10 Times Metallica Did Whatever The Hell They Wanted

From the opening notes of Enter Sandman, it seemed that the extreme thrash of Metallica’s early days was drawing to close, to be replaced by a new era of mid-tempo, hard rock heaviness which could blow the roofs off their old haunts. This was Metallica, the self titled released known colloquially as ‘The Black Album’, and it was the start of the bands stratospheric rise to Heavy Metal Godhood.

After over a decade of unprecedented success, the thrash metal scene was starting to look tired to those within its sphere. Where it had previously stood as a rallying counter-culture against Glam Rock excesses, the years of substance fuelled abandon had neutered this zeal, as the bands themselves stumbled and fell succumbing to their own cliches and releasing increasingly homogenous placeholder albums.

Never ones to rest on their laurels, Metallica recruited producer Bob Rock, famous for his work with more hard rock stadium bands such as Mötley Crüe and Aerosmith, and entered a gruelling eight month, $1 million recording period that culminated in their most slickly produced and accessible album to date.

Whilst many within the scene derided the move as selling out and going mainstream, they certainly could not deny the numbers. Four weeks at the Billboard number one spot and over 16 million copies sold to date, this was Metallica staking their claim to rule the world.