I have been seeing promotions for a Metallica cover album called the Blacklist List for the past few days now.
I tried to resist. I tried not to pay attention. I knew it was going to be awful, so I tried to ignore it. For those who don't feel like researching our views here at Beacon of Speech, we are quite clear: Metallica's Black Album is where a GREAT METAL band became an AVERAGE ROCK band.
And we already don't like phony baloney Phoebe Bridgers. So when I heard Bridgers was covering Metallica's Nothing Else Matters, it was like I heard Ted say "hey Fred, there was a car accident in town and there are bodies everywhere. Wanna go see?"
There was a way for Bridgers to make Nothing Else Matters work. If she tried to strip the song down to just painful vocals and a sparse acoustic guitar, maybe, MAYBE, she could have made it work. If Bridgers goal was to channel her inner Tracy Chapman, MAYBE it could have worked.
Instead we got the effort above. I'm trendy, I covered a Metallica song. In this cover, Bridgers sounds like the local coffee house girl trying to show her range. Which shouldn't anger me, because that's all Bridgers really is.
Terrible. 0 out of 5 stars.
Just as I was about to hit the PUBLISH button, YouTube suggested that I watch Chris Stapleton's stab at Nothing Else Matters. Chris Stapleton? Who's that? Did some research and he's a Bro Country Hitmaker. Uggh. That should be even worse than Bridgers. For those who don't feel like researching our views here at Beacon of Speech, we are quite clear: Modern Country sucks.
I put on my listening ears and.....
AMAZING!
This is how you cover a song the right way! 5 out of 5 stars.
Did someone else cover Nothing Else Matters? We need a tie-breaker.
What the hell? There's Nothing Else Matters splattered all over the internet.
Nothing Else Matters: Metallica and Miley Cyrus last week
Miley gave it the college try, but I'm not rating it, because that's actually Metallica nailing the guitar and drum parts.
Nothing Else Matters: Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode
Surprisingly Good. 3 out of 5 stars.
Nothing Else Matters: Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish
Now I know Rucker left Hootie and is now a country favorite. Have no idea what to expect.
Also very good. 3 out of 5 stars.
Nothing Else Matters: Mickey Guyton
Mickey Guyton is another country favorite that I'm unfamiliar with.
This was the hardest cover to rate. I loved Mickey's strong vocals, but I didn't like the music.
In hindsight, Mickey Guyton should have been singing with Metallica on the Howard Stern Show. That would have been more apropos.
The Flatbush Zombies covering Unforgiven really missed the point. Their cover was as bad as Bridgers'. I considered ranking all 53 songs from the Blacklist, then found a website that actually did just that: ALL 53 BLACKLIST COVERS RANKED
If it was a covers album of Master of Puppets, I would have done it anyhow, but then I stopped myself in my tracks. Why would I rank 53 covers of an average Rock Album?
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