1999, Megadeth releases 'Risk' and everyone is like, WTF, Dave?! In retrospect it's not so bad...but I don't think it'll ever be regarded as good. And, I've never heard MD.45, so I can't comment on it, or how it might fit in with this notion I've been forwarding for like an hour and a half now. lol.



Part V below

Album Rating: 4.5

So, there it is. Three specific periods which can be pointed towards where Dave Mustaine looked towards his former bandmates for professional guidance. I don't know if you cats are buying any of this, but I think I've been fairly persuasive with both theory and evidence here. I'd like to close this with a couple more quick points. I think that after the release of 'Risk', Dave instantly regretted this dramatic shift in direction, which was prompted in part by witnessing the success Metallica had with doing something very similar, as well as a comment made by Ulrich and directed towards Mustaine. The comment, made to the press, basically summed up Ulrich's disappointement with Mustaine and his wish that Dave would take more 'risks'....Can you imagine that? The audacity this Ulrich guy has. His band had become the Powerpuff Girls in the 1990's, and he thinks he's in the position to give others musical advice. C'mon now.



Anyway, I think that it was shortly after this period that Mustaine harnessed a truckload more confidence in himself and began placing much more credence in his own decision-making ability. The reinvented, reinvigorated and re-staffed Megadeth re-emerges in 2001 with a blistering slice of Heavy Metal goodness with the 'World Needs A Hero' recording, and continues to follow up with the highest degree of musical integrity on the two subsequent outings, 'The System Has Failed' and 'United Abominations'. Megadeth, as a creative entity, had left Metallica in its wake several years prior, but it was only at the beginning of the new millenium that Dave Mustaine became aware of and accepted his role as King of the Hill.

Dude. If it wasn't for the fact that everybody likes you they'd get pretty pissed at a 5 part comment. Haha.

Album Rating: 4.5

I literally could not control myself. I wanted to make a real quick point, but it mutated into something else entirely. It was out of my hands by the third sentence. lol. Maybe the site will provide me with my own blog to let loose in. I sure do hope that this 5-parter will ignite some conversation on the topic though. Wanna see if others have observed the same things. But, if the thread flips to page 10 then most folks will just overlook it. And, that'll mean that I've wasted time, and that I myself am a waste of time, a bad, unworthy person....Hey, do me a favor and tell me how to log out of this joint. I feel trapped.

i remember when we had muses on sputnik
it's a long forgotten feature now

^^www.sputnikmusic.com/logout.php logs you out.

Metallica were initially the greater band with releases such as AJFA, MOP, RTL. However Megadeth have been more consistently good, despite their slight fall in the mid to late 90's and released some pretty incredible albums too ... RIP, CTE, PSBWB etc.

Album Rating: 4.5

Yeah, but what about my analysis? If anyone cares to read it, please tell me if you think that there was some degree of 'follow the leader' being played between Mega and Meta.

the 6 people who gave this album a 2 should get raped

Album Rating: 5.0

Megadeth are better than Metallica.

I cant decide 80s metallica is so fucking good

Album Rating: 5.0

^Not really.

Album Rating: 4.5

RIP tops everything Metallica ever did by a long way.

Album Rating: 4.5

Even S&M?

Album Rating: 4.5

Rust In Peace, while still not as structurally progressive as either Master Of Puppets or ...And Justice For All, was, by far, more technically challenging than anything Metallica has ever done. It's progressive in a totally different way than either 'MOP' or 'AJFA'.

Album Rating: 5.0

I'm guna bump this up to a 5 when it lets me



EDIT: ok it lets meThis Message Edited On 07.16.08

Album Rating: 5.0

i haven't QUITE listened to this enough to rate it yet.

Album Rating: 5.0

You might as well give it a 5 then, as you'll prob end up with that score anyways .

It's not quite a 5, tbh.