The Definitive Ranking of Every Song on Metallica’s ‘Hardwired….to Self-Destruct’
Let’s get rankin’.
Metallica is one of those bands that you probably already have an opinion on. Even if you don’t care about heavy metal at all, chances are you listened to Metallica by accident at least once in your life. It happens. And hey, I’m not their biggest fan myself, in fact I’m listening to Chance the Rapper as I write this in order to fool you into thinking I’m NOT the most white-bread 34 year old dude who ever lived.
Anyway, Metallica first formed in 1981 or two years before Return of the Jedi came out annnnddddd here I am thinking about my ever encroaching demise. Awesome. The point is, they’ve been around for a loooonggg time and they’ve released a bunch of albums.
Some of their albums have been great. Some have been pretty good. Some have been Lulu. I don’t care about any of those though. I’m just here to talk about one album in particular.
Hardwired…to Self-Destruct I would classify as pretty good. Again though, I’m no Metallica expert, just some bored dude on the internet. It has some great songs, it has some good songs…it has some songs that are…well, neither of those things. But that’s ok! Everyone has their off moments. I once tried to help a woman fix her flat with an upside down car jack. (This happened like two months ago, by the way. In my defense, it was a Mercedes and also I am very dumb.) We all fuck up, is what I’m saying, ok?
Anyway.
Here is my definitive take on on ranking the songs on Hardwired…To Self-Destruct in order from best to worst. You can disagree with me, that’s fine; there was probably one asshole who thought Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel had too many naked flying babies on it or something. It don’t hurt my feelings none if you wanna be wrong. Also, yes I know the album came out seven months ago. I know this. You have to understand though; I don’t care.
TO THE SONGS!
- Halo on Fire
What Its About: The duality of goodness and evil that struggles within each and every one of us. Also the music video features a girl who competes in some kind of parking garage fight club? That Metallica is the house band for? I guess? Anyway, at the end of the video she gets her ASS. BEAT. I mean this giant dude just fucks her up no problem. Is he the evil and is she the goodness? Does this mean that we’re all doomed to lose to our more base desires? That humanity has no real chance of overcoming the evil within ourselves? I have no idea. What I DO know though is that Metallica is in their 50’s and they are just rocking out like some HEAVY METAL DADS in this video and it is totes adorbs. God, they gotta have teenage kids or something, right? How embarrassing to have Metallica be your dad.
The Best Part: I don’t know. It’s all good. Lyrics are fun without being too heavy metal, if you know what I mean. (We’ll touch on this later.) Plus the guitar is good. This is a good song.
The Worst Part: Eight and a half minutes? Yeesh. In a world of fidget spinners and Extra Strength Five and a Half Hour Energy, does anyone have the time for a song this long? I do, but only because I’m an adult and I’m very handsome and smart.
- Dream No More
What Its About: Metallica summoning forth the Elder God Cthulu to destroy all creation, which…what the fuck, dudes? Apparently this is Metallica’s fourth song about Cthulu, which is probably at least two more than you really need, right? But I guess if you haven’t summoned him after the first one, you just gotta keep trying until his glorious visage appears to signal the destruction of the universe and all its inhabitants or whatever. Anyway, the beat is good and it’s fun and just heavy metal enough to be enjoyable.
The Best Part: Can we talk about Metallica’s bassist for a second? Robert Trujillo 100% looks like he belongs on Sons of Anarchy. Plus he’s pretty ripped for an old dude. He could probably whomp my ass without too much trouble. He looks like he does crank and shoots people, but I bet since he’s a heavy metal dad he has to show up to concerts with his kid’s wrapping paper samples or candy bars or something and hope someone buys them so she can win 1st place in her class. Maybe he threatens them. Mr. Trujillo is probably my favorite Metallica, I love him.
The Worst Part: Probably the request for an Elder God to rise and incinerate the Earth. That would suck. There’s a lot of pizzas I haven’t eaten yet my dudes.
- Am I Savage?
What Its About: A dad werewolf passing on the werewolf genes to his son. Hahaha, holy shit that’s fucking awesome. The song starts off with the dad-wolf talking to the son, but by the end the son-wolf has taken over and talks about how he’s a wolf now because of the dad-wolf. Shit’s intense. Anyway, best werewolf song by far since Warren Zevon was alive.
The Best Part: Did you miss the werewolf shit? Also the guitar in this one is so good. So good you guys.
The Worst Part: The music video doesn’t feature a single werewolf which, what. the. fuck. y’all. What’s the point?
- Atlas, Rise!
What Its About: Oh FUCK yes, y’all. This song is dope as hell. The guitar is all like, ‘BWEH BWEH BWEH BWEH’ and Hetfield is all like, ‘GRAWR GRAWR GRAWR GRAWR.’ Classic heavy metal shit folks. Hetfield is talking to Atlas, the Titan of Greek mythology that is cursed to hold the Earth on its shoulders for time eternal. Hetfield basically says, ‘FUCK THAT NOISE MY GOOD MAN. GIMME THAT SHIT.’ He’s willing to take the weight of Atlas’s sins and let giant fuckin’ space Atlas go free and drink some gigantic beers or whatever the shit immeasurably huge dudes do when they get off work. Space darts? Anyway, I don’t know if James Hetfield is playing the part of the everyman here or if he’s literally saying, ‘I, James Hetfield, am willing to take on the burden of a being who existed pre-Christianity because my sins are EVEN HEAVIER than yours, o’ Mighty Atlas.’ But I really don’t give a shit because this song is so good.
Best Part: It takes some wicked sack to tell this incredibly ancient being to hand over the literal entire Earth and throw it up on the shoulders of an over-50 rocker for all ETERNITY, but fuck it; Hetfield ain’t like you or me, amigos.
Worst Part: I don’t know…he never really explains WHY he deserves to carry the burden…maybe some residual guilt over the whole Napster thing? I don’t know. I just like my stories to be completely fleshed out, you know?
- ManUNkind
What Its About: How man is generally shit. But maybe, at some point, they won’t be. That’s pretty much it.
The Best Part: That Metallica, a band that is pretty well-respected as far as metal bands go, had the sack to name a song, “ManUNkind.’ God bless them and keep them forever for that.
The Worst Part: Let’s go back to that name. ManUNkind. Now, I didn’t do drugs in college because
A. I was a diligent student who very much cared about keeping his scholarship
or
B. I was a complete fucken NERD
but if I had done drugs, I would have done them and listened to this song and thought it was the most clever damn thing I’d ever heard in my life. I would have laid on the bottom half of my dorm room’s bunk-bed and drank Mtn. Dew and ate Funyuns and thought about how this song really focused on the problems, man. ManUNkind is SO TRUE, you know? Christ, I would have been an insufferable pothead. I suppose it’s for the best that I was too much of a dork to smoke weed until I got to grad school.
- Hardwired/Spit Out the Bone
What They’re About: Yeah I put two songs together. Did you realize this thing is already over 1400 words? Anyway, I put the opener/closer together because while they’re both good, they’re not what I’d call the standout tracks of the album. Hardwired is about how mankind is, surprise! Shitty. Spit Out the Bone is about the proliferation of technology in our everyday lives and why that might not be a good thing and features a sublimely great B-Movie music video that I won’t share for you because I’m an ass. Both are pretty good songs, but overshadowed by the real heroes of the album listed above.
The Best Part: Hardwired is just over three minutes long and is a great way to open an album that focuses on reminding the listener how shitty humanity is all the time. Spit Out the Bone is great because the way Hetfield says ‘Spit Out the Bone’ makes me smile every time. He literally spits the words out, and so angrily too. At first I was like, ‘Man, maybe he’s saying it because like…the coming robot overlords would spit out human bones if they ate them, right? Oh wait, he’s probably talking about like the bones of humanity as an analogy, not like literal bones.’ But THEN I was like, “Well, heck man, I spit out chicken wing bones ALL THE TIME.’ And then I was like, ‘OMG what if I’M the machine???’ I had to lay down after that. This shit is exhausting if you go too deep down the rabbit hole.
The Worst Part: Honestly the worst part of these songs is that they aren’t the songs I’ve already listed. :(
- Now That We’re Dead/Moth Into Flame/Confusion/Murder One
What They’re About: We’ve reached the point of the list where I put all the songs together that I can’t differentiate. Anyway, these songs are all fine. They’re fine! It’s like, you know like if you’re out with a group and you get beer and the table orders a pitcher of like PBR or something and you go along with it because, hey, it’s cheap and cold and gets the job done, but what you REALLY wanted was like a Guinness or maybe to try one of those craft beers on tap that cost $7 a pop but you didn’t really feel like rocking the boat too much because everyone is just trying to have a good time and you just know that if you don’t go in on the pitcher that fucking CHAD will say something about you being a bad friend or something and it’s like, GODDAMNIT, CHAD you had a long day at work and your wife and you are trying to have a kid and it’s proving more difficult than y’all anticipated and the raise you were hoping for maybe isn’t coming now even though you’ve been doing the job of two people for six months and hey at least you even have a good job, right? I mean Andy is working part-time because that’s all he can find and he actually HAS kids you know? And anyway, can we just go out ONE TIME without you being such a DICK? Why do we even hang out with you? You were a shitty college roommate anyway.
These songs are like the pitcher of PBR is what I’m saying.
The Best Part: They’re not terrible!
The Worst Part: They’re not great!
- Here Comes Revenge
What Its About: Revenge. Says it right there. This song sucks. Lines like ‘eye for an eye / tooth for a tooth / life for a life / it’s my burden of proof’ and ‘you ask forgiveness / i give you sweet revenge’…I just…yikes.
The Best Part: Hey, only one song on the album is demonstrably bad!
The Worst Part: It’s really not a good song.
There you go. All 12 tracks on the standard edition of ‘Hardwired…to Self-Destruct’ ranked for your viewing/listening pleasure. I’d like to give a shout-out to Metallica for puttin’ out a pretty banging album 30 odd years after they started. Not only that, these dudes put out a music video for EVERY song on the album. That’s crazy. Of course, when you’re as rich as Metallica is, it probably ain’t a thing to make some silly-ass videos. How much money does Metallica even have? I bet they’re like Celine Dion. Think about it. How much money does Celine Dion have? You know how you see some celebrities buy like a super fancy car or something, and you’re just like, ‘Oh well that’s nice for them.’ But then you see some kind of obscure famous person buy like, an island or castle or something and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ I bet Celine Dion has island money. You could tell me a number anywhere between like 100 and 900 million dollars and I wouldn’t be surprised at all. (Edit: I looked! Metallica is worth an estimated $500 million as a group. Celine Dion? $700 MILLION HAHAHAH HOLY SHIT. That is definitely island money.) Anyway, they’re rich as hell and still decided to look like the world’s biggest goobers in a dozen music videos. I can’t be mad at that. Keep on rockin’, you colossal dorks.
