The Art of the Remake XV – Deconstructing Metal

by

As I was growing up in the 80’s I listened to heavy metal music of all types and had a great time doing so. I went to a lot of shows as well and that is part of the reason that my hearing is fading at an early age, I assume. No regrets.

Heavy metal in the late 80’s turned into some sort of strange, demented party gone wrong. The party had gone into the wee hours (big hair bands) and seemed as though it would make the mistake that most parties do at 2am, that mistake being to tap just one more keg – which would have sent the whole thing over the precipice and eventually, the cops would show up. Fortunately, Metallica came out with “And Justice For All” at this time and to me, that is the one album that saved heavy metal. The big, drunk, stoned, big hair party started to end, in a peaceful manner.

One of the big hair bands of that age that was relatively successful was Skid Row. Here is “18 and Life”:
http://youtu.be/RFVvKCaqiSs
Recently, I stumbled on a version of this by Nina Gordon – I really like it:

Here is one more that I found recently. The above mentioned Metallica did Enter Sandman so many years ago:

I found this gem of a remake by Iron Horse:

I really enjoy hearing these (perhaps crappy) metal tunes get deconstructed.

8 thoughts on “The Art of the Remake XV – Deconstructing Metal”

  5. It’s hard to listen to the later 90s Metallica especially when stacked up against their far superior earlier work. That cover is most definitely the way it should be played.
    I have to say that, despite the fury and discord (or maybe in a strange way because of it), their music really lends itself well to re-interpretations.

    Scott D. Davis has some pretty good piano covers of rock songs, but his specialty is Metallica
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1GdmIQKaRA

Comments are closed.