10 Rock Bands Who Sold Out (But We Love Them Anyway)
1. Metallica
90% of Metallica's output prior to their 1991 self-titled release would never ever be played on commercial radio.
Can you imagine tuning into your local breakfast show and hearing The Frayed Ends of Sanity? Or bopping round the supermarket to the sounds of Metal Militia?
It would be awesome, but the old ladies buying soup an aisle over probably wouldn't agree.
Not that their fans cared - they loved their big, thrashy sounds and elevated the band to the status of gods in the church of metal. To keep the religious analogies going, they were all firmly Judas-ed when that 1991 record came out.
With songs more tailored towards a mainstream audience, Metallica established themselves as a hard rock act rather than the bastions of thrash metal they had once been.
Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters, and The Unforgiven are in regular rotation on rock radio and every single one of their releases since their self-titled 1991 album has gone to number one in the US.
Whilst Metallica are a rightfully celebrated act in most people's eyes, there are still some out there who swore off them as soon as that black album was released.
It turns out thrash fans have long memories.