10 Most Ambitious Rock Albums Ever Made

Metal was always known to be a dirty genre. From the distorted guitars to the growly vocals, this kind of music was not something that you would show to any of your more proper musical friends. Then again, that didn't mean that both the dirty and the clean stripes of music couldn't mingle.

As Metallica came off of recording their covers album Garage Days, they started thinking of something bigger they could do for their fans. Loving the way that the orchestral arrangements on "Nothing Else Matters" had turned out, the band started talking to conductor Michael Kamen about the idea of doing an entire concert with a symphony orchestra. Though it seemed a bit strange at the outset, S&M ended up being one of the most glorious moments in Metallica's history.

Rather than just having the classical instruments as a little adornment, Kamen takes the reigns and re-imagines these songs to fit the classical mold, with "Master of Puppets" and "One" becoming absolutely monumental. Metal may tend to get a bad reputation as meat-headed music, but something like "The Call of Ktulu" will leave you absolutely speechless with how much emotion can be brought out of a guitar amplifier. With Metallica even conducting a sequel for the show recently, S&M was a bold step for metal that brought the genre from the stadiums of the world into the classical theater.