Before
Metallica has been my favorite band since about middle school. So much, that I was even willing to look past the defects in their infamous 2003 record, St. Anger.
More often than not, the first comment you’ll hear about the album is about the snare drum. As an artistic choice, they recorded all 11 songs with the snares turned off, creating a “boing” that flipped the world upside down. The second comment usually refers to the lack of Kirk Hammett’s solos, but my personal gripe was always the lack of songwriting structure.
The band is no stranger to long songs, but they typically balance length with interesting transitions. That wasn’t the case here—the title track alone has maybe 4 total guitar parts over the course of 8 minutes! Yikes! “Some Kind of Monster” takes 2 minutes before the first verse, and the second minute is basically a repeat of the first minute. It’s just not interesting.
Not until I heard the radio edit, that is…
Whether it was the band themselves or a member of their staff, someone knew that this record just needed some editing, and it would have been so much better. I decided to take it upon myself to re-record the record as a passion project; to show the world that this album isn’t as bad as some people remember.
During
Admittedly, the process began way back in about 2008. I’d start and stop and get interrupted by other projects along the way, but it’s always been on my mind. It started to become real around the mid-2010’s, when I finally had cover art I couldn’t wait to share.
Something about the 2020 pandemic gave me just the inspiration I needed to make it happen, so I started with “The Unnamed Feeling.”
I must have listened to the song 500 times, paying attention to every tiny little detail, and doing my best to mimic all of it. With my new Superior Drummer 3 MIDI drum samples and all the time in the world, I used almost 20 years of love for this song to reconstruct it the way Metallica might have with a better producer at the helm (hot take!). The snares were turned on, a brand new solo was written, and I cranked out the best mix I’ve ever mixed!
Then, I filmed it the same way I’ve always filmed music videos: one or two angles per instrument, one full-song take from each angle, then add a camera shake effect and some color grading and…voilà!
After
Of all the videos on Midnight Notion’s YouTube page, this one was instantly performing better. With hundreds of views in the first week, I can only hope that one day Metallica will see it and invite my band on tour with them.
Until them, I’m just proud that I was able to take such an under appreciated song and bring it all together.