Metallica: Ranking Every Album's First Song
6. Frantic - St. Anger
Metallica's eighth album, 2003's St. Anger, is often seen as the black sheep of their discography.
Recorded in a nu-metal style, the album delivers a rawer sound with raspy vocals from James Hetfield, the use of steel drums, and a total lack of guitar solos. This rubbed a lot of fans up the wrong way, but, in other circles, it was praised for trying something new.
The record as a whole can get a bit grating at times, but it starts off well enough. "Frantic" was written by Hetfield about his alcoholism. This would have been fresh in his mind at the time, as he had just finished a rehab session that had delayed the recording of the album by a number of months.
In terms of previewing what was to come from an album, "Frantic" probably does the best job of all the songs on this list. It sounds completely different from anything else Metallica had put out to that point, and conveys the rawness of the record perfectly.
Whilst its divisiveness in the fanbase prevents it from placing higher on this list, "Frantic" does not deserve the hate it gets and should be praised for its uniqueness.