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Music that means something

Published: Wed 13 Aug, 2008 | 14 Comments
Tags: Metallica, Nintendo 64, Simon Sweetman

Accidental how? Well, I was walking by the CD Store in Dukes Arcade (Wellington) and saw a word that's been irresistable to me since I was thirteen - Metallica. For $12, I thought I was getting a doco called A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. Sadly, what I actually got was Metallica - Metallica in the Classic Album series. Basically, a 'making of' the colloquially called Black album.

 

But hey - that's okay. The creative process really fuels my engine; it always has. I can't get enough of biographies about writers, artists, musicians and documentaries about the same. Anything that's about the making of a record or a movie is like media crack to me - I can't stay away. And this short (woefully short, actually) look at the making of Metallica got me thinking about the music that has had an impact on me over the years and the way music frames our lives.

 

In fact, I also owe this sudden burst of creative energy to Simon Sweetman and this blog. Where Sweetman links music and movies, I've found myself linking music and games - and Metallica is right there at the forefront of my mind.

 

There's a scene on the DVD where Jason Newstead plays a raw version of My Friend of Misery which he half remembers from the way he cut it before handing it over to James and Lars. It's played warts and all on his bass, but the riff is almost identical to the way it wound up on the record. The riff always sends me back to the winter of 1998, when I got an N64, and my mates and I would play Goldeneye and WCW Vs. NWO with Metallica playing in the background. There's other parts of the record that resonate in a similar way - but for some reason that bass riff from My Friend of Misery has cemented itself as an N64 background track.

 

Other popular records around this time were... the other Metallica albums. Load and Re-Load didn't get too much airplay, but for long gaming sessions we often had ...And Justice for All and Master of Puppets cranking. Between '98 and 2001, sort of the 64's last gasp, games that we played while listening to Metallica included Episode One Racer, Snowboard Kids, Mario Kart 64, Turok 2 and Madden '99. Years on, I can still remember those late nights of beer, junk food and Nintendo whenever I hear certain songs from these albums.

 

Funnily enough, Load actually puts me even further back in time, to when I was in my first year of high-school, and that album had just come out. King Nothing was being absolutely thrashed on the radio, and it was also around this time I found my way to Command and Conquer, Doom and other popular PC Games. My love affair with Metallica sort of happened in reverse, I suppose.

 

Music has attached itself to every other aspect of my life, so it's no wonder it's infiltrated gaming, too. I'd be keen to see comments from others who can relate.

 

Wow. This blogging thing really tricks you into thinking what you have to say is worthwhile, huh?

 

 

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