10 Rock "Sellout" Albums That Are Actually Really Good
5. Reload - Metallica
No one really likes to talk about the Load era as a high point for Metallica. When the hardened metal gods behind tracks like Master of Puppets and Battery came out with songs that sounded more like Alice in Chains leftovers, most fans just cried sell out and were sent packing. So what did the thrash titans do next? Double down.
Granted, there is a certain respect that comes with Metallica boldly continuing in their new direction for Reload, but the results were equally as dismal. It's a shame though considering that they seemed to learn from their mistakes on this one. Compared to the more midtempo material on Load, there's a slightly better balance on here, with Fuel being an outright classic in the Metallica world at this point. Though there still are some midtempo songs like Devil's Dance, the muscle behind them is much more brutal, almost in the vein of something like Sad But True.
The ballads on here also are a lot more well-constructed that the ones on Load, with The Unforgiven II being a worthy follow-up to its parent from the Black Album and Low Man's Lyric being one of the most off-the-wall experiments Metallica had ever attempted (that is, until Lulu). For as many people that preferred that one Load be enough, Reload actually shows that Metallica were at the very least learning from some of the mistakes they made.