I like those tracks that you mentioned, 5 being my favorite. Also it is recorded WELL, easily good enough to be a track to play if I wanted to hear timbral accuracy and details especially in guitar
Lies is a studio album that pretends to be live...S&M is a live album that pretends to be studio. Thats the only way I can describe it...Lies is absolutely transparent and clean sounding to me. Raw energy comes through this album. S&M comes across the opposite. Also I tried listening to it again and I have to restate...I like the beginning, but things start getting boring for me through the middle that I wasn't able to make it to the end which indeed does pick up again with some heavyhitters. I guess my listening preference is to listen to music in album format instead of track format. Of course perhaps S&M perhaps shouldn't have that type of listening criteria being somewhat like a "best of" live compilation kinda. So like Braver said...this album is LONG and difficult to digest in a sitting...I used to be able to listen to the entire thing in one sitting as a die-hard Metallica fan...but now I feel like I could skip the middle and enjoy the beginnings and ends. Its more of an album that might work in shuffle mode, but I'm more of a start to finish album listener.
So yah I am or was a bigger Metallica fan than I am GnR, but even I would easily admit that Lies which I only recently discovered easily beats S&M. But I am comparing one of GnR's first efforts to Metallicas compilation when they are practically in their 40's...hehehe. But I still like any of Metallica's early albums over something like...say Use your Illusion II even.
haha jk don't want to offend any die-hard GnR fan.
Nah really it isn't that bad double set...in fact maybe if it was more concise and filled with only the good tracks, I would rate it much much higher! And the price should only be slightly higher than a single CD so it isn't that bad. I am just strange when it comes to music listening, and I judge albums as albums...so an album that is shorter but is all good, is still better to me than something really long but has a good deal of filler as well as good stuff. So if I cut out all the crap from S&M, I'd still get at least one full CD worth of good stuff hopefully. So you can either be a glass is half full, or half empty type person.
But yah I'm listening to Lies right now...heh, it doesn't make S&M sound that good as it is compressed in comparison. However it is still filled with enough good stuff to fill up one CD...the downside being that you could take all the less good stuff from this double set and fill up a CD as well.
Also I think I would have totally loved S&M if it sounded MORE Live to me. I mean its weird...I KNOW that Lies is not Live even though they dub in some crowd noise, but it just comes across live and energetic. But I know that S&M is not a studio album and was done live...but comes out overprocessed like it came out of a studio and not an arena/concert hall full of fans.
Oh yah one more criticism...this album shows me that music sometimes can be appreciated for the notes that aren't being played. You know the Simpsons where Lisa goes to a little quirky artsy jazz club and talks about listening to the notes that aren't being played. The problem with this album, compared to old-school metallica versions, is that there is NEVER black space, or silence...Kamen seems to feel like its his duty to add notes or ambience to everything and you just never get a breather. Ok so maybe thrash metal isn't known for "breathers" anyhow, but I could swear that simplicity and blackness is something that is conveyed very well (i.e. fade to black), in old-school material that loses its meaning in Kamen's interpretation to make everything more "complex". KISS (keep it simple stupid) applies.
I still like the album because it shows that there is still some inkling of hope for the old farts (hopefully haha yah right), its nostalgic and plenty of tracks from the albums of when they kicked all ass, and its different if for any reason I wouldn't want to play their old stuff instead.
Also I do wonder how the S&M DVD compares since the liner notes look great! You actually see a big orchestra that often sounds so small on the album. If the DVD sounds better and comes with all the visuals...I think that'd really rock too. Maybe they did a better job multi-channel than they did in a stereo mix too. So yah, it does make me wonder about the DVD version.