Unsung Hero

So it has come to this.


In my chronicling of the music that I swear up and down is fantastic yet forgotten, it is now time to overturn the stone that is Metallica. People, do not judge me too harshly. 


I’ve always had a bit of a complicated relationship with the Gods of Metal. My older brother, bastion of all that was cool in my youth, had their black album, the one that made the band insanely popular and began breaking them away from their thrash-metal roots. Tracks like ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘Nothing Else Matters’ showed the world that beyond the breakneck pace and endless guitar wankery there may actually have been the lurking spectre of talent. As a young kid I was naturally frightened of the growling and howling, the menace and the metal. Still, once I hit my teens I felt like it almost instantly clicked. Suddenly I felt a connection with the absurd heaviness of ‘Sad But True’. So when the band went all left-field and cut off their hair and started playing bluesy stuff, I was curious but uninformed. I was not aware of the canon they had produced up to that point. I had no idea of the sacrilege the band was committing in the eyes of their fan base. I just thought it was more accessible, less pummeling. I thought it was an improvement, to be honest.


Despite this shift in the band’s tone, I still could never really get on board with them. Even with more nuanced material like ‘Until It Sleeps’ and ‘Mama Said’ I felt like the band wasn’t for me, as though I had no solidarity with the legions of dudes wearing black t-shirts with inscrutable logos and old album covers printed on them. It just didn’t gel with me, although given my predilection for things like Portishead, Bjork and Colin Hay, I suppose that’s hardly a surprise. Later albums only reinforced this notion; seeing the band’s faltering attempts at re-invigoration and relevance in a vastly changing world didn’t help any. Further, their absurd fights against Napster and literally suing their fans didn’t ingratiate them in my mind, especially when the same older brother got his ip banned from Napster. What kind of band doesn’t want their fans to listen to their music? Anyone who has done any research what so ever will tell you a band makes money off of tours and shows, not albums shipped. A band makes more in licensing fees than they do on CDs. But I’m veering off topic.

There are a handful of songs by Metallica I do love. One in particular is off of the controversial Load, the album that saw them really shake loose from their thrash roots to get all introspective and weepy. The song in question, ‘Hero of the Day’, is actually one of the few songs that the band wrote in a major key. I feel like that distinction alone shows that I am not in their target market. Still, I love this song. 

The nuts and bolts of 'Hero of the Day' are what make it so great. There's no big gimmick or central conceit to the song - it's just a great little chord progression with a savory melody. The verses are these swirling and building bits of an A Major guitar riff that ascends to a place of (gasp!) potential happiness. When the band gets to what serves as the chorus in the song it drifts back to the dis-tempered and aggressive with lots of hurtling drums and palm-muted chords suggesting anger, only the lyrics suggest its more about the sadness of realizing you're not the angry young man you wanted to be. In fact, while they're hidden behind hooks and riffs, the song is quite a sad number about a man asking why he can't be a better person, hiding away from problems until they just go away. 

Metallica may be a guilty pleasure for me, at times, but I still get genuine pleasure from hearing this song. As odd as it sounds, it's great in the morning with the main riff serving almost as an introduction to the day. It might be melancholic but it's still somehow positive. I know the band has a reputation for being arrogant and self-righteous. I'll forgive it, though, just to have this song. It's really great. Check it out.