Book Review
By Anthony Kuzminski
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If you are a consistent million seller in the music business, it is fated that a coffee table book will be made about you. There are dozens released every year (notably in the fall in the lead up to Christmas) and invariably the next spring and summer when I venture to my local Borders, I almost always see it in the discount rack for less than $10, even though it originally carried a price tag of $50. Why is this? These types of books usually only appeal to a narrow core of fans. A multi-platinum band will be fortunate to sell 100,000 copies of the book and that’s if it’s really good. I felt burned in the last few years buying hard cover books the size of the Ten Commandments and to find them mere months later for a fraction of the price I paid. A general rule of thumb is that unless it’s one of your favorite artists and you want to tear through it on the first day…wait. So why is it so many of these books sit on store shelves never moving out the door until they have been heavily discounted? These books don’t even turn a profit more times than not and it’s because the content lacks human touch. You can immediately tell when an artist has shed blood over a book or whether they showed up to approve the cover with no further insight. Most acts try and appeal to the widest potential audience with these projects, when the truth is that not only will a mass audience not care, but in the process trying to please casual fans the act will alienate their most steadfast factions. You flip through these mammoth books once and they sit on a shelf for an eternity collecting dust never to be looked at again. It’s almost as if the artist had nothing to do with the book because they were too busy counting their money from the advance. However, every once in a while there’s always a diamond in the rough that never makes it to the discount rack, because it’s geared with the fan in mind.One of the few hardcover books I have returned to time and time again in recent years is So What! The Good, The Mad, and The Ugly: The Official Metallica Illustrated Chronicle. What makes So What!... so exceptional is the minutiae detailed in the book. Originally published in 2004 (when I bought it) I recently returned to it amidst a new reborn fascination with Metallica. To my surprise, I was in complete awe at not just how well it’s laid out but how much of the book I am still unearthing five years later. Edited by journalist Steffan Chirazi (and in-house Metallica scribe), the book is a labor of love. Focusing mostly on the 1994-2004 period of the band, it houses every trivial aspect one would ever want to know about Metallica. From playing Donington in 1995 to the recording of the Load record to headlining Lollapalooza to band member’s personal lives, vacations and inner strife. It’s all here, warts and all. The fan club started earnestly in the mid 1990’s and as a result, there isn’t a slew of material from the early days, but once you dive into this book, you won’t care. There is the Sounds article from 1984 that a teenager Steffan Chirazi wrote. Reading it now makes me feel useless, because even at seventeen he could write better than I can write today. There is also a tribute section to Cliff Burton, "A Day in the Life of Bob Rock" (written by Lars), a number of Q&A’s, a piece by Lars father, some revealing and thorny interviews from the 2001-2003 period and more Metallica information thank you could bang your head to. I won’t lie, the average person may not want to read every hand written note by James Hetfield, or read about Kirk Hammet talk about surfing, but then again, would your archetypal music fan even buy this book? My point being that Metallica made this book unlike any other and as a result, it stands out from the rest. Once again, by not following anyone’s muse other than their own, they have made something wholly exceptional.
When one sits down to do a book like this, they often make the mistake of wanting to re-write the past. Metallica looked at the output from the decade the fan club had been in existence and pulled the best of the best to compile So What! regardless of how they may have come off. If you are unaware of Metallica or their fan club and are merely expecting a run by numbers book, then you are in for a treat. The book is laid out in a chronological manner with hundreds of pictures, handwritten doodles and current day comments (all done in 2004) on previous interviews. These are especially enlightening as it allowed the band to look back and if they were lying through their teeth in certain interviews (hiding emotions, putting on a good face, etc), they cop to it. Few rock stars out there will allow old interviews and quotes to be re-published, but Metallica did this and even commented on specific sections and interviews, years later, with new eyes and a different perspective. This book has more spirit than your conventional fan club book and yet it’s a scrapbook of sorts finding the band at their most zealous creatively. Even if you are not a fan of the 1996 to 2003 output of the band, you have to admire the boldness with which they attacked their music whether it is new material, covers or doing an album with a symphony. They were always taking chances, doing things other bands wouldn’t dream of and this book not only captures the exploration, but it is a voyage in itself. I promise you, if you go to the music section of a book store, no other book will look or feel like this one. It’s almost a journal of sorts for Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Jason Newsted and Robert Trujillo. Not only will fans pull this out and page through it like a family photo album, but the five members of Metallica will as well.
There’s humility to the interviews contained within the book and credit must be given to Steffan Chirazi, who conducted most of the interviews and edited the book. He came up with the ideas for some of the more ingenious interviews (roundtable of all four members, each member interviewing Jason Newsted, etc.). In a day and age where dialogue in rock journalism if stiffer than someone six feet under, Chirazi crawls under Metallica’s skin. His history with the band goes back decades and as a result, they will reveal things to him that they would not divulge to any other interviewer on the planet. If there was anything other music acts on the planet could take away from this book, it would be to hire someone close to the band or who at the very least understands not just the band and their music, but the fans as well. Chirazi made his mark writing for Kerrang, Sounds and RIP magazine back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. He was a rock star himself of sorts as bands yearned for his attention because they knew if he would shed a light on the act in a way no one had before. In So What!... you find the journalist at the peak of his powers. As a result, this book, the fan club and Metallica all benefit greatly.There’s freshness to all of the proceedings and what was initially believed to be for the most die-hard fans, it’s now housed in a stunning book for the whole world to read and reflect on for all of history. The typical sense of falseness that usually embodies books of this nature is absent. By re-reading many of these interviews you can see the growth and maturity of this band. These aren’t merely boys playing music we love, but friends, fathers, sons and musicians always trying to push the envelope. Reading interviews conducted over the period of a decade shows the many intricate layers of the band and as a result, makes them all that more real to us…the fans.
Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMusic Network and his daily writings can be read at The Screen Door and can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com.
