10 Massive Albums That Never Lived Up To The Hype

Most Metallica fans will be more than happy to tell you the moments where the band went wrong. Even though they have been known as the poster children for all things metal for years now, the thrash legends have also made a few more embarrassing moves in the past as well, like their prolonged therapy session St. Anger or mixing oil and water with Lou Reed on Lulu. The first time where even fairweather Metallica fans thought they were losing the plot though was during their alternative era.

While metalheads may have gotten pissed off at the band going mainstream on the Black Album, you can’t say it didn’t do what it was designed to do, selling in droves and turning the band into a gateway drug for rock fans who didn’t necessarily even listen to heavy music. When it came time to follow it up though, no one wanted to make the same thing again, and Load is the sound of them trying everything else in their arsenal, from country ballads to atmospheric guitar parts to the same Black Album style songs that they had been working on.

Though this album does have its fair share of problems, there’s a good case to be made that this is one of their better releases, taking that alternative style and infusing it into their sound a lot more gracefully than some of their peers in the world of hair metal. If anything, this album was more of a statement of intent from Metallica than anything else. You may think that they are thrash metal darlings, but there’s a lot more that makes these guys tick than just chugging riffs, and this was the new era showing its stripes for the first time.