10 Rock Albums That Were Ruined By One Song

Every seasoned metalhead seems to remember where they were the minute that they heard Metallica sell out to become a rock band. Some may cite the alternative moments in the '90s on Load and ReLoad as the point of no return, but there were also more than a few fans getting upset when they had the audacity to work with Bob Rock to create the Black Album, which turned them into global superstars. If you thought that Metallica was selling out then though, are we just going to ignore the song that they made purely out of contractual obligation back in the day?

After coming off of Kill Em All, Ride the Lightning felt like the band maturing in every single way, taking the kind of thrash roots that they had on their debut and getting even more epic with them on songs like For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fade to Black. They thought they had a full album ready to go, until their record label told them that they wanted one more song to fill out the track listing. Not liking the idea of going back to the studio to work, Escape was churned out in just one day, with James Hetfield throwing different lyrics together and creating something a little more poppy than this era of the band should have been.

For all of the cool moments that are on this song like the heavy bridge and the major key chorus, this has always been a least favorite for James, never playing it live and only dusting it off during the 25th anniversary of the record. More thrash era Metallica is rarely ever a bad thing, but Ride the Lightning probably would have been a better listening experience if they had put their cover of Diamond Head's Am I Evil in this spot instead.