James Hetfield is aware that the US military has used some of Metallica's music for torture, and seems relatively relaxed about it. Lars was more confused, saying in one interview that "If the military wants to torture people with music, I can name ten European death metal bands off the top of my head that make us sound like Simon & Garfunkel."
The band posted to social media that they were "blown away" by the use of "Master of Puppets" in the Stranger Things Season 4 finale, The Piggyback. They then posted a video of them playing the song while wearing Hellfire Club t-shirts from the show.
"The way The Duffer Brothers have incorporated music into Stranger Things has always been next level, so we were beyond psyched for them to not only include ‘Master Of Puppets’ in the show but to have such a pivotal scene built around it."
"Nothing Else Matters", a Power Ballad that holds the title as the only love song Metallica has ever put out. It reached number 11 on the Billboard mainstream rock tracks and is still frequently played on rock radio stations. Even on YouTube, its music video is the most-viewed one from Metallica by far.
"The Unforgiven II." Released as a single and had a music video made for it, and played on the radio regularly. Only ever played live once, at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997. The band finally dusted the song off again in late May and early June 2015 for shows in Germany and Italy.
Chart Displacement: Their only top ten hit on Billboard, as well as their first song to top the Rock charts, is "Until It Sleeps", which isn't even the best known song of the Load/ReLoad era (that would be "Fuel", which only hit #6 in the Rock chart).
Content Leak: A demo version of the song "I Disappear" (their contribution to the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack) leaked to radio before it was officially released. It was traced back to the file sharing site Napster, thus causing the band to file the infamous lawsuit against the service.
They dislike "Escape" in part because it was the result of Executive Meddling — when they thought they were done recording Ride the Lightning, the label wanted one more song, so they had to quickly write something in the studio. They've only played the song live once, at the Orion Music + More festival in 2012, as part of a set where they performed Lightning in it's entirety: James admitted in his stage banter that it was the one song they'd never wanted to play live, and later said they'd probably never play it again.
For the most part, they hate the resulting product of St. Anger too, though they said it was necessary due to ironing out all the grievances the band had built up.
In Some Kind of Monster, they acknowledge Load and Reload as this.
Lars admits to misjudging people's reaction about Napster, also, and regretting it.
The band themselves seem to agree their treatment of Jason is this, considering the immense hell the poor guy dealt with for 14 years for the sole fact he wasn't Cliff.
For Hetfield:
In a 2009 interview, Hetfield was asked about the Load/ReLoad period. He revealed that Lars and Kirk were largely responsible for their image change starting with Load. He accordingly hated the cover art (which he labeled a "piss-take" and said Lars and Kirk went with it to annoy him), Anton Corbijn's photos (he said he rejected at least half of them, and said the ones where Lars and Kirk were kissing were intended to annoy him), and agreed that they were musically "unsure" in that period. Despite this, he does like the music on both albums, and has even said that "Bleeding Me" was lyrically his favorite Metallica song.
He also doesn't like "Don't Tread on Me", and in the infamous Playboy interview of 2001 also expressed disappointment with "Of Wolf and Man" and "Through the Never", calling them "a little wacky".
Lars stated that "Eye of the Beholder" is the one song he doesn't want to hear again, deeming it "forced" and feeling that it “sounds like it’s got two different tempos.”
Jason was asked once if he would have bought ReLoad, and responded with "Not if I heard 'The Memory Remains' first".
Producer Flemming Rasmussen said he was absent when it was time to mix ...And Justice for All, and has made clear he didn't approve how James and Lars pushed for a dry and sterile sound with tinny drums and inaudible bass (he wanted something as ambient as the previous two albums, only for them to pick what was recorded with the close microphones and ask to make Jason's bass as low as possible).
Documented in Some Kind of Monster, with St. Anger as its testament.
Their fourth album, ...And Justice For All, is possibly their most aggressive. It was their first album after original bassist Cliff Burton died in a bus accident; his replacement, Jason Newsted, was pretty much mixed out of the album altogether.
Their 1984 ballad, "Fade to Black", was written after the band's equipment was stolen after a concert in Boston, including James' prized and rare Marshall amplifier, which his mother gave him soon before she died of cancer. His mother's death has been a key inspiration to much of his music, most prominently in "The God That Failed" from Metallica, and "Mama Said" and "Until It Sleeps" from Load.
Creator Killer: St. Anger marked the moment when the band fell from their lofty perch as titans of rock. Going into the album, they were on the verge of breaking up as a result of James Hetfield's trip to rehab and subsequent sobriety clashing with the hard-drinking lifestyle of his bandmates, and their crusade against Napster alienated many fans who saw them as corporate sellouts. Regardless, their name brand alone meant that the album was hyped to the heavens, debuted at #1 in fourteen countries, and sold six million copies worldwide despite quickly earning a reputation as one of the worst and most overhyped metal albums in history. In hindsight, the process of making the album and working through their difficulties, documented in exhaustive detail in the 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster, probably kept the band together, but it did not produce anything resembling good music, instead leading to a mess of tinny production quality, snare drums that sounded like trash can lids, simplistic and repetitive riffs far below their usual standard, a lack of their iconic guitar solos, and shallow, wangsty lyrics sung way outside of Hetfield's range. It marked the end of the days when the band was relevant in the discussion of popular music; while their next album, 2008's Death Magnetic, was a return to form that went double-platinum and won three Grammy Awards, it did not leave anything close to the mark on mainstream culture that even their more polarizing late '90s output did, let alone The Black Album or their eighties songs. Since then, they've been better known as a Classic Rock band and a touring act (albeit a very successful one) than for their newer music. Of course, since rock as a whole has declined significantly from mainstream prominence since 2003, this may not be entirely St. Anger's fault, but it certainly had a hand in it.
Creator Recovery: After the abrasive and angsty St. Anger, the band got into a better mood and the result was Death Magnetic, which harkens back to their old sound and has lyrics that are cryptic but not brooding.
Defictionalization: The final level of the game Guitar Hero: Metallica (published in early 2009) features the band playing in Antarctica. In December of 2013 Metallica actually would perform a concert in Antarctica.
Denial of Digital Distribution: Their catalogue is not available on Tidal in the USA/Canada, but their albums are available in other countries.
Fatal Method Acting: Barely averted by Hetfield when he got too close to a column of phosphorus flame and was almost burned alive on-stage (his guitar actually shielded him from most of the flames). They later laughed at it by having a stuntman in flames in later tours.
He Also Did: James Hetfield sang the song "Hell Isn't Good" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. He was uncredited in the film and its soundtrack for contractual reasons, but it was later officially confirmed.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Death Magnetic is a particularly notable example due to the Loudness War problems with the commercial version and the complete absence of any such issues with the Guitar Hero III version. Many people who find the original completely unlistenable have no problems with the GH3 version. This has become less essential since the release of the 2016 remaster, which is fairly dynamic by contemporary standards (although it's still slightly clipped).
Played for the "No Life Till Leather" demo, which was released in limited release to celebrate Record Store Day 2015. The band had plans to release a box set and CD version of the demo but dropped those after a dispute over writing credits with former guitarist Dave Mustaine.
Money, Dear Boy: One of the reasons for The Black Album and the band changing their style to appeal to a bigger audience. While they may have wanted to stick to thrash and progressive and keep their fan base small, eventually making sure they would keep eating and continue to have roofs over their heads became more important. The band have however disputed that this was their main reason for the change: James and Lars were quite vocal about their dissatisfaction with how long the songs on ...And Justice for All were and how the audience responded to them live, with James mentioning in an interview that the band had on previous albums deliberately ramped up the intricate songwriting and multiple sections in response to their own "musical insecurity". And it certainly works, as their concerts have generated an estimate $1.4 billion, offsetting how the band lost money in endeavors such as Through The Never and the Orion Music + More Festival.
Because ...And Justice for All was Metallica's first studio album to be recorded with the Compact Disc format in mind, its 65:25 runtime is too long to fit on a single vinyl record. Consequently, LP releases spread the album across two discs. Metallica, Load and ReLoad, St. Anger, Death Magnetic, and 72 Seasons would continue the trend, featuring CD-oriented lengths that require them to be divided among two LPs each.
Despite being able to fit on one CD without issue, the 77:42 Hardwired... to Self-Destruct is a two-disc studio album on CD and vinyl releases alike as an artistic decision.
Lulu is spread across two discs on both CD and vinyl.
A few of their live releases are also double albums, such as S&M and its sequel S&M2. Live Shit: Binge & Purge is a set of both audio and video material, with the audio part having three CD/cassettes and the video part consisting of either three VHS tapes or two DVDs.
Metallica, their first chart topper whose many radio-friendly hits are still mainstays in concert.
Guitar Hero, which even had a title centered on the band.
Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 featured a pivotal scene involving "Master of Puppets". Spotify reported that "Masters of Puppets" was downloaded 17.5 million times in the week after the episode was released, and it quickly hit No. 1 in the US iTunes rock chart. Not bad for a 36 year old song.
Defied by Dave Mustaine. He was kicked out of the band right before they recorded their first album, but he then went on to form his own band, Megadeth, whose success has rivaled Metallica's.
Jason Newsted, who was a fan of the band before being hired as the new bassist, and became famous as part of his new gig. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the band never let him forget that he was, first and foremost, Cliff's replacement.
Also true for Robert Trujillo, though less so, as he came to the group with his own professional history (Suicidal Tendencies, playing bass with Ozzy Osbourne on tour) and a more even footing.
Despite being on the popular Ride the Lightning, they band has only ever played "Escape" live a single time during an anniversary concert where they played every song from the album. "Escape" was a last-minute addition to the album, literally written by Hetfield and Ulrich in the recording studio when they were told by the producer that they had to have one more song on the album, and the label wanted a song with a melodic hook for release as a single.note In the end, the singles were "Creeping Death", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "Fade to Black" instead.
Though it's their second best-selling album, it's rare for the band to play anything other than "One" from ...And Justice For All live. It was their first album after Cliff's death and the incorporation of Jason, who was all but mixed out of the album altogether, and they didn't have their usual mixing producer, leading it to have an overly "sterile" and "tinny" sound lacking bass. It was also their most aggressive and technically demanding album, leading to burnout. Finally, the album has some of their longest songs, which, according to Hetfield, the crowds don't always respond well to when they're played live. Though many of its songs are beloved by fans, the band itself rarely plays most songs from the album for these reasons.
Three songs off Metallica, "My Friend of Misery", "Don't Tread on Me", and "The Struggle Within", only had their live debuts 20 years after the album came out, as the band decided to celebrate the occasion by playing it in its entirety. Only "My Friend of Misery" had another performance other than the 20 concerts where they did the whole Black Album.
"The Unforgiven II" from ReLoad is a sequel song to "The Unforgiven", one of the most popular songs from Metallica. It was released as a single and had a music video, but as a slow Power Ballad, was a Black Sheep Hit for the band. They initially played it live once at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997 (the same year ReLoad was released) before shelving it until 2015. Even after, they've only played it a total of 10 times as of 2022.
Given the Creator Breakdown going on at the time of production (as explained in the tie-in documentary Some Kind of Monster) and its status as a near-Creator Killer, the band almost never plays anything from St. Anger these days.
Streisand Effect: Lars Ulrich's attempts to shut down Napster actually encouraged many people to illegally download Metallica songs; even people who didn't like the music still downloaded it just to spite Lars.
Throw It In!: "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth" starts with Cliff calmly announcing "Bass solo, take 1".
According to Word of God, it was actually around take seven and they only said that to let people know it was a bass solo.
Two covers have Last Note Hilarity cases of this, with "Last Caress/Green Hell" ending in an impromptu off-key rendition of "Run to the Hills", and "Blitzkrieg" ending in a burp, a laughing and Lars saying "I fucked up in one place".
Kirk Hammett's solos he practiced beforehand for "The Unforgiven" didn't work, so he just threw out a last minute improvisation of "raw emotion". He liked the result so much that he tried to play less scripted solos in the following albums.
Troubled Production: Metallica didn't become one of the most high-profile metal bands without a few troubled productions. Namely:
Their earliest case was the recording of Ride the Lightning, which was no easy feat.
Songwriting went well for the most part; it was when they got to Copenhagen, Denmark, to record at Sweet Silence Studios where the problems began. Ulrich still had no idea how rhythm theory worked and required roadie Flemming Larsen to help guide him through the songs; making things worse, Ulrich had to record his drum parts in a warehouse at the back of the studio, with absolutely nothing in the way of acoustics, which explains the overly reverb-y drum sound on the album. Sound problems occurred throughout the production because the band's gear was stolen three weeks before they arrived in Copenhagen (including Hetfield's favorite guitar and amplifier, which served as the inspiration for the song "Fade to Black"). The band also had nowhere to stay, so they had to sleep during the daytime at the studio and record at night, as they didn't have enough money for a hotel vacancy (hotels in Scandinavia were notoriously expensive at the time). Worse yet, the band had only 29 days to record, as a number of European shows were quickly approaching (this left them running on fumes by the time the shows arrived).
And none of that is anything compared to the post-production bullshit they had to put up with. With the budget having ballooned by $10,000 already by this point (starting at 20k), while recording, Metallica was still looking for a major label, and several A&R representatives visited the studio during recording. Metallica were originally set on signing with Bronze records, but Gary Bron didn't like the material recorded in Denmark, and signing them would have meant re-recording the whole album in America. Disgusted by his disrespect for artistic integrity, the band decided to can his ass and keep searching, despite the fact that Bronze was already advertising them as one of their bands. Their European label Music For Nations paid for the studio costs because Megaforce records owner Jon Zazula couldn't afford them, and given the band's already increasing frustration with his constant meddling, decided to sever ties with him. It wasn't until during a concert in New York that they got noticed by the then-current Elektra records head and signed an 8 record deal with them. Luckily by the time work for Master of Puppets began, the band had remedied most of these problems and decided to return to Sweet Silence, but even that wasn't completely angst-less. They ended up being there much longer than anticipated (past Christmas too) due to their growing perfectionism, and their nasty drinking habits were beginning to rear their ugly head, though the band stayed dry on recording days.
A lesser case was ...And Justice for All. The band brought in producer Mike Clink having been impressed with Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, only for Clink and Metallica not to work well together, leading Lars to call Flemming Rasmussen, who had produced the previous two albums, for a return. The only result of three weeks under Clink, whose sole credits on the album itself are engineering drums on two tracks, were the covers of "Breadfan" and "The Prince". Cliff's death two years prior still loomed large for Lars and James, who ended up making a dark, moody album with angry protest lyrics (Lars said it was "the CNN years", where he and James would seek subjects to complain about on the news) and a dry, sterile production, noted for the bass of Jason Newsted being basically removed from the mix (Rasmussen said "I'm probably one of the only people in the world, including Jason and Toby Wright, the assistant engineer, who heard the bass tracks on ...And Justice for All").
Metallica, also counts to a certain extent. To recap: the band members got sick of hyper-complicated prog-metal songs that were "too fucking long" during the recording of ...And Justice for All, so they hired Mötley Crüe producer Bob Rock, who proceeded to alter the band's schedule, actually challenge them on songwriting (something previous producers Jon Zazula, Paul Curcio and Rasmussen never did; in one specific example, Rock told Hetfield up-front that his original, crib death-themed lyrics for "Enter Sandman" sucked hard and he needed to write better ones), and emphasize the still-picked-on Jason in the mix (in contrast to Justice's infamous lack of bass); lots of arguments ensued. Metallica themselves said that they somehow bonded during the sessions through finding new ways to torment Rock — Hetfield claimed that at one point, he was browsing a magazine which happened to contain a gay ad that startled Rock, so the next day he plastered an entire room with gay porn. Despite all the animosity, Metallica stuck with Rock due to the success they had with Metallica (which is still the best-selling album of the SoundScan era and the best-selling Heavy Metal album) all the way up to St. Anger.
St. Anger itself, as handily proven by the Some Kind of Monster documentary, filmed during recording of said album and showing how everyone was experiencing a Creator Breakdown (not helped by Jason finally jumping ship, forcing Rock to play bass before Robert was hired) that led to overtly angsty songs. It says much about the band's level of dysfunction at the time that the documentary was originally going to be edited into a reality TV show before Metallica bought the rights at the last minute.
Before he died, Cliff Burton was leading the band into a progressive direction. One can only wonder how far they would have gone into Progressive Metal had Cliff not died. They were already moving in that direction by Master of Puppets because thrash in general was moving in that direction (Megadeth and Slayer had foreshadowed it with Peace Sells and Hell Awaits; additionally, newer acts like Forbidden, Heathen, Blind Illusion, and Watchtower were also setting the stage for a flashier, more musically complex direction in the genre); additionally, it's possible that Cliff may not have even stayed and very well may have jumped ship for another act or started a new project. On the other hand, Cliff was also getting increasingly apathetic towards metal by the end of his life and was gravitating towards alternative rock, and it's equally likely that the Genre Shift on the self-titled would have happened either way, though the material would have likely been weirder and more experimental with his guidance.
Similarly, Hammett and Burton were actually looking to fire Ulrich after the Master of Puppets touring cycle had concluded, as there is some evidence to suggest that they had grown annoyed with his stagnating ability and wanted a more technically proficient drummer, which would have allowed them to make even more complex music. Burton's death killed this plan, but they definitely would have been a far different band with a different drummer.
Also, on S&M, both "No Leaf Clover" and "-Human" had a unique sound to them. They were still rock, like Load and ReLoad, but without the blues and country elements. They were a lot heavier, more technical and had a darker, almost hopeless atmosphere to them. As with the example above, they may have continued in this more musically mature and progressive direction if not for their subsequent Creator Breakdown.
Les Claypool, a personal friend of Kirk Hammett, once auditioned to be Metallica's bassist after Burton's death, but he was turned down, because, according to Hetfield, "he was too good" and that he should "do his own thing". Claypool personally thought that Hetfield was just being charitable, but also admitted that he was very out-of-place at the audition and didn't really vibe with them. Claypool would later form Primus. In a later interview, Claypool said that he wasn't much of a metal fan, had no idea how big Metallica were, and felt he wasn't the right person for the job.
In the band's very early days, James was extremely uncertain about being a singer-guitarist, so they asked John Bush of Armored Saint (later for Anthrax) to take over for lead vocals, even after Kill 'Em All was recorded and released. Bush declined, wanting to stay with Armored Saint, who were comprised of childhood friends. Thirty years later he did join them briefly on stage to sing "The Four Horsemen".
Three songs were considered for Garage Days Re-Revisited, Bow Wow's "Signal Fire", Gaskin's "I'm No Fool", and one that the band was actually trying to learn, Paralex's "White Lightning", when Kirk Hammett started playing the riff to "The Wait" and the others decided to go along with that Killing Joke song.
Originally, the documentary Some Kind of Monster was to be a pair of 60-minute infomercials aired on television to promote St. Anger. At one point during filming, the band's label at the time, Elektra Records, considered turning the documentary into a reality show due to the cost of the project. The band didn't like the idea, so they bought the rights to the footage in order to have control over the project.
Metallica nearly had their own video game. "Damage Inc". was going to be a game set in a grim Mad Max-esque future where players spend most of their time just driving around listening to heavy metal. Not only was the game going to be chock-full of Metallica tunes, but leaked concept art indicates that the band members themselves were going to be denizens of this barren future wasteland.
In a RebelTaxi interview with Ken Pontac, the latter stated he made a pitch to ABC in the early 90s for a stop-motion animated series based on the band called Metallicans, featuring robotic versions of the members. The pitch was rejected by ABC to distance themselves from licensed material, which was when the company chose Bump in the Night, the second pitch he showed to them.
The band wanted to release a box set for their No Life Till Leather demo tape, even inviting Dave Mustaine to participate, but this was shelved after Dave took issue with Lars wanting credit for two songs he fully wrote. The songs are presumably "Mechanix" and "Jump in the Fire", which James and Lars re-wrote for Kill 'Em All (the former re-titled "The Four Horsemen").
Kirk Hammett losing a cellphone where he had been recording guitar riffs meant he had no ideas to provide for Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, leading to the album having no writing credits from him.
Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: In addition to the basic ("Pro") table, Metallica is available in two Premium Editions, "Monsters" and "Road Case", and a "Master of Puppets" Limited Edition. These add playfield spinners, LED lighting, a rising Grave Marker, the Hammer and Casket, an animated Snake head, more detailed metalwork, and a mirrored backglass.
Before doing the artwork on Stern's Metallica pinball, "Dirty" Donny Gillies, a freelance artist, had previously customized an Earthshaker! pinball game into a Metallica game for the band.
Similarly, designer John Borg was a longtime Metallica fan long before he got to develop the pinball game.
Real Song Theme Tune: The game includes twelve Metallica songs for the player to choose from, including "Creeping Death," "One," "Master of Puppets," "Battery," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and "Fade To Black". Nine months after the game was originally released, a software update added two more (based on a fan vote): "Ride the Lightning" and "Blackened".
. The band finally dusted the song off again in late May and early June 2015 for shows in Germany
