10 Hard Rock Bands That Made The Same Song Twice

The '90s were an experimental and frequently self-referential time for Metallica, where they took everything they had spent the first decade of their career building up and twisted it into a new shape. The Black Album (1991) saw them break away from their classic thrash metal sound, paying homage to their earlier records while remaining versatile and trying out softer elements, such as horns, keyboards and a whole new structure on their track The Unforgiven.

The song blew fans and critics away, flipping the established template and utilising heavy, distorted sections on the verse and a soft, melodic chorus, played with acoustic guitars. The track's forgiving five-minute radio edit allowed it airtime, and it entered mainstream charts around the world, bringing hard rock and heavy metal to the masses.

Come the the mid-late '90s, however, and Metallica were once again reinventing their sound. Load (1996) and its sister album ReLoad (1997) mounted an offensive against established band norms and stepped off the metal train altogether for something straddling hard rock, blues rock and post-grunge. And, amongst ReLoad's offering was The Unforgiven II, a remake, sequel and response to the original song.

Rather than a straightforward reproduction of The Unforgiven, II takes the original's chord progression, riff, themes and style, and mixes them up. It also flips the structure again, returning to the slow-verse hard-chorus, and infuses Southern rock and country licks into the mix.

The band would go on to make The Unforgiven III a decade later, but that's a whole other story.