Rating: 
Summary: DISAPPOINTING ....
Review: Nothing new here. The writer linked a lot of inteviwes into a coehrent time framework, nothing more than that. THe members of the badn were not interviewed.
Rating: 
Summary: A must for any Metallica fanatic!
Review: THE WHOLE UNADULT-RATED STORY BEHIND THE WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BAND.IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE BIRTHPLACES, DATES, OR EVEN PREVIOUS BANDS, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU. IT EXPLAINS IN DETAIL THE OFTEN MISLEADING STORY BEHIND CLIFF BURTON'S DEATH. THIS BOOK COVERS EVERYTHING FROM KILL'EM ALL TO THE BLACK ALBUM AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. IT TAKES ABOUT THREE OR FOUR HOURS TO REALLY FINISH THE BOOK IN-DEPTH. IF YOU HAVE EVER WANTED TO KNOW HOW THE SNAKEPIT WAS CONSTRUCTED, READ THIS BOOK. HAS COOL FOTOS OE EVERYONE...EVENTHE LATE GREAT CLIFF, AND THE ONCE AWESOME DAVE MUSTAINE. THIS BOOK RULZ!
Rating:
Summary: WEAK
Review: The writer made no attempt to hide the fact that he never ever talked with Metallica people. The book is entirely based on quotes from the band's member on rock magazines, fanzines and MTV interviews. He did a good job linking this interviews, nothing more than that. He also made a ridiculous short introduction to rock scenario at the time of Metallica's beginning. The overall result is a weird kind biography, even knowing that is unauthorized. He has a good writing style, no doubt about that. But all the facts are well known (of ourse, theyu were taken from magazines! )
Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This book is a detailed story of the members of Metallica. It starts out when they were no more that a garage band & takes you through thier first to their & more. Along the way telling stories of the new & old such as the real stories of the death of Cliff Burton.
Rating: 
Summary: Your background will determine what you get from this book
Review: This book will be received differently depending on what you are looking for. If you are a hardcore Metallica fan who has followed them in magazines from near the beginning, this book will not uncover new information for you. Chris Crocker gives thanks to "that guy at Revolver Records who unsealed all those magazines for me" in his Acknowledgments section(ix). Throughout the book he cites numerous magazines and newspapers, by bringing up the name of the publication such as "Faces",(21) not going to the effort of giving a true academic citation someone can look up to verify. It is not true that this book is just the project of summarizing magazine and newspaper articles about Metallica throughout the years. He has interviewed people such as Brian Slagel, who started Metal Blade Records which produced the Metal Massacre compilation where Metallica's first poorly recorded "Hit the Lights" first appeared(25-26), Jon and Marsha Zazula who used to promote Metallica, also inteviewed was Michael Alago who signed Metallica to Elektra. The only people interviewed are people next to the band, not any former bandmates like Mustaine or other band members themselves. The only way to really determine these people next to the band were interviewed is by seeing their words in quotes and their names mentioned without a magazine name being brought up, along with their being thanked in the Acknowledgments section. The book's speculation on whether the song "Fade to Black" was written about suicide or the band's experience in having their equipment stolen could have been superceded by a more definitive answer if Crocker actually interviewed the band.(63) A further downfall to this work is the annoying habit of inventing phrases such as: Metallicans(45), Kiss-er to refer to Gene Simmons(13), Metallisound(29), Metallicatz(174), and Metallitunes(73). Despite the book's downfalls, there are redeeming qualities; the descriptions of how songs sound and the look of their music videos, something not rendered well with words, were above par. Only in 1999 did I start to become a Metallica fan. The copyright of this book is from 1993, which leaves off later developments, something I can overlook to a great extent because while I do not hate Load or Reload, I definitely do not respect those albums as much as earlier ones and St. Anger, I just hate it. Where else would someone who has not been following Metallica for long have learned that Metallica did one of their earliest gigs at the Showplace in Dover, New Jersey, a small town that is my home, if not from a book, even one not based on interviews of the primary interlocutors playing in the band?(52) *[Note]*: Numbers and Roman numerals in parenthesis refer to pages in the book I cited.
Rating:
Summary: This book rocks
Review: This is an incredible book. If i had time i would read it over and over and over. I want to see everybody read this book.
Rating:
Summary: If you love Metallica read this book!
Review: When I was in fifth grade I was first introduced into the world of Metallica by hearing "Enter Sandman" on my friends walkman. I wasn't immeadiatly drawn to it, yet a year or two later after hearing the Master Of Puppets album (which later became my favorite album) I became more and more interested. When Reload came out in 1997 I decided that it was time to begin buying the albums. About a year later I owned all the albums, picture disks, and the 1993 box set. I decided it was then time to learn a little more about the history of Metallica. I got this book and began reading it. Immeadiatly I was drawn in a couldn't stop reading. It gave a beautiful history of rock in general and gave every little detail of Metallica possible from the garage to the snake pit. Whether it be the name "The Frayed Ends" that Metallica used as there alias when playing at clubs, or the attempted music videos that failed. It gives great quotes from the band and some of the most prominant names in rock. I think every Metallica fan has to read this book. If you read one thing this year, make it this book. You wont regret it.
Rating:
Summary: If you love Metallica read this book!
Review: When I was in fifth grade I was first introduced into the world of Metallica by hearing "Enter Sandman" on my friends walkman. I wasn't immeadiatly drawn to it, yet a year or two later after hearing the Master Of Puppets album (which later became my favorite album) I became more and more interested. When Reload came out in 1997 I decided that it was time to begin buying the albums. About a year later I owned all the albums, picture disks, and the 1993 box set. I decided it was then time to learn a little more about the history of Metallica. I got this book and began reading it. Immeadiatly I was drawn in a couldn't stop reading. It gave a beautiful history of rock in general and gave every little detail of Metallica possible from the garage to the snake pit. Whether it be the name "The Frayed Ends" that Metallica used as there alias when playing at clubs, or the attempted music videos that failed. It gives great quotes from the band and some of the most prominant names in rock. I think every Metallica fan has to read this book. If you read one thing this year, make it this book. You wont regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Do Your Research
Review: Where to begin? This book is so poorly researched that it's embarrassing. There's basically a factual error every other page that I can spot without having to look it up, that it makes me question just how much else the author got wrong. One excellent (and totally inexplicable) example of his sloppiness is in his descriptions of the No Life to Leather versions of Jump in the Fire and The Four Horsemen (which wasn't called that on the demo in the first place) using the lyrics from the Kill'em All album! Even when the book was written, it wasn't hard to track down copies of the songs from NLTL and if you're going to write a book about something the band has released, at least make an effort to listen to the material available - especially something as pivotal as this was for the band. This error is further compounded in a later chapter when he mentions Dave Mustaine forming Megadeth and releasing a version of The Mechanix on their first album Killing is My Business, a song he claims Metallica only played briefly. Funny, The Mechanix was the early version of The Four Horsemen on NLTL. Metallica has played this song many times. Judging from the author's description of The Mechanix in the book (describing it as having a classical piano and bass intro), he confused it with Last Rites/Loved to Death. How anyone could get this confused and have it published absolutely baffles me. The writer is a moron. And there's a lot more where this came from. The quotes are probably the only reliable items in the whole book, but it seems that they mostly come from a couple of articles published previously in magazines (a lot from the Guitar Player Apr 89 issue in the first half of the book). It's probably not the author's fault that he couldn't interview the band directly, but in tandem with the poor fact checking, this comes across as pretty weak. If you want to read up on Metallica's early years, KJ Doughton's Metallica Unbound is superior in every way to this piece of crap. Nicer book, better pictures and at least he knew the band personally. The only positive note I can leave with is that at least Crocker didn't fall for the bogus tale that Metallica got their name by combining their two favourite things - metal and vodka. I can't believe that anyone seriously believed that one, even though it was printed in a few magazines in the early '90s.
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