I knew my best friend Ken in 8th grade, but he wasn’t my friend then. We went to different high schools and I had never really given him much of a thought since grade school. Joe, a mutual friend, brought Ken with him to play basketball in my driveway sometime around the summer between our junior and senior years of high school. Or was it sophomore and junior? I forget. (I kind of hate myself for not remembering the exact time we became friends.) I pretty much thought that would be it; we would shoot hoops and maybe play video games once in a while. But Joe -- and I might never forgive the son of a bitch for this -- must’ve given Ken my number, because he called wanting to hang out. Just me and him.
I’m not always the prick I seem to be, so I said it was cool. We played basketball and video games and talked. And then he called again and wanted to play some more. So on and so forth. It looked like I had a new friend, another addition to my small circle.
What Ken brought to the table, moreso than a shared angst, was music. At that point in time, my friends were more into Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. Ken liked Guns n’ Roses and Metallica. Especially Metallica.
I was familiar with Metallica inasmuch as I knew they were a popular rock band that some people thought sold out when they cut their hair and went soft. Ken would bring over mixtapes and CD’s full of the stuff, and little by little I got into them. As summer wore on into fall, a clear favorite emerged from the Metallica oeuvre, and that was the mammoth ...And Justice For All.
I liked the majority of their stuff just fine, but something about ‘Justice’ drew me in more than the other albums. It was (and still is) loud, angry, unwavering, and relentless. With years of hindsight I can add another adjective: impenetrable. Seriously: if you’re trying to get someone into Metallica, you don’t have them listen to ‘Justice’ first. Aside from “One,” there’s really nothing else there for the average fan.
But average fan or not, I wanted impenetrable. I wanted to get lost in the wall of guitars, in the Gatling-gun drumming of Lars Ulrich, and James Hetfield’s unmistakable growl. I was newly single and felt alienated and vulnerable for the first time because of it. I needed to retreat, so I retreated with my new best friend into the welcoming arms of Metallica.
From the sickly opening strains of “Blackened” to the frenetic end of “Dyers Eve,” ...And Justice For All had everything I could have ever asked for in an album. Aside from the nearly-ten-minute Cliff Burton tribute “To Live is To Die,” it simply did not let up. Of course, I never really cared for “The Shortest Straw” and “Harvester of Sorrow,” but seven out of nine ain’t bad.
Hetfield was singing about grown-up things far beyond the scope of my life experiences at that time, but his lyrics became my own soundtrack. The title track was no longer about the shortcomings of our judicial system, but instead became a rallying cry about my life being unfair. The censorship in “Eye of the Beholder” was the censorship of my life, the things that I wanted to do but couldn’t. Then again, other songs like -- fuck, I can’t even come up with an adjective for how good this song is -- “One” (suicidal thoughts) and album-closer “Dyers Eve” (more or less hating your parents) were taken a bit more literally by me. (Jesus, was I a petulant little shit or what?)
When I was 17, everything about this album spoke to me. The lyrics, the guitar riffs, and the solos. I couldn’t get enough of it. But time went on and Justice sank further and further down my list of favorite Metallica albums. I found that it no longer said anything to me, and perhaps more importantly I found it to be overlong and boring. (I can forgive a lack of lyrical depth or emotional resonance if the music is engaging.) How could that be?
Usually one falls out of love with a band or album because their tastes in music changes, and on some level this is true. However, I still like Metallica’s music, Napster incident and all. When I started to put together a list of albums (and memoir-y things I wanted to write about), I thought about ‘Justice’ and how maybe how it maybe didn’t actually fit me at the time but it fit who I wanted to be then. I already mentioned it being loud and angry, but it is also a very confident record. It takes no prisoners. To some, it might represent Metallica at the top of their game.
I thought I had my angle all wrapped up, but then I listened to the album a couple more times. Though I still find some songs in dire need of an editor (“To Live is To Die,” I’m looking at you.), they didn’t bore me. I found that my new opinion of the album kind of mirrored my friendship with Ken. We were different then. We were united in our anger. But time washed all of that away like so many basketball games in the summer sun. Only the clarity of mind that comes with age could reveal that there was more to both of us than teenage angst. Our friendship -- our relationship -- grew to be more complex than one emotion from one period in our lives could ever be. It’s that same complexity that I’ve discovered in revisiting ...And Justice For All, and listening to it now is nearly as rewarding as having a friend like Ken.
Rating: 3.5 Pledges
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