10 Rock Musicians That Get Way Too Much Hate

There's a good chance that Metallica would have been a much more technically skilled band if they had gotten rid of Lars Ulrich back in the '80s. For all of the insanely fast runs that he put into songs like Master of Puppets, the band could tell that things were going off the rails, as evidenced by the recent videos showing Lars constantly fumbling some of the most basic drum fills imaginable. A world without Lars Ulrich in Metallica may have made for a better band, but chances are we would have never known who they were today.

Outside of just being the leader of the percussion team, Lars really is the businessman behind Metallica, helping keep them afloat when they were trying to regroup after losing Cliff Burton and molding them into something more radio friendly, including suggesting that Enter Sandman be the single off of the Black Album. And as much as people rag on him for all of the Napster bullsh*t, people forget that he did have a point, trying to look after future artists down the line who were going to struggle getting paid for their work, which only came true in the age of streaming.

Above all else, there was never a moment where Lars stopped being a fan of metal music, always looking to give back to the musical community that raised him and shedding light on some of his favorite bands that were never able to break into the mainstream. Love him or hate him, Lars is the reason why most fairweather fans of rock music can get into metal.