10 Rock Albums That Killed Artists' Careers

2. St. Anger - Metallica

The idea of Metallica getting heavier with age should have been a fireworks show at the beginning of the '00s. Since nu metal was rising up and hinting at something more heavy than your typical thrash, it felt like Metallica were prime candidates for leading metal into the next generation. When you look at where they were in their lives though, it's amazing that St. Anger sounds coherent at all.

In the years leading up to the album's release, Metallica were already fracturing, with Jason Newsted leaving the band out of frustration and James Hetfield going into rehab and not returning to the studio for over a year. Those facts alone probably meant we were going to get something a bit scattered, but the songs on here feel like they're barely first drafts compared to what we got previously.

With James still reeling from overcoming his demons, a lot of these songs feel theraputic for the wrong reasons, like you're a Metallica fan that's not supposed to be seeing the more intimate side of them. That's before you even get to the production, which sounds like it was mixed by howler monkeys who tend to favor the clanging sound that comes from an untuned snare drum. Even if you hate the "sellout" years of Metallica in the late '90s, St. Anger makes Load look like a damn masterpiece.