10 Amazing Rock Songs That Divided Bands
4. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
One of the biggest rules that came with thrash metal is that you were never going to step into easy listening territory. Even when Metallica had done their own ballads back in the day, the ending of One was still pure thrash for the entire second half of the song. There's a lot of money that can be made with the softer side of rock, but James Hetfield played it a little too close to the chest on Nothing Else Matters.
When he first thought of the idea for the tune, James had no intention for it to be a Metallica song at all. Being inspired by his wife at the time, the song was just supposed to be a private thing that he wrote for himself and didn't think anyone in the band would really go for it. Once it found its way onto one of his demos though, Lars listened to it and thought it would be a nice change of pace going into the Black Album.
If they were going to go into that lane though, James wasn't going to phone it in either, writing some of the string parts with an eBow on his guitar and eventually bringing in Michael Kamen to score the orchestra, having already worked his magic for albums like the Wall a few years prior. Despite some reservations, Nothing Else Matters still has Metallica's soul in there and taught a lot of metalheads an important lesson: sometimes the clean and dirty sides of music can work really well together.