Out of all the songs contained on all 11 Metallica albums, not including Lulu and the handful of standalone singles the band has, drummer Lars Ulrich has named his least favorite in an interview with Vulture. Ulrich said "Eye of the Beholder" on the band's 1988 album …And Justice For All just doesn't make sense to him, and sounds "very awkward" overall. Ulrich also clarifies that each Metallica album is very much a product of the time it was written in, and that the band normally looks back and wishes they could change some things.
"There’s a song called ‘Eye Of The Beholder‘ on the Justice album," said Ulrich. "Wherever I hear that song, it sounds kind of like — I guess we don’t want to be super-disrespectful to it — but it sounds really forced. It sounds like you put a square peg in a round hole. It sounds like it’s got two different tempos. There’s kind of a 4/4 feel in the intro and on the verses, and then I think the choruses are more like in a waltz tempo. It literally sounds like two different worlds rubbing up against each other. It sounds very awkward to me. I’m not a huge fan of that song."
"I guess the asterisk is that, to me, we did the best we could each moment. So of course, sometimes you sit down and go ‘Huh?’ or ‘That could have been better’ or ‘That was a little awkward’ or ‘That feels a little silly or easy’ or ‘That feels over-thought-out’ or whatever. It goes back to that whole thing about the past is the past, and I don’t spend a long time back there. And there’s not really much I can do about it [laughs] and honestly, I don’t listen to them. I don’t listen to a lot of Metallica music. Part of it is because I’m sort of overly analytical [about the details]. It’s basically almost impossible for me to listen to a Metallica song without going, ‘Okay, how are the sonics, how’s the mix, how does the guitar sound? The vocals are too loud, the bass is too boomy.’ It becomes this exercise in analytics. When you hear your favorite band — like if I listened to Rage Against the Machine or something, I just fucking let myself go. But when Metallica comes on it’s like, ‘Huh?'"
Personally, I don't know if it's my least favorite Metallica song of all time, but it's definitely my least favorite on …And Justice For All.
