Yea. I had heard a little about Becker over the years. I’ll have to give that a watch over the weekend. Thanks

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of, as a few have already mentioned, the greatest thrash album of all time Rust In Peace. I still remember being 11 years old and begging my friends older brother to drive us to the mall and buy the CD and blast it in his shitty car. He hated it, he was more of a Ice Cube Public Enemy guy but I was obsessed. Saw Mustaine and boys many times over the years after that and yes the Menza Friedman era was the best.

But anyways after the Black Album Metallica pretty much went to shit, the exception being maybe Death Magnetic. And comparatively when they played live Megadeth blew them out of the water. Shit Lars can't even drum still lol

Megadeth from RIP on was just no longer a "thrash" band. Even the new stuff with Chris Broderick and others was just "more".

True that, after the success of Black Album Dave definitely went a different direction. But an album like Dystopia is miles better than anything Metallica has put out in 30 years

Yep, Dystopia and Endgame are amazing.

Dystopia is bad ass. I still prefer Marty's playing to any of the other guys he's had in the band but I do like Kiko better than the rest.

I'm really looking forward to hearing Dirk on drums because while it seems like the metal community worships Chris Adler, I didn't hear anything special from him on that album. It was fine, which is expected but it wasn't mind blowing or anything even close to that.

As for Metallica "versus" Megadeth, they're two completely different bands with completely different styles and IMO, the only thing they share (beyond Dave in Metallica for 4 minutes) is that they're both classified as Metal bands.

Countdown to Extinction is nothing like the Black album. Megadeth's musicianship has always been lightyears ahead of Metallica's but Hetfield's voice just so perfectly fits the genre, whereas Dave's falls into that Billy Corgan category.

Kirk Hammett isn't a very technical player, nor does he draw upon several musical genres like Marty and Kiko have done over the years. Hammett's just a blues-based guy using Blues shapes and a wah while guys like Marty and Kiko are influenced by Eastern, Indian, Middle Eastern and Classical music when composing their solos.

Lars is certainly a groundbreaking drummer but the guy can't keep time to save his life.

Marty will always be the pinnacle for me too but even after he left, the DNA of the band was altered. They never really went back to the old "Dave first" formula. Every new guitarist they added was unique in his own right. Even The System Has Failed which featured Chris Poland wasn't the old formula from when he was in the band before.

Until 1990, they were both "thrash" bands. Metallica went to a more accessible sound, Megadeth went in a more technical direction.

While Kirk Hammett was taking lessons from Joe Satriani in the late 80's (along with guys like Alex Skolnick from Testament), Dave went straight to the source and got Marty out of that Shrapnel scene.

They just went in two different directions.

The sad thing about Hammett was that he was really starting to develop some technique in the years between Master and Justice and was studying the right things, but between the evolution of their sound and the fact that James was doing more than half of the studio soloing anyway, I think Kirk just said **** it and started hammering on his wah some more. LOL

I never cared for Chris Poland or Glen Drover in Megadeth. Drover was stuck in the 80's Neo-Classical trip and it just didn't work for me in that context.

Marty defined their sound, IMO and while Broderick was even more technically proficient than Marty, his solos were "cold" and never induced that "Wow!!!" factor that Marty's solos had for me. His work on Holy Wars is just ridiculously awesome.

I felt that Kiko's playing fit the band really well on Dystopia so I'm curious to see how much his influence has changed the band, if at all, and I'm looking forward to hearing the next album, which is supposedly, a continuation of Dystopia.

Give us your honest opinion on Lars Dane. Haha don't hold back please

Bob Rock did not like Kirk's playing, which is why Hetfield did so many of the solos on the Black Album.

It's also the main reason why all of the songs and albums after that point, all of which were produced by Rock, didn't feature any guitar solos. Death Magnetic saw the return of guitar solos but by that time, they'd moved on from Bob.

That said, it would be very strange to hear Marty Friedman or Kiko in Megadeth because they're just too technically proficient for that band, especially considering Lars can't keep time worth a damn.

Drover's work wasn't their finest hour but his whole Neo-classical thing is more of what I'm talking about - the band changed after Marty. They always tried new wrinkles but they never went back to the old "thrash or die" formula.

In many ways, Chris is your stereotypical classically trained musician. He's very robotic, watching him play is interesting as a metalhead because he does not really seem to "feel" anything. As for Marty, he was wholly unique for his time. Incorporating eastern music, the different modes and atypical arpeggios he used. And most of all, his bends. The way he does those bends - his solo album Dragon's Kiss is, to this day, one of the best albums I've ever heard.

Master of Puppets is the only Metallica album that approaches the level of guitar playing I expect after being a Megadeth fan for so long. Bob Rock is basically the reason I hate Metallica to this day. He basically turned them into a grunge band. I love guitar solos, why take them away?

Lars is definitely a pioneer, not only because of the fact that he helped to create Thrash but the sound of his drums were unlike pretty much any metal band up until that point.

But his timing problems are very well known.

I'm pretty sure I've shared this story before but Andy Johns told me way back in 1993 that Lars was so bad during the recording of the Black album that Bob spent months editing his tracks by hand (i.e., cutting tape). The timing was so bad that after the drums had been edited to be in time, Lars had to go back and re-hit all of the cymbals and hi hats because the decay had been cut out, making the cymbal hit end too abruptly.