ENTER SANDMAN
ENTER SANDMAN
HOLIER THAN THOU
THE
DON’T TREAD ON ME
THROUGH THE NEVER
NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
OF WOLF AND MAN
MY FRIEND OF MISERY
THE STRUGGLE WITHIN
COVERED BY
COVERED BY RINA SAWAYAMA
COVERED BY BIFFY CLYRO
UNFORGIVEN
COVERED BY VOLBEAT
COVERED BY THE HU
COVERED BY MY MORNING JACKET
COVE RED BY GOODNIGHT, TEXAS
COVERED BY KAMASI WASHINGTON
COVERED BY RODRIGO Y GABRIELA
GHOST
COVERED BY DIET CIG
“T
he best moments just appeared out of nowhere,” says Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett of his band’s fifth album. “Parts of it kind of wrote themselves. To me, that’s real magic. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Magic or not, it worked. That record – officially self-titled but, of course, known to the world as The Black Album – is the biggest metal album of the last 30 years, and second only to AC/DC’s Back In Black in the all-time rankings. Since it was released on August 12, 1991, it has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, turning its creators into superstars on a scale that the four greasy street rats who released Kill ’Em All eight years earlier could never have conceived – and casting a monolithic shadow over every other metal album that came after it.
Kirk’s breezy memories of The Black Album’s genesis don’t tell the whole story. Sessions found the band holed up in a Hollywood studio for 10 grinding months, often at war with their new producer Bob Rock, racking up a $1.2 million bill in the process.
“It was tough, but there was never any hesitation or doubt about going down the wrong road,” says Kirk. “When we looked at everything, we fucking knew we had fucking great material.”
Not everyone was onboard with the new, streamlined Metallica of The Black Album, but the sceptics were swiftly steamrolled into the ground as the platinum discs racked up and the audiences grew bigger. Yet this was more than just an unstoppable commercial juggernaut – the success of songs such as Enter Sandman, Sad But True, The Unforgiven and grandstanding ballad Nothing Else Matters pushed Metallica out of the cloistered world of metal into the mainstream. Suddenly The Black Album became the metal album that non-metal fans loved.