| METALLICA |
| Metallica is easily the greatest 80's heavy metal band and it lead speedmetal and heavy base riffs into the underground and later to the mainstream. While their pop/metal counterparts were delivering "glitter metal", they were providing music that many believed had more substance to it. Metallica is quite possibly just as, if not more, influential than their 70's ancestors, Black Sabbath. Their followers have been known for reaching practically religious levels in their praise and loyalty to the band. |
| The heavy metal transformation began with the classic, "Kill Em All", the album infamous for having sold out shows before MTV ever even herd of them. It also legitimized the speed metal genre into something much more accessable to conventional Black Sabbath fans and gave them songs they could sing to, like "Jump In The Fire" and "Seek And Destroy". |
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| Metallica's next album showed a massive increase in writing ability on their part and even further extended their already loyal fan base. The album included "Call Of Kutulu", which was a revised version of Bach's classical pieces, "For Whom The Bell Tolls", a song which has inspired countless garage bands worldwide, and "Fade To Black" which is conceivably Metallica's best work ever. Soon after the band released their third album, Master Of Puppets, also considered a classic metal album. Master delivered both a light and dark view of the world, especially on the title track. However, this would be the last album in which Cliff Burton would play. A bus accident claimed bassist, Cliff Burton's life later that year. After the band had elected to continue, bassist Jason Newsted replaced Cliff on the lineup, however Ulrich and Hetfield remained responcible for Metallica's lyrics and musical direction. ...And Justice For All sounded like a more mature Metallica, with crushing riffs still present, the band began to play more intelligent lyrics about injustice and (of course an old favorite) insanity. They also scored their first popular hit, "One", which also had a music video as well. Metallica did not become a mainstream band untill 1991's release of the self titled ablum Metallica. The album traded inUnoffically known as the Black Album, it represented for some the first sign that metallica had sold out. The album was much slower than previous Metallica albums, but most hardcore fans soon jumped onboard. MTV friendly songs like "Enter Sandman" and "Nothing Else Matters" propelled Metallica to the mainstream almost overnight. |
| Metallica's biggest change in image didn't come until the 1996 release of Load which targeted the new and hip Alternative Rock fans who were forming at the time. Songs like "Hero Of The Day" display this new sound especially well. The album still rocks hard like other Metallica albums and if nothing else, shows that they do not care what others think. They are doing this for themselves. The following year, the band released, Reload which was similar to |
| Load in sound was also an extension of Metallica expanding beyond it's metal roots. Garage Inc. which included a collection of cover songs including "Turn The Page", "Tuesday's Gone", and "Die Die My Darling". Disc 2 contains Garage Days Re-Revisited which has been out of print and bootleged to great proportions. |
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