How Metallica’s St. Anger Album Changed the Wobble in My Coffee Table Forever

By 2003, Metallica had released seven legendary albums and critics were already anointing them among the greatest metal bands of all time. Around that same time I had just found a sweet coffee table on the side of the road. Beautiful craftsmanship, solid walnut wood, and nary a stain to be seen. I snatched it, giddy with excitement as I raced home and it fit right in with my vintage living room furniture. I couldn’t imagine the place without it. However, in my haste to appreciate aesthetic over function, I failed to notice that all four legs of this coffee table were not the same length.

Thinking quickly, I grabbed my copy of Chicago’s greatest hits, carefully removed the first disc, and used the rest of the soulless, plastic, regrettable package to prop up leg #1. The second leg was easy, only a sliver off the ground, and unfortunately it seems that my wallet-sized photo-fan of Morrissey pictures had run its course. Two birds with one stone.

I tried for weeks to get the last leg even but nothing in my apartment would fit under it just right. Nothing I was willing to lose anyway. I was beginning to lose hope. Then “St. Anger” came out and changed everything.

Ya know, a lot of people talk shit about that album but I never understood why. Maybe their coffee tables were built differently. As soon as I saw that shimmering, red fist beckoning me from the F.Y.E front display, I knew this was what I’d been searching for. A perfectly crafted .468” width jewel case of pure, guitar solo-lacking structural support. It would be the CD that changed my life.

I sit here some 16 years later writing to you from the most durable, flat, living room appurtenance to ever hold a laptop. Thank you “St. Anger” for being my favorite Metallica album of all time.

In case you’re wondering if I ever actually listened to the CD? Nah. But I did download it on Napster. Fucking sucked.