10 Bands That Ripped Off Themselves

It took real guts for Metallica to make a sudden career shift like they did in the early '90s. Once the thrash metal titans had run their course playing sonic juggernauts of songs across Master of Puppets and And Justice for All, their self-titled Black Album with Bob Rock gave them more hits than they could have asked for, from the relentless riffs of Sad But True to the modern classic Enter Sandman. While the band did try to switch it up again with their follow-up Load, the first single found everyone's favorite metal band on shaky ground.

For what it's worth, King Nothing still holds up as a great song from an arrangement standpoint, but there's a bit of unintended copying going on with the riff. Written by Kirk Hammett, the tempo, feel, and even note selection of the central riff of the song is almost the exact same as Enter Sandman. I'd be willing to concede that those bluesy riffs are just Hammett's style... if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the song is Sandman Pt. 2 as well.

Pretty much every single arrangement decision is lifted from the band's greatest hit, from the modulation in the pre-chorus to the big chords that dominate the chorus which give way to a solo hook line from James Hetfield. These guys seemed totally in on it too, with Hetfield singing "off to never never land" right before the song wraps up. There have been plenty of sequel songs in metal history, but it seems a bit too on the nose for Metallica to release something this derivative.