Metallica - Garage Inc.

This is a compilation of cover songs, and hence cannot be compared to the rest of Metallica's discography. I always appreciate it when artists decide to re-visit their roots and pay tribute to their influences. Not only this is a way of showing respect and gratitude to your idols, but it helps popularizing musical works that may be relatively unknown to the public. Bands from the new wave of British heavy metal, and from genres such as proto-metal, classic rock, hard rock and hardcore punk.

Now, in terms of quality, "Garage, Inc" consists of both great and messy performances. Metallica succeed in adding a different flavour to certain songs, and those are the ones that stand out. From the 1998 recordings, I pick Bob Seger's "Turn the Page", Blue Oyster Cult's "Astronomy", Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone", the Irish traditional "Whiskey in the Jar", and the Mercyful Fate medley. All of them great covers. The inclusion of their 1987 "Garage Days Revisited" is also a decent compilation. The rest are B-sides released throughout Metallica's career up to that point. My favourites are listed below.

The album is incredibly long, and gets rather laborious to listen to its entirety in one sitting. In addition to that, it's going to take time to find the great performances among the other messy ones, which may prove a boring task for the average listener. In other words, there's no reason to listen to this album. Just ask someone who has listened to it, make a list of the best covers and give them as many listens as you wish. My list is the following:

Turn the Page, Mercyful Fate (Medley), Astronomy, Whiskey in the Jar, Tuesday's Gone, Helpless, The Wait, Crash Course In Brain Surgery, Am I Evil?, Blitzkrieg, Breadfan, So What, Killing Time, Stone Dead Forever