Decade Battle #1: 80s Metallica vs. 80s Queensryche

[KevShmev]

My latest installment of fun threads: Decade Battles!!!  These should be fun.

I am kicking it off with 80s Metallica vs. 80s Queensryche.

80s Metallica
Kill 'Em All
Ride the Lightning
Master of Puppets
The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited
...And Justice for All

80s Queensryche
Queensryche EP
The Warning
Rage for Order
Operation: Mindcrime

---------

For me, this is pretty close.  There is no denying the awesomeness of Master of Puppets and Mindcrime, so I'll call those two a wash, but I probably have listened to 'Ryche more over the years than Metallica, and that goes for the 80s stuff as well, so I'll give them the very slight edge. 

[Big Hath]

Metallica - by multiple infinities for me

[Jaq]

I love everything Queensryche did in the 80s. Everything. Every album they put out was a minimum of 4 stars for me. Mindcrime is a legendary classic album. I'll never forget seeing the video for Queen of the Reich on MTV and being STUNNED by how good it was.

And yet, despite saying that, man, what Metallica accomplished in the 80s for heavy metal just can't be understated. Metallica wins this battle by miles.

[DebraKadabra]

I was more into Metallica back in those days, even though I did have (and still do) a love of old 'ryche.  Howevs, this vote was rather easy - Metallica.
 
Edited for clarification and shit.

[Jaq]

I also have to mention that on the tour for AFJA, when I saw Metallica, the opener was, in fact, Queensryche. And it was an awesome show 

[The King in Crimson]

I like/love RFO and the EP, I think The Warning is pretty neat and Mindcrime is a classic, but one great and amazing album versus Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets and, to a lesser extent, AJFA?  Really, really hard choice, but no matter how amazing Mindcrime is, I gotta give the nod to Metallica.

[Jaffa]

Metallica without even thinking about it.

[lonestar]

Metallica without even thinking about it.

[crazyaga]

Metallica.

[Dark Castle]

Metallica without even thinking about it.

[Zantera]

Metallica without even thinking about it.

[crazyaga]

80's Metallica - 16   
80's Queensryche - 1
 

[Jaffa]

I'm honestly suprised that Queensryche has a vote at all.

No offense to them, it's just, 80s Metallica. 

[Zantera]

I'm honestly suprised that Queensryche has a vote at all.

No offense to them, it's just, 80s Metallica.

And I believe the Queensryche vote was from Kev, so you can see how the poll turned around after that first vote.

[jjrock88]

I'm in the vast minority; Queensryche.  Operation Mindcrime would win just by itself for me. Nobody will ever deny the awesomeness of 80s Metallica though.

[me7]

Operation Mindcrime > all Metallica albums >>>> rest of Queensryche albums

Metallica wins by consistency.

[Lowdz]

Queensryche.

Everything they put out back then was awesome, ahead of it's time stuff and they were my favourite band. No other band had such an amazing run of greatness than The Warning-> Promised Land. Even judging on the 80s output alone it's QR.

Metallica became mega-famous and popular but I was never a fan.

[wolfking]

This is hardly a fair match up IMO.  I really don't think anyone would expect Queensryche to win this.  Metallica introduced me to metal in the early days and have a big part of my history, but once I discovered Maiden, Ryche, Sabbath etc. it was a whole new level for me.

I vote Queensryche.

[Ruba]

Queensrÿche.

Though MOP is better than any QR album, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of KEA or RTL. 80s Queensrÿche is all awesome (and the best was yet to come).

[jingle.boy]

QR.  Was never a big 'true' metal fan in the 80s, and even going back to 80s Metallica when I finally did (late 90s probably), while very good, I was underwhelmed.  I still have no love for MoP.  Perhaps I'm swayed by the actualities of the 80s with Metallica.  They started as a very cult-like metal band, and even through their growth, still had a cult-like aura about them.  Then the backlash of going commercial with Metallica... there were two very polar opposite fan bases.

[Nekov]

Metallica all the way. I don't fancy QR

[Mladen]

80s Metallica - three great albums, one good album
80s Queensryche - one great album, two good album, one solid EP

Pretty easy for me.

[TAC]

I actually voted Metallica, but this is a great question. Many similarities.

[me7]

I actually voted Metallica, but this is a great question. Many similarities.

Wow... hold your horses. Metallica have changed their sound in the 90s from Thrash Metal to Hard Rock, but the albums they have released were good Hard Rock albums with solid Hard Rock songwriting.
Queensryche however lost it completely after Empire.

[kirksnosehair]

Not much of a contest here and the voting seems to support that

[jingle.boy]

I actually voted Metallica, but this is a great question. Many similarities.

Wow... hold your horses. Metallica have changed their sound in the 90s from Thrash Metal to Hard Rock, but the albums they have released were good Hard Rock albums with solid Hard Rock songwriting.
Queensryche however lost it completely after Empire.

I think you should be holding your own horses  .  To say they lost it after Empire is very arguable.  Promised Land is solid, and some would even say HITNF is admirable (I'm not one of them).  After that, it's hit and miss, but mostly miss (and miss big).

Let's take a look at Metallica after their s/t ... Load, Re-Load, St. Anger, Death Magnetic and Lulu.  That's a definite decline after MoP and Metallica.  While those albums are better than QR's late 90s and 00s output, it's similar in that both bands peaked in one genre (Prog-metal for QR; thrash/heavy metal for Metallica), then moved more commercially, and steadily declined in the quality of their music.

[Ultimetalhead]

Both bands suck beyond reasonable levels nowadays, but Metallica pretty much changed the way people thought about metal, while Queensryche's claim to fame is a damn good concept album.

Yeah, as much as it pains me, Metallica.

[TAC]

I actually voted Metallica, but this is a great question. Many similarities.

Wow... hold your horses. Metallica have changed their sound in the 90s from Thrash Metal to Hard Rock, but the albums they have released were good Hard Rock albums with solid Hard Rock songwriting.
Queensryche however lost it completely after Empire.

I think you should be holding your own horses  . 

Yes thank you.

Me7, the point of the thread is comparing the 80's output and significance. Heck it is even in the thread title. What they did afterward is irrelevant to this thread.

[me7]

Me7, the point of the thread is comparing the 80's output and significance. Heck it is even in the thread title. What they did afterward is irrelevant to this thread.

When you said "many similarities", I thought you meant throughout their whole career.

As far as post-80s Metallica goes, the only album I consider a total failure is St. Anger.
Lulu, IMO, isn't even a Metallica album but "Lou Reed featuring Metallica" doing a sequel to Metal Machine Music Maybe that's the fanboy in me not wanting to accept the harsh reality.

[Ruba]

Queensryche however lost it completely after Empire.

[KevShmev]

  Promised Land is solid

It's more than solid; it's their best album ever.

[TAC]

Me7, the point of the thread is comparing the 80's output and significance. Heck it is even in the thread title. What they did afterward is irrelevant to this thread.

When you said "many similarities", I thought you meant throughout their whole career.

As far as post-80s Metallica goes, the only album I consider a total failure is St. Anger.
Lulu, IMO, isn't even a Metallica album but "Lou Reed featuring Metallica" doing a sequel to Metal Machine Music Maybe that's the fanboy in me not wanting to accept the harsh reality.

Sorry, I was typing on my phone from a meeting. I should have explained better.
I say many similarities because both bands put groundbreaking twists on standard hard rock, though they may have pulled in different directions.
Both bands helped define genres.
Both bands made some of the best albums of all time during this period.
And oddly, neither band was all that popular in the 80's.

Metallica wouldn't headline arenas until 1989, and QR didn't headline arenas in the 80's.
But the work of both bands was hugely influential on their respective fields, and then they both jumped off the cliff of quality at the same time.

[nicmos]

This one was really tough.  The way I decided my vote was that I love listening to O:M and RFO all the way through, but there is not a single Metallica album from the 80s that I listen to all the way through.  Even MOP, which will go down in the pantheon of rock/metal albums, I just don't like The Thing That Should Not Be.  And I skip a lot on AJFA and several on RTL despite lots of awesome music.  I skip some on Warning.

Please, someone defend The Thing That Should Not Be, because I just can't.

So QR it is.  But that might have been the toughest vote I've made on one of KevShmev's polls.

[SeRoX]

Queensryche.

But I do think that this is not a fair compare. I voted Q because they are my one of favourite band with their 80s albums. I'm into that kind of music what Q does and while I think Metallica had major effect in that era Q is ,to me, one of the band that can be described as a progressive music influence for the future bands.

[KevShmev]

Please, someone defend The Thing That Should Not Be, because I just can't.

A song that great doesn't need defending; its greatness speaks for itself.

#wakeupandsmellthecoffee