10 Tragic Deaths That Rocked The Music Industry

By the mid '80s, metal had come a long way from being music for the meatheads of the rock world. After Black Sabbath changed the game back in the '70s, the thrash scene blossomed open once Metallica hit the stage, bringing with them songs that were equally as chaotic as they were...well...metallic. There was an X-factor though, and it's name was Cliff Burton.

Although James Hetfield gets his just praise for the amount of riffs he wrote for the band, Cliff was the true virtuoso of the group, taking cues from classical music to make some of the most musically complex metal songs of all time, from the harmonies at the end of Creeping Death to the bass guitar masterpiece Orion. One night in Switzerland though, everything came to an abrupt stop.

After performing one of the best shows of the tour, Metallica were driving through the snow when their bus swerved out of control and started to flip across the road. Once everyone came to, it was too late for Cliff, having been crushed under the weight of the bus as it hit the road. Outside of just Metallica's world, this is where people started to reevaluate what metal could be. Whether he knew it or not, Cliff had already done more in his mid 20s than any other musician could pull off in their entire lifetime.