Aside from the fact that Guitar Hero and other music simulator games are fun as hell to play, they also give music geeks of the highest order like myself the opportunity to hear isolated tracks and remixed versions of songs within the games. And when you're talking old-school Metallica, my geekdom goes through the roof.

First of all, we have Cliff Burton's isolated bass track from the instrumental masterpiece "Orion" from Master of Puppets:

I always thought "Orion" was one of Cliff's finer moments and after hearing that I would put it right behind the undisputed champion of bass mastery, "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth". And remember, Cliff played with his fingers.

So that video got me to poking around on YouTube and I was reminded of the injustice that is the original mix of ...And Justice For All. Some people claim that the fact you can't hear Jason Newsted's bass tracks on the album is a stealthy tribute to Cliff and I think there is a distinct possibility because every Metallica album before and after it is mixed to just damn near perfection.

Well wouldn't you know, someone took it upon themselves a while back (look, I'm old and don't spend a whole helluva lot of time surfing the web so it's new to me) to isolate the tracks from the album that were made available as downloadable content for Rock Band and now we get to hear Jason's parts:

"Blackened"

"...And Justice for All"

Now all we need is for Metallica to go in and give the album a proper remix and re-issue that bad boy!

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