Metallica's Idol
I thought that this was a great buy especially considering it gave me a better idea of where one of the greatest bands drew its inspiration. Everything from folk style songs (e.g. Whiskey in a Jar, Turn the Page, and Tuesday's Gone) to wupass heavy songs (e.g. So What, Am I Evil, Blitzkrieg) to the excellent cover of Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy" are all some of the great variety you can see here. Many complain that Metallica became sellouts for ditching their traditional thrash, but I think this goes to show that they wanted to become more accessible by crunching human stories into some of their later work instead of singing constantly about revenge, death, and chaos like countless other metal acts.

Though the first disk has the more recent songs that vear into the style of "Load" and "Reload," the second disk contains all the B-sides and covers from their earlier career as is noticeable by James' higher vocal range. I think there is a little bit of everything to get a taste of from this set for anyone with an open mind.

Ugh...
Side 2 of the Second record in this 3 LP album doesn't play right. James Hetfield sounds like one of the Chipmunks and the band plays so fast it sounds like they're on Speed. There must have been a mistake at the factory because I had Amazon replace this album for me and the 2nd copy did the exact same thing as the first one! So, I asked for a refund. That was a very sad moment for me. I really wanted to hear Metallica's tribute to Mercyful Fate on Vynil...

If you really want Garage Inc. on vynil, wait until Metallica re-issues it sometime in the near future. They're doing that with all their albums in celebration of Kill'em All's 25th anniversary.

Good album but be warned it's NOT explicit
Warning! This album is falsely labeled as explicit. The F word on "Am I Evil" is beeped out. It's an annoying censor of one of the best parts of the song.

A tale of two discs
What a great package this represents for the hardcore fan and the more casual fan alike. But regardless it is also very much a tale of two very different disks. Disc 1 is basically rubbish. And it shouldn't be as it has a few funny things and a few well respected metal tunes such as Diamond Heads It's Electric and a cover of a sort-of cover in Thin Lizzy's Whiskey In The Jar. But nobody I know has ever managed to listen to the thing in one sitting, rather cherry picking a couple of tunes each day to try to internalise the collection that way. Perhaps some of this stuff was just too obscure for the 1998 metalhead buying public. Or it could be the lifeless feel of the thing. Either way it's universally loathed.

No such problems with the second disc. It fairly rips your head off and then stitches it back on backwards for you. There are collectors out there who love nothing more than to have the original releases of stuff like Garage Days Revisited from '84 and Re-revisited from `87. But let's face it sometimes you have to part with some serious cash to get that sort of stuff and Metallica go a long way to refurbishing their reputation as a band that cares by here getting all that good stuff onto one disc. And backing it up with some of their b-sides. And Metallica have picked some pretty awesome songs to record as b-sides over the years. Say what you will but some of them have been such inspired choices that bands like Diamond Head have gotten new leases of life merely through the association of their songs with Metallica. Which is a real community service by the band in some ways.

Also on this disc is Motorheadache, a batch of Motorhead covers the band recorded in 1995 in homage to Lemmy, and given the way the man has been venerated anew in the 00's Metallica here showed themselves ahead of the curve in their respect of the man.

A very good buy for collectors and more casual fans alike for the value packed nature of the second disc. But man, does that first CD stink.

Better than St. Anger, and one I play a lot surprisingly....
This is a pretty damn good album. I like many of the covers here, and this album is actually better than the misguided St. Anger. Metallica's cover of Turn the Page is very well done and powerful, almost on par with Seger's original. I like the choice of Sabra Cadabra, an obscure Sabbath track off their Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath album. Their version of Tuesday's Gone (a cover of a Lynyrd Skynyrd song) reminds me of their beautiful (and unjustly trashed) songs Mama Said and Low Man's Lyric. Hetfield does burp before the song starts (bad), but luckily, the rest of it is so good that you forget about this. The inclusion of Garage Days, Revisited EP is a nice bonus, and having copies of Am I Evil? and So What? are great too. And thanks to Metallica, I went out and bought Overkill by Motorhead.

I'm not really sure why Metallica did a cover album (and a 2 CD set too), but I like it and think it's a worthy addition to their catalogue.