Music Review: S&M and S&M2

A collaboration between Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony.

In April of 1999 the heavy metal band Metallica performed two live concerts with the San Francisco Symphony. The resulting album, S&M, sold 8 million copies. It is regarded as “one of the best such rock band/symphony orchestra collaborations of all time,” according to Strings magazine.

The orchestral arrangements were created by composer Michael Kamen. He also conducted the performance, which was held at the Berkeley Community Theater. Kamen and Metallica would win a Grammy in 2000 for “Best Rock Instrumental Performance” for the S&M rendition of “The Call of Ktulu.”

In September of 2019, the SF Symphony rejoined Metallica, this time at the Chase Center, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original concert. This performance was headed by Michael Tilson Thomas and Edwin Outwater. The second album, appropriately called S&M2, featured many of Kamen’s pieces plus some new ones.

This kind of cross-genre collaboration has happened before. The SF Symphony performed with the Siegel-Schwall Band. That performance was described as “the first-ever collaboration between a blues band and a major symphony orchestra” (Strings). Kamen worked with Metallica on “Nothing Else Matters.” He also worked with Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd. 

Other cross-genre works of this nature include Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed, Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra and Apocalyptica’s Plays Metallica by Four Cellos. There have been similar symphonic offerings from Kiss, The Scorpions, Aerosmith and more.

Still, S&M and S&M2 hold a unique position in the pantheon of orchestral collaborations. The original album was a major commercial success. Its sequel debuted atop both rock and classical charts.

Both albums demonstrate Metallica’s willingness to take a chance and grow as musicians. In The Making of S&M documentary, frontman James Hetfield said, “It’s all about having fun and trying something new. If it fails, hey, all you can say is ‘we tried.’ But if it's great then it’ll be even sweeter.”

Jeremy Constant, concertmaster for the ‘99 performance, expressed similar feelings to Strings in 2019:

It was something of a giant question mark for everybody on our side, and I’m pretty sure it was something of a question mark for Metallica, as well. I have to say - I thought this then, and I think it now - hats off to them for being willing to take such big risks with their own music. With such a large project, there is so much that is beyond any single person’s control, but they went for it. There was a big feeling of experimental, let’s-just-see-what-happens going on, with the thought that, if it turned out well, it might be worth it. And it turned out very, very well.

S&M featured a total of 21 songs taken from multiple Metallica albums as well as Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” and two new pieces: “No Leaf Clover” and “-Human.” S&M2 has 20 songs, over half of which come from the first album. 

The returning songs have variations that keep them interesting. “One,” for example, has a new intro and an orchestral stab at the end. But it is not quite as good as the original because it lacks Hetfield’s interjections, such as his desperate cries of “No! No! No!” just before the guitar solo. A perfect “One” would be a hybrid of the two. Perhaps a talented audio engineer could make that happen.

The audience sings the Marianne Faithful parts in both iterations of “The Memory Remains,” but the second version has better participation. When the orchestra drops out and the audience is singing by themselves, it is like listening to a choir at a mass.

Not all the returning Kamen pieces are as welcomed. They are fine songs, to be sure, but they have already been done. Did they really need to be done again? A selection of all new songs would have been greatly preferred. Here is my wish list:

• “Ride the Lighting” (Ride the Lighting)

• “Escape” (Ride the Lighting)

• “Creeping Death” (Ride the Lighting)

• “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” (Master of Puppets)

• “Orion” (Master of Puppets)

• ...And Justice for All (yes, I mean the entire album)

• “Low Man’s Lyric” (Reload)

  

S&M2 has two pieces that show off the SF Symphony. The first is the “Scythian Suite” which is part of a musical movement called primitivism. Metallica joins the symphony for the futurism piece called “The Iron Foundry.” This is a fun flipping of the script - Metallica goes classical! More of this would have been welcomed. Indeed, I have always wondered what they would have done with Gustav Holst’s The Planets.

As stated above, S&M’s “The Call of Ktulu” won a Grammy in 2000. Its name is a phonetic respelling of Lovecraft’s 1928 story “The Call of Cthulhu.” (Parenthetically, Googling “Ktulu” to find out what was a Ktulu is how I discovered Lovecraft.)

Also included on S&M is “The Thing That Should Not Be,” another tribute to the gentleman from Providence. The second verse was removed, but the third (and best) verse remains. Its lyrics are, in part:

Not dead which eternal lie

Stranger eons death may die

Which, of course, is a reworking of Abdul Alhazard’s “unexplainable couplet” from “The Nameless City”:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange eons even death may die

One of the more remarkable things about this collaboration is the SF Symphony’s ability to elevate otherwise mediocre songs. I am thinking of “The Outlaw Torn” and “All Within My Hands.” Appearing on Load and the much hated St. Anger, respectively, these songs were so-so to be charitable. On the S&M albums, however, they are transformed. Particularly “All Within My Hands,” which was performed acoustically and reimagined as something resembling a ballad. I would place these two songs in S&M’s top five.

Tied for first are “One” and “Halo on Fire.” Both will have your flesh sprouting with goose pimples from beginning to end. They are the closest thing to a religious experience this cynical atheist will ever attain.

But which is the better album, one or two? It is close, but I have to give it to the original. S&M2 is just too repetitive with half its songs coming from S&M. What’s more, those repeated songs were marginally better the first time around. For example, “One.” Nevertheless, S&M2 does deliver. “All Within My Hands” and “Halo on Fire” are not to be missed.

Thankfully, we have YouTube. You can watch and listen to both concerts in full here (S&M)and here (S&M2).

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