Metallica fans get to experience their new album 72 Seasons in a one-off special cinema event. Daniel Rutledge looks forward to the big-screen return of the one of the biggest metal bands ever.
On August 3, 1991, Metallica did something spectacularly audacious. They held what was billed as the world’s largest listening party at the iconic Madison Square Garden in New York, giving away 19,000 tickets to fan club members to listen to their new, self-titled album.
Metallica, or the Black Album as it’s more commonly known, was a handbrake turn from the maximum technical complexity and long, progressive metal on …And Justice For All in favour of stripped back, slower, shorter, more commercial songs that moved away from their thrash metal roots.
The gamble paid off. The album was released at 12:01am on August 12 to enormous critical acclaim and topped charts in many countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand the UK and the US. It has become one of the most iconic rock albums of all time with around 31 million sales of physical media copies, so far.
This coming week, Metallica is pulling a similar, albeit far less spectacular and audacious, stunt to promote their eleventh album.
“Join the Metallica Family on Thursday, April 13, for the worldwide listening party celebrating the release of 72 Seasons with the global premiere of the album at over 2100 movie theaters!” the band announced on their official website.
“72 Seasons will play exclusively for cinema audiences around the globe, with every one of the new songs featuring its own music video along with witty, insightful (?!) commentary from us. Some fans will experience the music in Dolby Atmos, a totally next-level audio experience that will immerse listeners with unparalleled clarity and depth.”
One of the keys to Metallica’s success is the creative genius of Lars Ulrich. He’s been a somewhat divisive figure over the years, even for many of Metallica’s own fans. He’s always been a little dorky-sounding, he had that whole anti-Napster thing and he was such a brat in Some Kind of Monster.
But the man has long been the brains of the operation in many ways, and much of this comes from his early years as an uber-fan of rock music who would do whatever it took to follow the bands he loved around the world, watching them perform as many times as possible.
His extreme level of passion is channelled into the band’s creative endeavours and how it treats its fans, which has made being a Metallica fan extremely fun over the years. This is why they did the listening party at Madison Square Garden and why we’re getting a 72 Seasons special presentation in cinemas.
Lars is also a cinema fanatic and has championed the band’s involvement with film, including running a mini-film festival at Metallica’s own short-lived Orion Festival. Although they were slow to getting into the music video game, they have dabbled a lot in the art of moving images for much of their career, with a fairly inconsistent success rate but an undeniably fascinating body of work. Cliff ‘Em All was released in 1987 as a mixtape of mostly bootleg footage shot of their live performances as a tribute to the great Cliff Burton, before the ambitious One video was released in 1989.
Things got much more interesting with A Year and A Half in the Life of Metallica in 1992. Clocking in at a generous total of 236 minutes, this two-part documentary catalogues the making of the Black Album, its release and much of the subsequent tour. It’s a candid behind-the-scenes look at the biggest metal band of all time when they were the biggest they have ever been and it’s very, very cool.
You see them argue with producer Bob Rock, you see embarrassing moments and awesome nerdy nitty gritty on the album’s mixing, mastering and even pressing. Some of this hasn’t aged well, like the odious treatment of women, from photos of nude female genitals being posted on a wall to mark off album milestones to one of the roadies showing polaroids of semi-nude groupies and bragging about his sleazy treatment of them.
While A Year and A Half in the Life of Metallica documented the band at their very best by a lot of measures, 2004’s Some Kind of Monster. documented them at their worst. But it makes for an even more fascinating watch as the group almost, almost fatally falls apart while making one of their shittiest albums, but somehow keep it together to enough to bounce back.
It’s even more candid, excruciatingly so at times, and ultimately a uniquely personal document of what was one of the biggest bands in the world at the time. It’s unlikely we’ll get anything even close to what this film was ever again, for any musician.
Since then, as well as various live concert recordings released on DVD in subsequent years, they also released Through The Never in 2013, a weird, ambitious feature film showcasing stunningly brilliant concert footage from the era along with a trippy, highly stylised but fairly dull fictional story of sorts.
It was not a box office success and as interesting an experiment as it was, not something they’ll be trying again now we’re in the twilight of their career. But before we lose this band as they retire, we do get at least one last cinema experience with them with 72 Seasons.
Another thing we’re losing is the whole album experience. It’s so easy these days to listen to only your favourite tracks, or pop on a playlist. Sitting back and listening to an album in full is an increasingly rare pastime, despite how exceptionally rewarding it can be.
Who knows how good 72 Seasons is going to be. I’d bet money it’s not going to be as good as Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets, but I’d bet more that it won’t be as bad as St Anger. Hell, I’d bet everything I own on it being better than Lulu.
But however great or shit it is, I’m grateful for the chance of sitting through it in full for the first time I hear it. Just the full album with decent cinema speakers, seating and a few beers would be enough, but the full curated experience from the band with videos I’ll only ever see in cinema for this event? Well, it’d just be stupid not to seize that opportunity.
