OK, but the AJFA bass-tab-book is correct: 96 empty pages :-)

I guess you could say the tab book didn’t do the album Justice. 😂

The worst part is that when you're a beginner you tend to assume the tabs are correct and that the problem is with you, even when they are so obviously off the mark. Even when the actual notes were right, sometimes the locations they wanted to you play them made them way harder than necessary!

A sad thought: Imagine how many kids who might've contributed something to the world of guitar who gave up because the horribly wrong transcriptions killed their love of the instrument.

So funny story. The first tab book I every bought when I was learning how to play was the death magnetic one, then a few months later I went into guitar center to get the AJFA one that I saw before and it wasn’t there anymore. I asked the guy if they had any more and he said “we pulled them off the shelves. Trust me little man, you don’t want to waste your money on that book” I thought he was being an ass and saying he hated Metallica or something which offended me so I was upset and asked him why would learning Metallica be a waste of money? And he said “no man, the book is so wrong you’ll actually be so upset you spent your money on it. Blackened is so unbelievably wrong, just that tab by itself makes the book a waste of money” then he gave me a copy of one he made himself which was spot on and perfect for free. Now he’s my hookup at guitar center to this day for things just released or out of stock things and employee discounts and such

When James and Lars purposefully tab out the songs wrong so nobody will steal their music.

This is what happens when people who only play piano try to transcribe guitar

Anyone who tabs a G power chord as [3x00xx] is a cop.

Wow, decades of exonerated frustration released with this video. The healing begins.

Man, this book messed me up when I was a teenager. I still have it after all these years.

I remember 17 years ago my guitar teacher was trying to walk me through the To Live Is To Die intro out of my copy of this tab book and he kept saying "what? they're crazy" and making corrections with a pen. I had only been playing guitar for a few years at that point so I thought it was a strange concept that a book could be wrong because I held it up as being this definitive thing, but I'm glad my teacher made those corrections. It's just too bad we didn't go through the rest of the songs because they did perplex me later when I tried to learn them on my own.

The funny thing is that I’ve had this book for over 15 years. I started playing guitar at age 12 to rebuild the strength in my left hand after a horrible accident. Due to that accident I am unable to move my pinky and ring fingers separately so I had to adjust how I play some songs and take “shortcuts”. Due to this I never actually realized AJFA tabs were wrong. I just assumed I was playing them incorrectly due to my injury and inability to move all my fingers separately. I adjusted the song tabs accordingly to make the songs sound closer to how they are on the album. In doing so, I inadvertently taught myself how to play the songs closer to the right way than how the tabs said to play them.

LOL Incredible video, this is bringing back all sorts of painful memories from my early guitar playing... really fun to watch and I didn't even realize how bad it actually was!

As a newbie guitar player, the Blackened tab in particular was incredibly frustrating for me. I remember going to the Sam Goody in the mall just to learn the riffs to that song and feeling like I sucked because I could never get it to sound right. It never even occured to me that the tab could be wrong because it was the "official" tab book as far as I knew at age 17. I just figured that I was doing something wrong. It was very discouraging.

I remember trying to learn Smells like Teen Spirit from a transcription in a guitar mag and it was arguably too accurate notating all the aspects of Kurt's loose style of playing where the main riff would be annotated every repetition because sometimes Kurt hits an extra string or causes an because left hand finger isn't fully depressed. I spent forever trying to learn it note for note, until a friend told me I needed to concentrate on getting that loose feel, playing along with the song that trying to recreate every one of Kurt's imperfections.

This album mystified me being a drummer. Lars did so many different fills and beats it was just hard to wrap my head around it all. My ear wasn't as trained as it is now though.

I'll see your AJFA tab book and raise you Megadeth: Rust in Peace tab book

Oh my ! all those years of grinding and grinding and grinding and thinking that I suck suck suck... I felt this video in my soul

You realise, of course that pre-1998 most “Guitar” books were actually written by keyboard players. In fact some of the worst books written had no tablature at all. I also recall that any Guitar books published with tablature were often rife with incorrect chord inversions and rhythm errors, because the limitations of the software being used “corrected” visual anomalies that occur with cross-string, cross-octave and extended voicing notation. Spare a thought for the guy who transcribed Metallica’s AJFA - his dreadful errors are enshrined for eternity!

I don't play any musical instruments, understand zero of what you're talking about, but I love watching your videos!!

Two things two learn from Mike... How to play guitar, how to stop the aging process.

Just here to say, I'm a young guitarist and your videos are huge help to me, not only are they very informative but they're also very fun to watch. I aspire to reach your level one day, hehe. Thank you, really. You taught me alot

This was one of the first tab books I bought in the early 90s and it was a journey, to say the least. As a kid, I saw "Authentic Tab" and just assumed people sit down with the band and transcribed it that way. Spent the first year thinking it was my skill level (which was correct in a sense), then about 6 months chasing tone, then just figured they're gods and this mere mortal would never get it to sound right. The intro to To Live Is To Die had me rage quitting at many points.

When you’re learning and you learn it wrong, you cement that mess into your brain and it becomes so much harder to learn it the right way. There’s a few horrible tab books in print. There’s an Iron Maiden book that makes Dave and Adrian seem like they’re guitarded and noobs if it were correct. Like back in the early 90s when you had websites like Ultimate Tab or A-Z Tabs.... just nothing but horrible shit written by 12 year olds who thought they figured it out

The 'Extreme - Pornograffiti' Tab book is up there as well. The 'Get The Funk Out' tapping section is hilarious.

6:55 I have been playing the chorus riff in One using an open string power chord my whole life, didn't know it was incorrect..

I swore I was stupid trying to read / play Blackened with this damn book. I feel so validated to know the friggin book was wrong

Haha, I will forever do the 2323 dyers eve riff. It was embeded in my fingers. I always did Blackened by ear & was closer than the book.

This was the first tab book i bought in the early 90s and i made and i ended up playing things closer to the real thing out of sheer frustration. Glad to know after all these years that i wasn't insane

What a happy accident, I listened to this on the way to work today and I'm wearing the t shirt with the album on 🙂

Good I was too poor to buy all those tab books!

Ahhh, this is why I could never learn a full song from that damn book when I was new to tabs!! Finally, after all these years the mystery revealed, thank you so much!!!! Edit: I'm being serious... this book is one of the main reasons I just gave up trying to learning solos period. Now, 20 years later, I'm having to unlearn so many things to now learn how to solo correctly...

OMG! This is pretty amazing. I remember giving up on the Blackened riff just because it didn't sound right using the tab book. I thought it was my fault back then because I just started out :) Thanks, great video - as usual

I had that book, it was brutal. I left it in the back of a girls jeep and lost it. I think that did me a favor. So many bad memories from using this book.

9:46 I struggled with this riff for so long. it always sounded strange but I just assumed the book was right. I think I bought this book in 1995 for about $50NZ from the Rockshop. Great spotting all the mistakes!

So good video, and so true. I remember having a red marker pen to mark one of the guitars when both are transcribed on the same string. Many other corrections is done in mine. Sick after paying for a book like that. Funny that they often printed "Play it like it is" on the cover of those books.

Wrong tabs (and wrong equipments) cost me at least a decade, I gave up on playing for many years, I thought i didn't have any talent... Even some professional youtubers are still doing the same thing, they are playing differ from the tabs they show, sometimes I feel like they are doing it on purpose.... Thank you Pal, you mentioned something that everybody pretends it dosen't exist...

I’m glad I grew up in a time where every song can easily be found, in correct tabs online. Must of been real confusing to start learning guitar from a book like that.

Watching these bad tab book videos makes me thankful that I didn't have as many of them as I wanted to, back in the early 90's when I was first learning. Most of my tab came from guitar magazines, which were still not 100% accurate. Seek & Destroy was the first song that I learned from Tab. I love your videos! Keep up the great work! \m/

A lot of those I was able to figure out on my own. My beginner teacher taught me well. The 2323 on Dyer's Eve did mess me up and never learned that one though. You left out the unnecessary bar chords on the main riff on "To Live is to Die".

Where did James talk about the Dyers Eve thing? Any link?

It is funny the most tabs are written harder than what is really played in reality...

It's probably hard to imagine a time when there was nothing else out there and you had to work it out for yourself.

This is so great and brings back so many bad memories. I started playing guitar at 15. My brother who’s older was into the metal scene and played as well. He owned a bunch of these tabs books. This book is one of the first books I really sat down and tried to learn. I remember still being confused on parts. Still to this day the middle of blackened I’ve been playing the way the book thought me. Seems like a lot of songs you wanted to learn I tried as well and got those same parts wrong as well. Thank god for KZfaq now. I can go back and relearn all the songs I learned wrong. Coming across this video was such a flashback of me sitting in my old room learning tabs for the first time and giving up on parts of songs cause it just was to hard.

Have you tried Blood Sugar Sex Magic? Don't think they even heard the album. Or they were at least in the next room over while it played.

The Japanese band score books for Dream Theater When Dream and Day Unite and Anthrax State of Euphoria make And Justice For All look like it was transcribed by James Hetfield.

Oh my god. I had completely forgotten that! When you were showing the bad parts I remember trying to learn from that book years and years ago. Even as a beginner back then I remember thinking, “This can’t be right...” It almost made me give up, because it just wasn’t sounding the same. Thanks for clarifying so many years later. Haha.

Excellent vid. Thanks for making it. That tail at the end of the first fast riff in Blackened always annoyed me.

That’s funny I had never heard that book was wrong but that explains why I could never quite get some of it.

Oh my god. The sweet old times when you got back from high school, got that book and wanted someone to die horribly because of those nearly impossible and absurd tabs...

Do you know if the tab book for Death Magnetic is well done?

What year did this come out? I got it way back in the days of guitar center rumaging for tab books.

I got that tab book when it came out as my "big present" for my 15th birthday. I think it retailed for £29:99 in the sheet music shop. That was a lot of money back then, I bought the double vinyl brand spanking new for £9:99. I wouldn't change a thing tho and that tour/era was a total face melting experience.

11:54 Where do I find the James video?

I was waiting from the beginning of the video, hoping you'd mention the Blackened part. I loved that part so much but it never sounded right playing it. I started playing in 2003 and this was the first tab book I bought and taught myself to play guitar with. This is the first time I'm seeing it played correctly. Thank you so much!

Great video! Rewinding tape back in 1994 over and over to figure out what they play in the blackened opening riff was as frustrating as tunning the g string on stratocaster... and then you get the official tabs and decide to become an alcoholic

The Frayed Ends riff sounds really cool slowed down.

AJFA s my favorite album and Blackened s absolutely my #1 favorite from them. There’s something about the aggression of that tune, the changes and my favorite .....when the flip the opening riff after the solo. Same riff but caught my attention immediately. Never gets old..

Where can I find that video where James speaks about the Dyers Eve main riff ?

so does anyone know if they ever fixed this or did they just keep reprinting it as is?

I cant lie, I thought the whole Dyers Eve 2323 debate was about the intro before it goes into the heavy E and F power chords

Great video dude! Just subscribed because I didn't do it earlier and I saw lots of your vids! Shame on me. Blackened is also my favorite Metallica song, such a shame that kids got so discouraged reading this tab book. The transcription sounds more like a Primus song, lol

What pickups are these on the SG? And what do you use to get that tone? Sounds perfect

Same problems for me. I got the book back when it first came out. I thought it was me that what I was playing didn't sound right. I had a 20-something years long block on playing Blackened because of this book. Then I watched a Ben Eller video about Blackened and it completely unblocked me and now I play it loud every chance I get! Thanks for sharing your story of frustration. Good to know it wasn't just me.

I remember alot of tab books being incorrect back in the day,, even some Pantera pages. Disrespect

That Blackened riff, when i was a kid starting, used to confuse me! I knew it didn't sound right, but didn't have the experience and capacity to understand it myself. And i trusted to book as the "truth". Until the day (years later) i visited my uncle in LA ,and i saw this Metallica tutorial VHS in a guitar shop with a couple of songs, including Blackened. And then, this guy showed me the way... it was like the Ray of God. :-)

I have that version of the book and most of the rhythm incorrectness I either figured out or strongly suspected. Thank you for this compilation and I'm definitely going to come back to this one day soon.

Anyone know if the slayer guitar books are fairly accurate? My friend had a couple,tthey hard to find but they seemed ok. I want to get them though.

Imagine if Trujillo used those tabs to audition for Metallica. Oh wait, there’s no bass on that album 💀

Ok... The blackened actually infuriated me, because, although i didn't use the book to learn the riffs and solos from Justice, i've learned most of it just from listening, and i didn't use slowdowns and shit, just launched the album and listened a bunch of times to get what james was doing, and blackened main riff was one of the easiests to figure it out (although i struggled a lot at the beginning to get the proper speed). The dyers eve is another that is just strange how the just thought "of course james is doing 2 - 3 and not the obvious thing that he did all his carrier that is 2 - 2"

I've finally gotten my ear to a level that I can now notice mistakes in tab fairly often and it was kind of world shattering to realize all the stuff I learned when I was first starting out, I learned completely wrong.

Great video!!! This should be a series ha

I edit and fix guitar tabs once in a while, and if there's anything I've learned, it's that tab books are always inaccurate. They're good as a basic guideline, but they should never be treated as 100% correct.

Yeah, Jesus I remember I had this book - the only good thing is that it taught me to use my ears more!

So here is a question.... I hear people saying that learning from tabs is no good but I have a rubbish ear and wouldnt know how to approach learning a song otherwise. I can recognise in a lot of instances where tabs are wrong though. So what strategy do you recommend I use to learn songs?

What I have to highlight here is the humbuleness, to accept when you are wrong, is a brave thing, thats the best way to grow. Great comments in this video. I like it because it happened to me with this book also, but now a use the books as a reference only. For better results I search videos like yours to enhance. Great video, you play fantastic, congratulation.

I had that tab book back when it first came out. The intro to "One" absolutely drove me nuts because it was completely wrong, and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it to sound right. I eventually gave up and just played it the way it sounded in the actual song.

Blackened is my favorite Metallica song too

On your Gibson explorer the white one could you give me the kind of pickups you have on it. Thanks

Man, so glad someone finally said something. I remember how puzzled I was by the "official" tab for Blackened. The opening riff in the book sounded nothing like the song. It's not even close, no matter how you slice it. I always wandered how this book passed QA. It was like "the earth is flat", but in Mettallica tab book terms.

To Learn from your mistakes is to DIE! Er.. wait, that's not right... Great vid! that's what makes this channels so great, even as a teacher, you're still learning!

The open string version on ONE is correct. That's James style

Could you clarify how Kirk play the fast lick on the ONE solo, just after the tapping ? 17-15-17-19 ... it always seemed wrong to me on the tab book

I have that book and the frustrating part for me was the harmonies for both James and Kirk. They would just put in one tab line that sounded kind of like both. I would rather just give me at least one correct line! For example “to live is to die”. Great video, and so relatable!

10:00 Metalica - Whitened

We should start a class action law suit for damages!! I had all those tab books, but the worst one was the Ozzy Osbourne one!

Dude! Awesome video. I bought this book right when it came out. 23232323 screwed me up for 30+ years! I think another part they screwed up in that book is in One for the 3+ acoustic guitar lines in that awesome part right before the first lyrics and then again a couple times after the heavy distorted chorus. The way they have that split up in the book is annoying and I think they have the track Hetfield plays live shown wrong. Hopefully you know what I’m talking about. I think one part was even on a separate page that the other two tracks. It made no sense.

I feel bad i forgotten about your channel, i subbed again 🤘🤘🤘🤘 i learned alot from you back when your channel first came on.

this really is frustrating, Pantera has a tab book that is just as bad as this, almost like they get classical guitarists who don't know anything about metal to make these books and the bands i guess don't even review or approve them.

I was pissing myself laughing at the blackened riffs 😄 like a sketch

Buddy i just wanna say that you are good making all your videos. Plus you are a good Guitar player. AND i love every single video of you. Good explaining everything AND good voice AND i have to say congratulations AND i wish you the Best of the success AND good Energy from Medellín Colombia

I remember going to my local library and borrowing an old Ride The Lightning tab book which had same kind of notational mistakes as the AJFA book and it messed up me too as a kid. Also, love your guitar tone!

"If you were to ask me what my favorite metal album of all time is, I would say and justice for all." Dude no homo, let's get married

Tab books in general are awful! Really messed me up when I was a kid. Very discouraging when you're a new player and you don't know you're not the reason why what you're playing doesn't sound like the record.

Sometimes, when these books do drop tuning, they stupidly don't adjust the sheet music notes (that part I use, because I don't learn with tabs) if it's Dropped D for example, the note can be that open 6th string D, but on the sheet music it's written as the normal E. I guess they do this because technically it's the same "playing" (but not the same note) with them both being open 6ths but its more confusing than convenient and I think it's some of the stupidest general decisions they've made.

Excellent video. Do you know where to get the correct guitar scores?

I hated when I was 1st learning and I'd buy a tab book and instead of the actual notes and riffs they would just be the vocal melody arranged for guitar, I seem to remember having a rolling stones book like this

I never found an accurate tabbook for any band.

This INCREDIBLY helpful brother! I'm starting to get into writing books myself with tabs chords and notation. Some of these moves these guys pulled are dastardly, I'd never put two harmonizing guitars on one lines with slashes in the tabs! And of course unnecessary time signature changes are ridiculous!. This all just looks lazy to me, blegh!!

Was that by Wolf Marshal? I remember back in the 90’s most of his tabs for Metallics songs were wrong in a lot of parts.