I wrote a while back on how video games like Guitar Hero could be helping to inspire a whole new generation of kids and young adults to pick up the bass guitar (see – bass guitar gaining popularity from video games). In a weird twist, the game Rock Band is actually helping fans of Metallica and Jason Newsted in particular by allowing access to the master tracks of some of their songs. One such song is Blackened off the And Justice For All album released back in 1988.

One enterprising Youtube and Rock Band user with the handle Adimifus managed to isolate the master bass tracks used in the Rock Band video game for Blackened, boost the levels to make the non-existent bass track much more heavy in the mix and then blended it back in with the unblemished master tracks for the rest of the instruments. The result: a three dimensional mix that sounds more like And Justice For All collided with the Black album (bass mix wise at least) or more like what the bass sounded live on the And Justice For All tour. The video featuring this track has been titled Metallica – Blackened w/ enhanced ORIGINAL Bass; you can listen to it yourself below. Turn it up!

At the time that I write this post, the video has been viewed more than 196,300 times since December 11, 2007. There was some initial confusion between this track and a series of re-recorded Metallica tracks featuring enhanced bass lines that were not played by Newsted entitled “And Justice for Jason”. This particular version has been isolated from the master tracks, which are required for any of the video game versions of songs in Rock Band or Guitar Hero. The master tracks are required because the game allows anywhere from one to 5 players to perform at the same time on the game and needs to mute and un-mute the track based on the ability of the player to match the patterns on the screen at the right time.

Some bands have had to re-record their songs because they weren’t able to locate the original masters, but And Justice For All wasn’t one of them. Doubters can confirm the Blackened performance credits on the Rock Band version.

Newsted, the longest serving bassist in Metallica, walked away from the band in 2001 which was the start of a particularly rough patch for Metallica that was documented in the movie Some Kind of Monster. He replaced Cliff Burton when the popular bassist died tragically in a tour bus accident in 1986. Jason endured many “hazing” rituals for years after joining the band and some point to the lack of bass on And Justice For All as one such incident. However, Jason’s bass tracks were featured prominently in the mix on the album of covers called Garage Days Re-Revisited in 1987 (which are included on the 1998 release called Garage Inc.) and even Cliff Burton’s bass was very low in the mix on the first three Metallica albums.

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