Lars Ulrich has been sharing a lot of opinions as of late and now he’s told everyone what he thinks is the most underrated Metallica album.
Having weighed in on what he thinks is the band’s worst song (it’s ‘Eye Of The Beholder‘) and the greatest drummer of all time (it’s a toss up between Neil Peart, Ian Paice, and Phil Rudd), the Metallica drummer opines that his band’s most underrated album is probably either Load or Reload though it depends on who you ask.
Chatting to Vulture about all things music and Metallica, Lars Ulrich was asked what he thought was the band’s most underappreciated album, to which he responded with a laugh and a reply of “by whom?”
Explaining that it’s difficult for him to “separate the record itself from the process and the time and place of making the record,” Ulrich says its difficult to make those sorts of comparisons but he’s fine either way with “anything and any way people rate any of the things that [Metallica has] done.”
However, if push came to shove in naming Metallica’s “least appreciated records,” Ulrich names either 1996’s Load or Reload.
“But if the most underrated records, i.e. the least appreciated records, are [1996’s] Load or Reload, then I would say I’m fine with that because I think those are pretty decent records,” says the drummer.
“When I hear songs from either of those records, I’m pretty happy with what I hear. So that means that if the other stuff sits north of that, then that’s a good bar to have. I’m OK with that.”
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Ulrich also touched on 2003’s St Anger a bit given how it’s a favourite punching bag for faithful Metallica fans and says it’s perhaps more polarising than underappreciated.
“[2003’s] St Anger maybe, is more of a polarizing record. Some people had a hard time with the sound, the brutality of that record.
“If you have to kind of put them all into a sound bite: Justice, the album without the bass on it. St Anger the album without the snare. All this stuff, I’m very OK with any of that.
But at the end of the day, the Metallica drummer says every album “represent the vision of the moment” and the band are proud of fulfilling that vision.
In fact, Ulrich says that his go-to answer for when fans ask what’s his favourite Metallica album is “the next one,” explaining “If I’m not more excited about the next one, what’s the point of making it?”
Kudos to Lars Ulrich for not straight up naming St Anger as Metallica’s most underrated album because that would’ve been a cop out answer.
Check out ‘The Memory Remains’ by Metallica:
