And Justice for All: the 30th Anniversary

The Blind Eternities forum

Posted on Jan. 14, 2018, 9:06 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

This year marks the 30th anniversary of And Justice for All, the fourth album by heavy metal band Metallica. That album was their first with bassist Jason Newsted, who replaced Cliff Burton, who had died two years earlier in a bus accident. The album features what was, at that time, some of their longest and most musically complex songs, including One, their first song to have a music video, but, despite the intensity and complexity of the songs, the album unfortunately had poor production value, including Newsted's bass guitar being nearly inaudible. For this reason, although the album is certainly popular with their fans, it often does not receive as much attention from the general public or critics. Also working against the album is the fact that it is between Master of Puppets, which is widely considered to be Metallica's magnum opus, and Metallica (also known as "The Black Album"), Metallica's mainstream breakthrough.

While most people say that MoP is Metallica's best album, AJfA is my personal favorite, because it is the debut of Jason Newsted, who is also my favorite bassist for Metallica, because James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich have been reported to have relentlessly hazed him during his early years in the band. Also, the fact that Newsted's bass is barely audible clearly shows just how important bass is for music, and, even more significantly, when the band was in turmoil due to Hetfield's alcohol addiction or various internal struggles, Newsted was the one who helped keep the band together with his passion and devotion to music.

As an interesting fact, Metallica wished to have Geddy Lee of Rush be the producer for Master of Puppets, but Lee was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts; I personally believe that Metallica should have sought out Lee to be the producer of And Justice for All, because doing so likely would have resulted in better sound quality for that album, and Lee definitely would not have tolerated Hetfield and Ulrich's treatment of Newsted.

Now that the album is reaching its 30th anniversary, I hope that Metallica will remaster it, as they have done for their first three albums, so that it can have better sound quality and, hopefully, actually audible bass guitar. That truly would be, to use a phrase that many fans have adopted "Justice for Jason."

What does everyone else say about this? What are your feelings about And Justice for All celebrating its 30th anniversary?

Bulldawg1310 says... #2

AJfA is my 2nd favorite album by metallica behind lightning i think its some of the best writing metal had seen up to that point. As for your comments about not being able to hear jason, i have to shake my head, i think the bass is to prevalent on that album while the sound of the snare drum is seriously lacking. Lars snare sounds like it is sopping wet and hes never hit the center before. I do hope they remaster it, focusing on a cleaner drum sound and what i think you meant to say about jasons bass is its a bit muddled, that can certainly use some remixing as well and it will sound sonically perfect

January 14, 2018 10:07 p.m.