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It might be beat out by Lulu, but otherwise, Metallica's 2003 album St. Anger is widely regarded as one of the worst metal records of all time.
Even within Metallica's own polarized fan base, where some die-hards only like the old shit and others ride-or-die for their Nineties years and beyond, most 'Tallica lovers can agree that St. Anger — between Lars Ulrich's trash-can snare tone, the muddy mix and the baffling lack of guitar solos — is a resounding bummer.
Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor disagrees. For the cover story of Revolver's new Fall 2023 issue, we collected fans' questions and posed them to Taylor, and one Doug Hoffman asked him to pick an album that he hated when he first heard it, but now loves.
Interestingly, Taylor ended up going with St. Anger, and he wasn't afraid to explain why he thinks this oft-maligned opus is actually way better than people give it credit for.
"First of all, when it came out, I was a raging alcoholic prick," Taylor says, looking at the early 2000s. "And when I listened to it, the mix kind of threw me off, and I wasn't paying attention to the songs. I was kind of following the herd on that.
"But then [Stone Sour guitarist] Josh Rand, who was a massive Metallica fan, he got the deluxe version that had the companion DVD where they played the whole album in their rehearsal space. And watching that, I could hone in on the songs. I wasn't stuck on how it sounded. I could listen to what was going on, and it immediately gave me a better appreciation of what it was.
"So now when I listen to it, I think a lot of the stuff's really good, and there are some good grooves on it that I think are really underappreciated. I mean, that title track is a motherfucker, you know?"
