Metallica tragically lost bassist Cliff Burton in a bus accident on September 27, 1986, but the FaceApp has led to fans on Metallica’s Reddit posting a photo of what Metallica might look like today had he lived and continued playing with James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett. Slipknot recently dropped an emotional Metallica bombshell.
Phil-Michaels posted, “It’s bittersweet. On one hand, you can’t help but think what might have been.
On the other hand, it really is a testament to the other 3 and how they kept moving forward. They’ve been through stuff that has ended so many other bands (losing Bonham ended Zeppelin, inner turmoil ended the Beatles, drugs pretty much ended Motley Crüe), and yet Metallica has soldiered on and kept going. These guys are tough SOBs.”
serosis said, “Personally I think Cliff would have left the band eventually to do his own thing. Not out of a sense of ego but because being typecasted as a thrash musician would have been stifling for his creativity.
Metallica themselves tried to solve this by reaching into heavy metal and alternative rock with their self-titled album and Load/Reload.
But you never really know, Hetfield said before that Cliff wouldn’t have appreciated the Load/Reload changeup in sound but it could have been the perfect genre switch to keep him around and interested.
That being said I doubt Metallica would have survived the St. Anger years if Cliff were still around. Imagine if he left the band while it was in personal turmoil, it would have effectively killed Metallica because he would have become such an integral part of it by then.
Unlike Jason who was really only there as a backup bassist and treated as such.”
A sad Metallica injury photo was recently uploaded. Uncast chimed in, “I also think Cliff’s sudden death greatly affected not just Metallica’s musical direction but the individual mental/emotional health and stability of James, Lars and Kirk since that night. A lot of the St Anger drama likely wouldn’t have come to such a head and it’s possible they’d be very different musically but essentially everything after Justice is up for debate as to whether things would’ve gone in a totally different direction or not.”
