10 Bands That Changed Rock And Roll
3. Metallica
For most of the '80s, metal wasn't really something that troubled the pop charts all that often. Although you had your thrash legends that were spurned from the loins of Sabbath and Judas Priest, there was a slim chance that you would find any of that stuff running up the charts. Every so often though, there comes a band that becomes so big that the masses eventually come to them.
As thrash was starting to reach its golden age at the end of the '80s, Metallica became the first metal band to cross over to the mainstream, with the Black Album being one of the great landmarks in rock history. Outside of the more accessible material though, these guys already had the chops to hold their own with the best of the best, with James Hetfield crafting one headbanging riff after another, from the proto power ballad Fade to Black to the crushing assault of Battery.
While many die hard fans may have cried sell out for reaching for a wider audience, it looks like Metallica did win out at the end of the day. After all, they never tried to compromise their own sound to follow trends, and they helped expose millions of people to this heavy style of music who probably wouldn't have given it a second glance. It might have been a rough trade, but when metal's promoters still sound this good, it comes with a certain amount of respect.