5 Times Metallica Were The Best Band In The World (& 5 Times They Were The Worst)
6. WORST: St. Anger
No matter what, St. Anger - the band's eighth studio album - was destined to fail from the beginning.
In the lead up to, and during, the recording of the album, bassist Jason Newsted left the band; singer, guitarist and lyricist James Hetfield entered rehab for alcoholism; and the band took Napster to court. But none of these elements cast the final stone against a greatly misjudged album's success.
St. Anger's ultimate downfall was in its many musical faults. Deciding it was time to enter the 21st century, Metallica hopped aboard the alternative and nu-metal train, somehow failing to realise that these genres simply would not play to their strengths.
Alongside this, Metallica engaged a muddled and unconventional production process, taking a more communally-minded writing approach with Bob Rock and Kirk Hammett (rather than the usual tag-team of Ulrich and Hetfield), perplexingly deciding to abandon guitar solos, turning the guitars into a wall of distorted noise and coining the trash can drum sound that makes the album a truly challenging listen.
While not an outright failure (how many fans don't have a soft spot for the titular song when hearing it live?), nor even Metallica's worst album to date, it nonetheless sank when the band desperately needed to swim, and it has taken years of clawing their reputation back with more thrash-influenced albums to gain back some respect.