10 Songs That Were Painful To Make
5. The Unforgiven - Metallica
After the main recording sessions for the Black Album were finished, both Bob Rock and Metallica vowed to never work with each other again for a brief period.
As much as the experiment with something more commercial worked with songs like Enter Sandman and Sad But True, the road to get there was incredibly bumpy, as Rock worked these thrash legends into shape. While everyone has their own horror stories, the solo in the Unforgiven could practically be a small soap opera unto itself.
During the beginning stages of recording, Kirk Hammett went home and put together a solo that he thought would blow away the entire band once they heard it. Once he got down to play though, Rock shut him down immediately and told him to strip things down to something much more free flowing. Despite Lars Ulrich trying to defend Kirk's original solo, Rock really lays into him and calls the initial solo that he did "warming up".
As Rock continued to piss Kirk off more and more with each passing take, Hammett got so upset that he ended up playing the solo you hear on the record off the cuff, almost as if he was channelling all of his anger into his guitar.
Even though a good producer can get you the takes that you need, a great producer like Rock knows how to push things just enough too far to make the entire thing work.