Referring to the last post by buckets_of_rain, it seems as though people, in fact, do judge by whom they are. I understand that people with good judgment might also dislike them because of their rock albums, but not near as many people as the narrow-minded trashy metal head posers who judge them by their genre and not music.
I don’t think anyone with sense of “discernment” would have to “shut them out.” If they simply don’t like the albums based on a good judgment then why shut out the band and not the album. Having no hopes for the next album means you’ve given up faith on the band, not the 4 rock albums one might dislike… that isn’t fair judgment.
Before Kill em’ All a lot of people with “good judgment” disliked them because they were either to metal or to punkish, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t release perhaps the most influential heavy metal album of all time. Though I do think that it is likely for this album to be what most would consider “good”, my initial position in this thread was hopeful, not convinced.
Wrong. For the past 17 years they have been releasing trivial (at best) garbage. It has been of no substance - even the covers album was terrible. Sure, there was maybe a song or two that was interesting, but that was it. Thinking that they are going to release anything worth caring about is not just not pragmatic but it's baseless*, wishful thinking.
As for anyone thinking they're going to release anything related to metal, if they do, it's most likely going to be trite, commercial shit. You know, the music Metallica plays now does in fact suit them. They've all settled down with families (i.e. bought into the system), drive $100k+ cars, and probably own a small island in the Philipines with ten slaves each. Ok, so while that last assumption was me being facetious, you get the picture. Any attempt by Metallica to write something metal would simply be a midlife-crisis venture and would not have much substance to it.