CoE, White Album, and Nightmare have no filler. Prove me wrong.

[TreSavedge]

Aight so after listening to the new Megadeth album it dawned on me that how much filler on an album determines how iconic the album is. 'Appetite for Destruction' and 'Rust in Peace' are GOAT tier because they have zero to few filler tracks. Megadeth has ok albums, good albums, and iconic albums; it seems the level of filler will dictate which is which.

What I find awesome is I distinctly remember A7X bringing back the idea of the album. I remember kids who didn't even consider themselves A7X fans humming the deeper cut tracks that didn't even get radio play. For example, I misremembered Gunslinger as a single. It actually wasn't! It's just that so many of my friends, peers, and acquaintances listened to the WHOLE album and would hum it that my brain remembers it as a single. I put Gunslinger on a jukebox in 2022 and the bartender started singing every word, bridge, everything! It was wild!

If you take the 3 most popular holy grail albums especially: CoE, White, Nightmare you'd be hard pressed to find any filler whatsoever. Unbound, Brompton, and Lost all back to back? Pssh tell an A7X fan those are filler and you might find yourself in a confrontation. I know many non A7X fans who could sing parts of those songs. Natural Born Killers, God Hates Us, and Fiction? Again I know people who aren't even die hards that will hum those songs if they come on. Same thing with Sidewinder, Wicked End, and Strength of the World. In fact, as fan it sounds silly to even use those and filler in the same sentence.

 

[TheTroller]

The only album with fillers post-WTF is HTTK

Doing Time sounds like something off of Metallica's Load and Reload era

 

[JakAngelescu]

The only album with fillers post-WTF is HTTK

Doing Time sounds like something off of Metallica's Load and Reload era

I think doing time sounds more Guns & Roses than Metallica personally. And even more specifically it sounds more like Velvet Revolver than Guns & Roses.

It's so interesting to see so many different opinions because for me, hail to the king is one of their albums that doesn't have any filler tracks. I listen to that album multiple times from start to finish and never skip a song. City of evil is one that I only have a handful of songs that I like

 

[JakAngelescu]

I always love hearing people's different opinions on this topic but I will agree, there are a lot of albums coming out in the last 15 years that I really only like a few songs off of. I think that's why Avenged Sevenfold has been so successful is they seem to take very stringent time with writing music instead of just punching out songs just for the sake of it. That's why you don't have many filler tracks, as you posted about.

 

[Brian Haner Sr.]

They write15-20 songs for every album. Then they record 12 and leave the rest for later release or special release, etc. And some they just shelve. They might spend a month on each song. There is no fill. Every song counts. There is no fill songs on HTTK and there is not a single note of fill on The Stage. That doesn't mean that every song is perfect or that some songs aren't better than others. That's just the nature of writing. But they have never recorded a song and said "Meh. That's good enough". They just aren't built that way.
I guess my point is - It's almost impossible to write 12 kick-ass perfect songs. But don't mistake the songs you don't like for fill. They put in exactly the same amount of time on "Doing Time" as they did on any song on Self-Titled or COE.

 

[Brian Haner Sr.]

I would just add that I totally agree, the more filler you have on an album, the less iconic it will be. I guess the sticking point is how you define filler. I guess some bands are lazy and allow less than their best material to be put on an album.
One thing not mentioned is - it also comes down to taste. I remember telling Syn that The Beatles Abbey Road would have been the perfect album (not one bad song) except for “I Want You - She’s so Heavy.”
His response was: Are you crazy? “I Want You” is by far the best song on the album!
One man’s fill is another man’s gold.

 

[TheTroller]

They write15-20 songs for every album. Then they record 12 and leave the rest for later release or special release, etc. And some they just shelve. They might spend a month on each song. There is no fill. Every song counts. There is no fill songs on HTTK and there is not a single note of fill on The Stage. That doesn't mean that every song is perfect or that some songs aren't better than others. That's just the nature of writing. But they have never recorded a song and said "Meh. That's good enough". They just aren't built that way.
I guess my point is - It's almost impossible to write 12 kick-ass perfect songs. But don't mistake the songs you don't like for fill. They put in exactly the same amount of time on "Doing Time" as they did on any song on Self-Titled or COE.

I get what you're saying.

As a side note, I think that sometimes the 'fill-in' isn't even necessarily negative and that starting out with a sort of pilot mode approach to songwriting without any pressure can naturally flow into something much bigger and more serious.

Or that sort of thing where you're trying to parody a genre and it turns into this whole idiosyncratic thing with a million influences

 

[Ryan girvin]

Trust me man. NONE of their albums have filler. True, there's some songs that I didn't gel with right of the bat, but at one point or another I always found my way back to those songs and developed a deeper understanding and appreciation of all them too. And that I have why they're my favourite band can honestly say that there isn't one single song by these guys that I don't like. But that's why music is subjective I guess.