5. Invading Pop Culture: MTV Airs The Music Video For "One"
http://youtu.be/WM8bTdBs-cw By the time Metallica's career had reached the late 1980's, music videos and MTV had exploded onto cable television, and with that musical artists across the world were given a new medium with which to display their craft, and it was a medium that reached a far wider audience than the current establishment of FM radio. Metallica had weathered the music video revolution during their tour for the Master Of Puppets album, with management and record executives alike clamouring for them to craft their first ever music video. So after much pressure from the suits, and much to the chagrin of fans everywhere who thought their band was "selling out," Metallica produced and released a video for their only single off of the ...And Justice For All album; One, creating something that was just as disturbing and rock n' roll as everyone had hoped it would be. One erupted across cable television in January of 1989, bridging the gap on MTV between the current, popular music videos and the late night weekend show that was Headbangers Ball. Metallica's One introduced people across the world to hard rock in a way that they had never been subjected to: guys with long hair and loud guitars could produce a compelling music video with a message. Based on the Dalton Trumbo novel 'Johnny Got His Gun', One chronicled a soldier who had lost both his arms, legs and face in a war, and therefore could not speak, trapped inside his own mind while the world outside continued on without him. The video paved the way for other rock acts to follow suit, showing their fans and the world that you can make a rock video without "selling out" and bowing to the man that is corporate America.