Metallica Survivor 2017-18: Ride the Lightning: Round 4

[TheCountOfNYC]

Results from round 3.

Fight Fire With Fire: 9 (45%)
Ride the Lightning: 1 (5%)
For Whom the Bell Tolls: 1 (5%)
Creeping Death: 1 (5%)
The Call of Ktulu: 8 (40%)

Fight Fire With Fire is out! Moving on to round 4.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

01:
02:
03:
04:
05:
06: Fight Fire With Fire
07: Trapped Under Ice
08: Escape

[The Silent Cody]

Bellz

[Destiny Of Chaos]

Bellz

[MirrorMask]

These songs are absolutely fantastic and now that I think of it, I heard all of these at my only Metallica concert. It was absolutely glorious.

Having said that, I vote for Ride the Lightning, but as far I'm concerned, they should all head to the finals and I would have them win over everything post Black Album.

[jjrock88]

Ktulu   

[CharlesPL]

The Call of Ktulu

[MirrorMask]

Ktulu

The Call of Ktulu

Well, fhtagn.

[Elite]

Well, fhtagn.

fhtagn, indeed!

[wolfking]

Ktulu

[Shalev Amir]

Ktulu

[pg1067]

So far so good, but I don't think I'm going to like how this round turns out.  Title track should be next to go.

[mikeyd23]

Ktulu

Yup

[Destiny Of Chaos]

The Call of Ktulu is my favorite off of the album, and at last check, my 4th favorite Metallica song... so yeah, this sucks!

[pg1067]

I'm curious WHY Ktulu is dominating this round -- and appears set to end up as the #5 track in this poll?  Is it because folks just don't like it?  Is it because of a general aversion to instrumentals?  IMO, it's the best Metallica instrumental, the second best song on RtL, and probably a top-10 Metallica track.

[mikeyd23]

^ I really like Ktulu, a lot in fact. For me, the remaining songs in the poll are just stronger. That's not a knock on Ktulu as much as it's a complement to how strong RtL (the album) is front to back.

[pg1067]

^ I really like Ktulu, a lot in fact. For me, the remaining songs in the poll are just stronger. That's not a knock on Ktulu as much as it's a complement to how strong RtL (the album) is front to back.

Good point.  I guess that's the other option I didn't think of.

[cramx3]

^ I really like Ktulu, a lot in fact. For me, the remaining songs in the poll are just stronger. That's not a knock on Ktulu as much as it's a complement to how strong RtL (the album) is front to back.

Good point.  I guess that's the other option I didn't think of.

Yea pretty much how I feel.

[MirrorMask]

I take that as a consolation (I wanted to actually ask it but I figured it was like that). Still, fhtagn!

The Call of Ktulu for me, along with Maiden's Transylvania, is the benchmark of how an instrumental song should be: a song with a melody or a musical theme so strong and memorable that you don't even need vocals to feel the song more complete.

[Mladen]

The Call of Ktulu

[Dave_Manchester]

I'm curious WHY Ktulu is dominating this round -- and appears set to end up as the #5 track in this poll?  Is it because folks just don't like it?  Is it because of a general aversion to instrumentals?  IMO, it's the best Metallica instrumental, the second best song on RtL, and probably a top-10 Metallica track.

As I wrote in the last round, Ktulu is a top 3 Metallica track for me. It's actually my favourite metal instumental after Metallica's Orion and DT's Stream of Consciousness. I just think that 4 or 5 of the tracks on this album are such metal classics that at some point people need to vote off songs they love.

It's too late in the game to start changing the format of these survivors, but for future consideration, I'd like to suggest that the albums which take the top 3 spots in the album survivors get more songs through to the finals than those which come last. It's insane that classic tracks off albums like Lightning, Justice and Puppets won't even make the consolations round, whereas dreck from St Anger and Reload will.

[cramx3]

I'm curious WHY Ktulu is dominating this round -- and appears set to end up as the #5 track in this poll?  Is it because folks just don't like it?  Is it because of a general aversion to instrumentals?  IMO, it's the best Metallica instrumental, the second best song on RtL, and probably a top-10 Metallica track.

As I wrote in the last round, Ktulu is a top 3 Metallica track for me. It's actually my favourite metal instumental after Metallica's Orion and DT's Stream of Consciousness. I just think that 4 or 5 of the tracks on this album are such metal classics that at some point people need to vote off songs they love.

It's too late in the game to start changing the format of these survivors, but for future consideration, I'd like to suggest that the albums which take the top 3 spots in the album survivors get more songs through to the finals than those which come last. It's insane that classic tracks off albums like Lightning, Justice and Puppets won't even make the consolations round, whereas dreck from St Anger and Reload will.

Not a terrible idea, but the survivors are an imperfect way of forming a list anyway. But if someone running a survivor implements this, that seems like a cool twist.

[pg1067]

It's too late in the game to start changing the format of these survivors, but for future consideration, I'd like to suggest that the albums which take the top 3 spots in the album survivors get more songs through to the finals than those which come last. It's insane that classic tracks off albums like Lightning, Justice and Puppets won't even make the consolations round, whereas dreck from St Anger and Reload will.

This was done in the Queensryche survivor that finished up a few weeks ago.

[TheCountOfNYC]

It's too late in the game to start changing the format of these survivors, but for future consideration, I'd like to suggest that the albums which take the top 3 spots in the album survivors get more songs through to the finals than those which come last. It's insane that classic tracks off albums like Lightning, Justice and Puppets won't even make the consolations round, whereas dreck from St Anger and Reload will.

I considered doing this, but I ultimately voted against it. While yes in theory a song like The Call of Ktulu or Nothing Else Matters is more likely to win than a song like The Unnamed Feeling or Fuel, the fact is that if a song can’t make it into the top three of its album, it’s not going to win the Survivor. This is why I decided to stick with the “top two from each album and top three from consolation” format. 25 songs is more than enough considering it’s roughy a quarter of their discography. With that said, if I decide to run the game next year or someone else decides to do it, that could be an option that everyone can consider.

[MirrorMask]

I'm one of the primary advocates of "best albums get more songs in the finals", and while I understand the additional burden of having 30+ songs in the finals, not all albums are equal. The finals should have the best songs, not literally only the two best songs off every album. At the World Cup you don't have the same number of teams from Europe, Africa and Oceania.

But still this is all good fun and there is no "best" way to run this, and I appreciate the effort of each and everyone's host of these survivors. Probably the rules should be tailor-made in consideration of each discography, take for example Yes who have 3 songs on their Close to the Edge album, that kinda throws the "best 2 songs of each album" thing into disarray.

And a minor nitpick about "a song that finishes 3rd in its album survivor doesn't win the finals" - with such a tight album as this, it's not out of this world for my personal favorite, Creeping Death, to arrive third losing of a single vote to, say, Bells and Fade, but to eventually win it all because Bells and Fade lose to Master of Puppets or Sanitarum. Rare occasion however, I know.