Aqualung

It's Metallica's turn in the spot light. Metallica is one of the most well known bands to people who don't typically listen to metal. Typical conversations between me and modern rock listeners usually go like this: Them: "So what kind of music do you listen to?" Me: "Classic rock and 80s stuff." Them: "Oh, so like Metallica? (That's the only group I know...)" They're probably my brother's favourite group, if anybody curious...

Years active:
1981-Present

Genre:
Heavy metal
Thrash metal
Hard rock

Line up:
1981:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Lloyd Grant - Lead guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

1982:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar
Dave Mustaine - Lead guitar
Roy McGovney - Bass guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

1982-1983:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar
Dave Mustaine - Lead guitar
Cliff Burton - Bass guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

1983-1986:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar
Kirk Hammett - Lead guitar
Cliff Burton - Bass guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

1986-2001:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar
Kirk Hammett - Lead guitar
Jason Newsted - Bass guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

2001-2003:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar
Kirk Hammett - Lead guitar
Bob Rock - Bass guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

2003-present:
James Hetfield - Vocals, guitar
Kirk Hammett - Lead guitar
Robert Trujillo - Bass guitar
Lars Ulrich - Drums

Discography:
Kill 'Em All - July 1983
Ride The Lightning - November 1984
Master of Puppets - February 1986
The $5.98 EP.: Garage Days Revisited - October 1987
...And Justice for All - September 1988
Metallica - August 1991
Live Shit: Binge & Purge - November 1993
Load - June 1996
Reload - November 1997
Garage Inc. - November 1998
S&M - November 1999
St. Anger - June 2003
Some Kind of Monster (EP) - June 2004

History:
In 1981, Lars Ulrich met James Hetfield after each had posted musician advertisements in The Recycler. Ulrich, who had previously tried to start a new-wave-of-British-heavy-metal influenced band, heeded Hetfield's call to be his drummer, along with Lloyd Grant sort of on guitars and Ron McGovney on bass. They had a few temporary musicians, too, but there were only three real members at their first session, in Ulrich's garage. Metallica picked out its name soon thereafter. Ulrich was helping Ron Quintana figure out a name for a heavy metal magazine, and Quintana suggested Metallica. Ulrich said that was a bad name and suggested another, leaving Metallica free for his band.

In 1982, Metallica made their first recorded musical appearance on the first Metal Massacre album. This Metallica song, Hit the Lights, is probably the only thing keeping this album in print. At this time, Metallica was using the services of guitarist Lloyd Grant, typically only for guitar solos, but the band really wanted a full-time lead guitarist who was up to their standards. Ulrich therefore posted an ad in a local newspaper, which was answered by Dave Mustaine. Mustaine, when he arrived, did some sound checks and some warm ups which greatly impressed the members of Metallica. They offered him the spot before hearing his audition.

A few months after hiring Mustaine, Metallica recorded their demo No Life 'Til Leather. Shortly thereafter, bassist Ron McGovney left the band, due to personal conflict with Mustaine. Metallica had their eye on Cliff Burton to replace McGovney, who agreed to play for Metallica if they would move to the San Fancisco area.

Upon moving to the bay area, Metallica quickly developed quite the local following with thrash metal fans. In 1983, Metallica travelled to Rochester, New York, at the promting of Jon and Marsha Zazula, who then signed Metallica to their Megaforce Records label. Shortly after getting to New York, however, Metallica fired guitarist Dave Mustaine, due mostly to alcoholism and other drug addictions, which tended to make him very unproductive. The band hired Kirk Hammett, guitarist for San Fancisco's thrash metal band Exodus. Mustaine went on to create thrash metal band Megadeth.

Later that same year, Metallica released their first album, Kill 'Em All. This album forshadowed Metallica's style through the 80s, as it contained Hetfield's heavy vocals and rhythm guitar, styles that would become some of Metallica's indentifying trademarks. These musical elements were inspired by such metal groups as Motorhead, Saxon, and hardcore punk bands like the Misfits, and were designed to break the grip of soft metal on heavy metal fans. Although this album was not initially very successful commercially, it did do quite well in the underground metal scenes and gave Metallica a very solid fan base.

In 1984, Metallica released their second album, Ride The Lighting. This album, while still containing Hetfield's heavy vocals and agressive rhythm guitar, had generally longer and more developed songs than Kill 'Em All. It even included the more instrospective, slower song Fade to Black. Some suspected this song was a contemplation of suicide, but it was really in response to getting their gear stolen in Boston. Hetfield's Marshall amp was the greatest loss, and Hetfield has search the world to find one with the same sound as the one that was stolen from him. These instropective songs distinguish Metallica from other thrash metal bands, such as Megadeth or Slayer.

After the release of Ride the Lighting, Metallica signed with Elektra Records. The released their first album for Elektra, their third album total, in 1986. Master of Puppets was the album that finally broke Metallica into mainstream success, and is still regarded by many to be the best heavy metal album of all time. The album reached #29 on the Billboard Top Album charts, and the promotional tour, Damage Inc, was quite successful as well. It wasn't all great, though. On the European leg of the tour, in Sweden, bassist Cliff Burton died when Metallica's tour bus slid off an icy road and Burton was thrown out of a window. Before going to sleep that night, Burton and Hetfield had had a disagreement over who would sleep in which bunk, and drew cards to determine who got which bunk. Burton chose the high card, and ultimately the bunk which caused him to be thrown from the window when the bus skidded off the road.

With Burton's death, Metallica tried to find a new bassist. An interesting factoid is that Les Claypool, future member of Primus, was dismissed from auditioning for being too "funky" with his playing style. In October of 1986, Metallica finally settled on Jason Newstead to fill Burton's shoes, and finished the Damage Inc tour. Metallica then subjected Newstead to months of hazing, including charging expenses to Newstead's hotel room and not allowing him ride in the limo with the rest of the band. Metallica's harsh treatment of new members soon became legedary.

After the Damage Inc tour, Metallica released the EP entitled The $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisited, thusly named so CD stores couldn't mark it up a ton just to make a little money for themselves.

1988 saw the release of Metallica's fourth full album, ...And Justice for All. This album would prove to be one of Metallica's most complex albums. Lyrically, the album was praised for the way Metallica seemed to seperate their brand of heavy metal from blues, but the production was heavily criticized, especially because the guitars sounded "thin" and the drums tended to click more than thud. Most of these songs, being so complex and generally quite long, are rarely played live anymore.

...And Justice For All was also the first album with a song made into a music video. This song was One, a song based on the book and the movie Johnny Got His Gun. This music video received considerable MTV air time, and furthered the band's popularity. ...And Justice For All is also noteable in that it contains their last instrumental, To Live Is To Die.

...And Justice For All



In 1991, Metallica released their eponymous album, commonly referred to as the Black Album, produced by Bob Rock. The recording process of this album, as well as the following promotional tour, were recorded and released on A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. This two part documentary also includes five music videos. The recording of both the album and the documentary was very heated, as disagrements broke out between band members and between Metallica and Bob Rock with regards to direction, sound, and scope of the album. Despite this battle, however, the album went straight to #1 on the Billboard charts and withing weeks was platinum. It contains some of their most well-known and well-played songs, such as Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters. In fact, the slower, more ballad-like song Nothing Else Matters brought a lot of hard rock and soft metal fans to become Metallica fans, which further solidified Metallica's "mainstream" label. This success, however, enraged some of the more die-hard Metallica fans and brought accusations of selling out.

Metallica's promotional tour following release of the black album was commercially quite successful, although during one of the shows Hetfield was badly injured in a pyrotechnics accident. His left arm was covered in second and thrid degree burns and, while he continued to sing, Metallica enlisted Metal Church guitarist John Marshall to fill in for a portion of the tour until Hetfield's arm healed.

After the almost three year promotional tour, Metallica took a break until 1995, when they came back to the studio to record Load. This album took about a year of writing and recording, so Load wasn't released until 1996. This album was originally intended to be a double album, but Metallica ultimated decided to release half of the songs first, and then work on the second half and release them later. This second half resulted in the 1997 album Reload.

Load and Reload marked a musical change for Metallica. The pure metal layerd guitar sounds were replaced by a more bluesy type of hard rock, complete with shuffle rhythms, warm guitar effects, and slid guitar. They also began to experament more with different sounds, and some songs include steel guitars, violins, or hurdy-gurdies.

These albums were the bands turning point and were generally not well-recieved by die-hard fans. Sales were lower than their previous three albums, and many Metallica fans began referring to the band as Poptallica, Alternica, or Lica (since the Metal was gone). Notwithstanding the dissapointment of the hard-core Metallica fans, many of the songs from Load and Reload received extensive airplay (a further testament to Metallica's more mainstream alternative rock sound). Some of the popular songs from these albums include Until It Sleeps and The Memory Remains.

Load and Reload



In 1998, Metallica released Garage Inc., a double album featuring new covers of such bands as The Misfits, Thin Lizzy, and Bob Seger, as well as older covers going back as far as 1984.

In 1999, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra's conducter, who had worked with Bob Rock and Metallica on the song Nothing Else Matters, approached Metallica about recording their songs with the Orchestra. Metallica recorded two permformances with them, and the album and concert film were released later that year under the name S&M.

In 2001, Newsted left the band, originally citing physical damage from playing so heavily. Later, however, it was revealed that the departure was mostly due to Hetfield's resistence to Newsted's side project with Echobrain, and because Newsted thought it was dumb that Metallica would want to hire a therapist to help the band members with their interpersonal relationship. Later that year, Hetfield enterred rehab to help with his alcoholism and other addictions. Ulrich and Hammett thought Metallica was done for, and there was no hope in a revival, but Hetfield returned to the band after a short hiatus. Metallica returned to the studio to record their next album, with Bob Rock taking over bass duties for the time being.

In 2003, Metallica held auditions for Newsted's spot, which spot was ultimately taken by Robert Trujillo, who had previously played for thrash metal band Suicidal Tendencies and for Ozzy Osbourne. Later that year, Metallica released their eigth studio album, St. Anger. The album, intentionally raw in response to criticism that Metallica had lost their edge, debuted #1 on the album charts. But this album was also poorly received by fans due to its underproduced sound. It also lacked guitar solos, which was exceptionally rare for Metallica. Therefore, although it debuted at #1, it became Metallica's poorest selling album of all time. Notwithstanding such response from fans, St. Anger won a grammy in 2004.

After their two year tour to support St. Anger, Metallica took another break. In 2006, Metallica announced that Bob Rock had retired as Metallica's producer. Metallica are currently working on material for an album set to be released sometime in 2007.

Metallica and Napster:
in 2000, Metallica realised that a demo of their song I Disapaear was being distributed on Napster. This unfinished song, created for the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack, had not yet been released. They soon discovered that all of their songs were available on Napster as well and initiated legal action against Napster. In 2001, Napster and Metallica agreed on an out-of-court settlement, which caused many Napster accounts to be locked, although Metallica did not persue copyright infringement charges against any individual downloaders. Due to this controversy, many people started to think of Metallica as selfish band members who didn't want anybody to listen to their music without them getting any money.

Interesting facts:
Metallica's live performances are generally considered to be some of the best, and even sometimes include a "band-switch" wherein, for example, the guitarist will play drums, the bassist guitar, and the drummer sing.

At the beginning of Don't Tread On Me (from the black album) the guitar plays part of Leonard Berstein's "America", from the musical West Side Story.

On the promotional black album tour, Metallica frequently, in leiu of an opening band, played video footage from backstage and footage that didn't make the A Year and a Half video.

Some of the songs written during Load were changed by the time they made it to Reload. Fuel, for example, was written before Load was released and then changed before it was released on Reload. On the Cunning Stunts concert film, one can hear the original version, and on Reload the changed version.

In 1996, Metallica cut their hair short, making them the butt of a number of hair jokes. In fact, Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez wrote the words "Friends don't let friends get Friends haircuts" (referencing the Television show Friends) at an MTV Unplugged concert that Metallica attended. Attention to Metallica's hair sometimes even out did attention for their music.

In 1997, Metallica was inducted into San Francisco's walk of fame, and the Mayor proclaimed the day "Official Metallica Day".

Jason Newsted, who was replaced in 2003 by former Ozzy Osbourne bassist Robert Trujillo, replaced Robert Tujillo in Ozzy Osbourne's band during his 2003 Ozzfest tour.

The talking at the beginning of St. Anger was what the prison guard at San Quentin told Metallica before they entered to record the music video.

 

MusicMan

Wow, nice review! Thanks for the contribution.

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Rules! A definite must-read

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ChrisP

Nice Miss Tull!

One of the Leg-ends of Metal for sure.

Gonna do a Megadeth followup?

Aqualung

Should I? I wasn't planning on it, but I can if you want.

Inferno_Paintball

That'd be awesome! I love your reviews man.

Aqualung

Thanks! I just posted it here.

The Crowing

I honestly don't see what the big deal with Master Of Puppets is. The songs are like bad versions of the songs on Ride the Lightning. Ride the Lightning blows Master away, and so does and Justice.....for all. I think And Justice is amazing myself, and you failed to mention that To Live Is To Die is actually a song that was entirely composed by Cliff Burton (who was trained in music theory, and ended up teaching it to the rest of the band, hence their more solid sound on albums after Kill Em All), recorded onto the album as a tribute to the late Bassist.

Aqualung

Thnaks for the extra info! I had no idea Cliff composed the whole song.

robjackson01

Hi all
Cool review. This is one of my favorite bands of all time. I like various stuff from this album.

rmatt

I used to be the perfect little Metallica fan. I never missed a show, I skipped school when the box set came out, and I even considered getting them tattooed somewhere on my body. Unfortunately I was one of the 300,000 who were subpoenaed by the band during the Napster days in the summer of 2000. I still have alot of respect for the guys for the impact they had on the music world, however, I have to draw the line at suing your fans.

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www.shrynecitypost.blogspot.com

Aqualung

Wow, that sucks.

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Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.

tomorrows hunger

They were one of the bands that really got me into music and ironically enough I can't stand metal nowadays.

endure12

If memory serves I believe it was Hammett who had the Disagreement Saw it on VH1 True storys or Behind the Music or something =P

Uncut Rubber

Yeaheah! Metallica rocks... nice story.

Metallica's greatest hits are from Metallica (the Black Album), but if you know a lot of Metallica music and that's your favourite Metallica album, there's something wrong with you... not saying it's not good music, though.

Personally, I prefer Master Of Puppets. Please don't smite me for that - I know hardly a thing from Ride The Lightning and ...And Justice For All.

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I hope that you will understand I do not mean to cause offence, and that no wolfbirds will be sent upon me as a result of this post.
Yours sincerely, Uncut Rubber

Music Resource

Awesome Metallica review. I've been into them since 1987. I own all their albums through the black album. The black album is my fav by far. It sounds the cleanest and fullest.

I also like the songs For Whom The Bell Tolls and Orion. They are both clean recordings as well.

Thanx for the cool review!

AllieK

Wow, i come to know here many facts about Mettalica,I always enjoy their music.But since long time, i have not listened their any upcoming album.

AKmetalhead80

I think you have the members of Metallica wrong...

Vocals and Guitar: Jesus with a mic
Guitar: Jesus that shreds
Bass: Jesus(this jesus plays bass and is therefore less of a jesus then the rest jk haha)
Drums: Jesus with sticks

that is the accurate lineup of Metallica

Ivory

drlinux

thanks!

flavioso

Metallica is probably one of my favorite rock bands. Most definitely, the older stuff to me is better than 1999 and present.

AllieK

Really nice reviews, I enjoy reading it a lot. I m a big fan of Metallica.

Dave Lombardo

Metllica was the best metal band, but, now.... their last record it was horrible, but i hope the next album, the return to old school song. i hope!!!.

Aqualung

If you listen to it, let us know how it is.

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Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.

Hendrix08

Dave Grohl wrote an open letter to Metllica on his site pretty much saying that they rule and he would drum on their next album if they want. That would be awesome!

papatyt

Royal Group!!!!!
Metallica Rules!!