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Metallica (also known as The Black Album) is the eponymously titled fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on August 12, 1991, through Elektra Records, received widespread critical acclaim and became the band's best selling album. Metallica produced five singles that are considered to be among the band's best-known songs: "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Nothing Else Matters", "Wherever I May Roam", and "Sad but True". The album marked a change in the band's sound from the thrash metal style of the band's previous four albums to a less harsh one. Metallica promoted the album with a series of tours. In 2003, the album was ranked number 255 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The recording of Metallica was troubled; the band frequently entered conflicts with Bob Rock, the band's new producer, during production. The album debuted at number one in ten countries and spent four consecutive weeks at the top spot of the Billboard 200, making it Metallica's first album to top album charts. As of November 2014, the album has spent 328 weeks on the Billboard album chart, making it one of the ten longest running discs of all time.

Metallica is the group's best-selling album, one of the best-selling albums worldwide, and the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. The album was certified 16× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2012 and has sold around sixteen million copies in the United States since its release, being the first album in the SoundScan era to do so. Metallica played the album in its entirety during the 2012 European Black Album Tour.

Recording and production

At the time of Metallica's recording, the band's songs were written mainly by singer-guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, with Hetfield being the lyricist. The duo frequently composed together at Ulrich's house in Berkeley, California. Several song ideas and concepts were conceived by other members of the band; lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Jason Newsted. For instance, Newsted wrote the main riff of "My Friend of Misery", which was originally intended to be an instrumental, one of which had been included on every previous Metallica album. The songs were written in two months in mid-1990; the ideas for some of them were originated during the Damaged Justice Tour.

Metallica was impressed with Bob Rock's production work on Mötley Crüe's Dr. Feelgood and decided to hire him to work on their album. Initially, the band members were not interested in having Rock producing the album as well, but changed their minds. Ulrich said, "We felt that we still had our best record in us and Bob Rock could help us make it".

"What we really wanted was a live feel. In the past, Lars and I constructed the rhythm parts without Kirk and Jason. This time I wanted to try playing as a band unit in the studio. It lightens things up and you get more of a vibe."

Four demos for the album were recorded on August 13, 1990; "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Nothing Else Matters" and "Wherever I May Roam". The lead single "Enter Sandman" was the first song to be written and the last to receive lyrics. On October 4, 1990, a demo of "Sad But True" was recorded. In October 1990, Metallica entered One on One Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California, to record the album. The band also recorded the album at Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia about a week. On June 2, 1991, a demo of "Holier Than Thou" was recorded.

Because it was Rock's first time producing a Metallica album, he had the band make the album in different ways; he asked them to record songs collaboratively rather than individually in separate locations. He also suggested recording tracks live and using harmonic vocals for Hetfield. Rock was expecting the production to be "easy" but had trouble working with the band, leading to frequent, engaged arguments with the band members over aspects the album. Rock wanted Hetfield to write better lyrics and found his experience recording with Metallica disappointing. Since the band was perfectionist, Rock insisted they recorded as many takes as needed to get the sound they wanted. The album was remixed three times and cost US$1 million. The troubled production led to Ulrich, Hammett and Newsted divorcing their wives; Hammett said this influenced their playing because they were "trying to take those feeling of guilt and failure and channel them into the music, to get something positive out of it".

Rock altered Metallica's working schedule and routine so much that the members swore never to work with him again. The animosity and tension between Metallica and Rock was documented in A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica and Classic Albums: Metallica – Metallica, documentaries that explore the intense recording process that resulted in Metallica. Years after the production, a petition signed by 1,500 fans was posted online in an attempt to encourage the band to prohibit Rock from producing Metallica albums, saying he had too much influence on the band's sound and musical direction. Rock said the petition hurt his children's feelings; he said, "sometimes, even with a great coach, a team keeps losing. You have to get new blood in there." Despite the controversies between the band and Rock, he continued to work with Metallica through the 2003 album St. Anger.

Composition

According to Robert Palmer of Rolling Stone, "empos were often slowed down in exchange for slower BPMs, while they expand its music and expressive range". The album was a change in Metallica's direction from the thrash metal style of the band's previous four studio albums towards a more commercial, heavy metal sound, but still had characteristics of thrash metal. Many fans consider the album to be a transition from the often ostentatious compositions of Metallica's previous releases to the slower, divested style of the band's later albums, where "old" and "new" Metallica are distinguished from one another. Instruments not usually used by heavy metal bands, such as the cellos in "The Unforgiven" and the orchestra in "Nothing Else Matters", were added at Rock's insistence. Rock also decided to raise the volume of the bass guitar, which had been nearly inaudible in the previous album ...And Justice for All. Newsted said he tried to "create a real rhythm section rather than a one-dimensional sound" with his bass. Ulrich said he tried to avoid the "progressive Peartian paradiddles which became boring to play live" in his drumming and used a basic sound similar to those of The Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts and AC/DC's Phil Rudd.

The band took a simpler approach partly because the members felt the songs on ...And Justice for All were too long and complex. Hetfield said that radio airplay was not their intention, but because they felt "we had pretty much done the longer song format to death," and considered a good change doing songs with just two riffs and "only taking two minutes to get the point across". Ulrich added that the band was feeling a musical insecurity — "We felt inadequate as musicians and as songwriters, That made us go too far, around Master of Puppets and Justice, in the direction of trying to prove ourselves. 'We'll do all this weird-ass shit sideways to prove that we are capable musicians and songwriters.'" – and Hetfield added he wanted to avoid getting stale: "Sitting there and worrying about whether people are going to like the album, therefore we have to write a certain kind of song — you just end up writing for someone else. Everyone's different. If everyone was the same, it would be boring as shit."

The lyrics of Metallica written by James Hetfield were more personal and introspective in nature than those of previous Metallica albums; Rock said Hetfield's songwriting became more confident, and that he was inspired by Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and John Lennon. According to Chris True of AllMusic", Enter Sandman" is about "nightmares and all that come with them". "The God That Failed" dealt with the death of Hetfield's mother from cancer and her Christian Science beliefs, which kept her from seeking medical treatment. "Nothing Else Matters" was a love song Hetfield wrote about missing his girlfriend while on tour. Hetfield said the album's lyrical themes were more introspective because he wanted "lyrics that the band could stand behind – but we are four completely different individuals. So the only way to go was in."

Packaging

Metallica had much discussion about the album title; the members considered calling it Five or using the title of one of the songs, but eventually chose an eponym because they "wanted to keep it simple". The album's cover depicts the band's logo angled against the upper left corner and a coiled snake derived from the Gadsden flag in the bottom right corner. Both emblems are dark gray so they stand out against the black background, giving Metallica the nickname "The Black Album". These emblems also appear on the back cover of the album. The motto of the Gadsden flag, "Don't Tread on Me", is also the title of a song on the album. A folded, pageless booklet depicts the faces of the band's members against a black background. The lyrics and liner notes are also printed on a grey background. The cover is reminiscent of Spinal Tap's album Smell the Glove, which the band jokingly acknowledged in its documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. Members of Spinal Tap appeared on the film and asked Metallica about it.

Promotion

Singles

Six tracks on Metallica were released as singles. "Enter Sandman" was released as the lead single on July 29, 1991; it reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and was certified "Platinum" by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The follow-up single, "Don't Tread on Me", was released promotionally and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks singles chart. "The Unforgiven" was a Top 40 hit; it peaked in the Top 10 in Australia. In 1992, "Nothing Else Matters" was released to more success, reaching number six in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The fifth single from the album was also released in 1992; "Wherever I May Roam" peaked at number two on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart but was less successful on the Hot 100 chart, failing to reach the Top 80. In 1993, "Sad but True" did not repeat the successes of the album's previous singles, charting for one week on the Billboard Hot 100 at 98. Almost all singles were accompanied by music videos; the Wayne Isham-directed "Enter Sandman" promotional film won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.

Tours

In 1991, for the fourth time, Metallica played as part of the Monsters of Rock festival tour. The last concert of the tour was held on September 28, 1991, at Tushino Airfield in Moscow; it was described as "the first free outdoor Western rock concert in Soviet history" and was attended by an estimated 150,000 to 500,000 people. Some unofficial estimates put the attendance as high as 1,600,000.

The first tour directly intended to support the album, the Wherever We May Roam Tour, included a performance at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, at which Metallica performed a short set list, consisting of Enter Sandman, Sad but True and Nothing Else Matters, and Hetfield performed the Queen song "Stone Cold Crazy" with John Deacon, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. At one of the tour's first gigs the floor of the stage collapsed. The January 13 and 14, 1992, shows in San Diego were later released in the box set Live Shit: Binge & Purge, while the tour and the album were documented in he documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica.

Metallica's Wherever We May Roam Tour also overlapped with Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion Tour. Hetfield suffered second and third degree burns to his arms, face, hands, and legs on August 8, 1992, during a Montreal show in the co-headlining Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour. The tour included pyrotechnics, which were installed on-stage. Hetfield accidentally walked into a 12-foot (3.7 m) flame shot from a pyrotechnic during a live performance of the introduction of "Fade to Black". The show was cut short shortly after this accident, so that Guns N' Roses began their concert to malicious reactions from fans. Newsted said Hetfield's skin was "bubbling like on The Toxic Avenger". Although Hetfield was able to sing, he could not play guitar for the remainder of the tour. Guitar technician John Marshall, who had previously filled in on rhythm guitar and was then playing in Metal Church, played guitar for the recovering Hetfield.

The shows in Mexico City across February and March 1993 during the Nowhere Else to Roam tour were recorded, filmed and later also released as part of the band's first box set, which was released in November 1993 and titled Live Shit: Binge & Purge. The collection contained three live CDs, three home videos, and a book filled with riders and letters. Pressings of the box set since November 2002 includes two DVDs, the first one being filmed at San Diego on the Wherever We May Roam Tour, and the latter at Seattle on the Damaged Justice Tour. Binge & Purge was packaged as a cardboard box resembling that of a typical tour equipment transport box. The box set also featured a recreated copy of an access pass to the "Snakepit" part of the tour stage, as well as a cardboard drawing/airbrush stencil for the "Scary Guy" logo. The Mexico City shows were also the first time the band met future member Robert Trujillo, who was in Suicidal Tendencies at the time.

The final tour supporting the album, Shit Hits the Sheds, included a performance at Woodstock '94 that followed Nine Inch Nails and preceded Aerosmith on August 13 in front of a crowd of 350,000. Some songs, such as "Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters" and "Sad but True", became permanent staples of Metallica's concert setlists during these and subsequent tours. Other songs though, such as "Holier Than Thou", "The God That Failed", "Through the Never", and "The Unforgiven" were no longer included in performances after 1995 and would not be played again until the 2000s, when Metallica, with Robert Trujillo on bass, began performing a more extensive back catalog of songs after Trujillo joined the band upon completion of the album St. Anger.

After touring duties for the album were finished, Metallica filed a lawsuit against Elektra Records, which tried to force the record label to terminate the band's contract and the give the band ownership of their master recordings. The band based its claim on a section of the California Labor Code that allows employees to be released from a personal services contract after seven years. Metallica sold 40 million copies worldwide upon the filing of the suit. Metallica had been signed to the label for over a decade but was still operating under the terms of its original 1984 contract, which provided a relatively low 14% royalty rate. The band members said they were taking the action because they were ambivalent about Robert Morgado's refusal to give them another record deal along with Bob Krasnow, who retired from his job at the label shortly afterwards. Elektra responded by counter-suing the band, but in December 1994, Warner Music Group United States chairman Doug Morris had offered Metallica a lucrative new deal in exchange for dropping the suit. (which was reported to be even more generous than the earlier Krasnow deal). In January 1995, both parties settled out of court with a non-disclosure agreement.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Tribune
Robert Christgau
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Entertainment Weekly	B+
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Select
Sputnikmusic	3.5/5

Metallica received critical acclaim upon its release from both heavy metal journalists and from mainstream publications, including the Los Angeles Times, NME, The New York Times, and The Village Voice. In his review for Entertainment Weekly, critic David Browne called it "rock's preeminent speed-metal cyclone", and said, "Metallica may have invented a new genre: progressive thrash". Q magazine's Mark Cooper said he found the album's avoidance of metal's typically clumsy metaphors and glossy production refreshing; he said, "Metallica manage to rekindle the kind of intensity that fired the likes of Black Sabbath before metal fell in love with its own cliches".

Select magazine's David Cavanagh believed the album lacks artifice and is "disarmingly genuine". In his review for Spin, Alec Foege found the music's harmonies vividly performed and said that Metallica showcase their "newfound versatility" on songs such as "The Unforgiven" and "Holier Than Thou". Robert Palmer, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, said that several songs sound like "hard-rock classics" and that, apart from "Don't Tread on Me", Metallica is an "exemplary album of mature but still kickass rock & roll". In his guide to Metallica's albums up to that point, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune recommended the album as "a great place for Metallica neophytes to start, with its more concise songs and explosive production."

In a retrospective article, Kerrang! said Metallica is the album that "propelled out of the metal ghetto to true mainstream global rock superstardom". Melody Maker said that as a deliberate departure from the band's thrash style on ...And Justice for All, "Metallica was slower, less complicated, and probably twice as heavy as anything they'd done before". In his review for BBC Music, Sid Smith said that although staunch listeners of the band accused them of selling out, Metallica confidently departed from the style of their previous albums and transitioned "from cult metal gods to bona fide rock stars". Sputnikmusic's Nick Butler called the album an improvement over the band's previous album and commended Metallica for taking a creative and commercial risk with what he said is "not Metallica's best, perhaps, but still a solid, enjoyable hard rock record". Classic Rock called it "the absolute pinnacle of Metallica's long and successful career", and credited the album for inspiring 1990s post-grunge music and convincing the music industry to embrace heavy metal as a genre with mass appeal. Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic and graded the album a "dud", indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought".

Accolades

Metallica was voted the eighth best album of the year in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1991. Melody Maker ranked it number 16 in its December 1991 list of the year's best albums. In 1992, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Metallica number 252 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Spin ranked it number 52 in its 1999 list of the "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s" and said, "this record's diamond-tipped tuneage stripped the band's melancholy guitar excess down to melodic, radio-ready bullets and ballads". It was included in Q magazine's August 2000 list of the "Best Metal Albums of All Time"; the magazine said the album "transformed them from cult metal heroes into global superstars, bringing a little refinement to their undoubted power".

Commercial performance

"You think one day some fucker's gonna tell you, 'You have a number one record in America,' and the whole world will ejaculate. I stood there in my hotel room, and there was this fax that said, 'You're number one.' And it was, like, 'Well, okay.' It's just really difficult to get excited about it. We've never been really career-conscious. We never tried to be number one. But now we're number one and it's, like, okay."

Metallica was the band's first album to debut at number one in the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. It had spent 282 weeks on the Billboard 200, making it the ninth-longest charting album. It last appeared on the charts in the issue dated January 18, 1997, after rising to 106 the week before, then leaving the chart.

Metallica sold over 650,000 copies in the U.S. in its first week of release, exceeding the sales of all albums released that week. It was certified platinum by the RIAA after two weeks. Metallica received a diamond certificate in 1997. The album was responsible for bringing Metallica to the attention of the mainstream; the RIAA has certified it 16× platinum in the U.S., making it one of the best-selling albums in the country. By October 2014, the album had sold over 16.04 million copies in the U.S.

Worldwide, Metallica has sold 30 million copies on physical media. In 2009, its sales surpassed those of Shania Twain's Come on Over (1997) as the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. The songs "Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters", "Sad but True", "Wherever I May Roam" and "The Unforgiven" were among the 49 songs included on the 2009 rhythm video game Guitar Hero: Metallica.

Metallica debuted at number one in the UK. The only chart on which it failed to reach the Top 20 is the Irish Albums Chart, having peaked at number 27. After its release, the album was certified Platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Metallica topped the charts in Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand. It also reached numbers three, five, and four in Japan, Austria, and Finland respectively. In the 21st century, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) certified the album 14× platinum. It was given a Diamond certificate from the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). The album was certified quintuple platinum in Argentina and triple platinum in Finland.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by James Hetfield

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

Metallica

Charts

Certifications

See also

• List of best-selling albums in Finland
• List of best-selling albums in the United States
• List of best-selling albums worldwide

References

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90. "Gold Platinum Database: Metallica". Canadian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
91. "Metallica – Artist chart history Argentina". Capif. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
92. "Metallica" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland.
93. Metallica liner notes. Elektra Records. 1991.
94. Huey, Steve (December 8, 1991). "Metallica: Credits". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved June 8, 2011.
95. http://www.guitarworld.com/primecuts_metallica?page=0,5
96. "Australiancharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
97. "Austriancharts.at – Metallica – Metallica" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
98. "Ultratop.be – Metallica – Metallica" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
99. "Metallica Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
100. ^ "Danishcharts.dk – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27. Cite error: The named reference "FIN chart" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
101. "Lescharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
102. "Longplay-Chartverfolgung at Musicline" (in German). Musicline.de. Phononet GmbH. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
103. "GFK Chart-Track Albums: Week {{{week}}}, {{{year}}}". Chart-Track. IRMA. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
104. "Mexicancharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
105. "Dutchcharts.nl – Metallica – Metallica" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
106. "Charts.nz – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
107. "Norwegiancharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
108. "Spanishcharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
109. "Swedishcharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
110. "Swisscharts.com – Metallica – Metallica". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
111. "Metallica | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
112. "Metallica Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
113. "Year-End top-selling albums across all genres, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. 1992. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
114. Mayfield, Geoff (December 25, 1999). 1999 The Year in Music Totally '90s: Diary of a Decade – The listing of Top Pop Albums of the '90s & Hot 100 Singles of the '90s. Retrieved August 27, 2013. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
115. "Discos de oro y platino" (in Spanish). Cámara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas. Archived from the original on July 16, 2013. Retrieved September 16, 2013. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; July 6, 2011 suggested (help)
116. "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2013 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association.
117. "Certificaciones" (in Spanish). Asociación Mexicana de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas. Type Metallica in the box under the ARTISTA column heading and Metallica in the box under the TÍTULO column heading.
118. "Austrian album certifications – Metallica – Metallica" (in German). IFPI Austria.
119. "Canadian album certifications – Metallica – Metallica". Music Canada.
120. "InfoDisc : Les Certifications (Albums) du SNEP (les Disques de Platine)". Infodisc.fr. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
121. "French album certifications – Metallica – Metallica" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique.
122. ^ "Metallica" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved November 29, 2013.
123. "Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (Metallica; 'Metallica')" (in German). Bundesverband Musikindustrie.
124. "Japanese album certifications – Metallica – Metallica" (in Japanese). Recording Industry Association of Japan.
125. ^ "Disco d'oro anche in Italian". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). November 13, 2013. p. 21. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
126. "Dutch album certifications – Metallica – Metallica" (in Dutch). Nederlandse Vereniging van Producenten en Importeurs van beeld- en geluidsdragers. Enter Metallica in the "Artiest of titel" box.
127. THE FIELD id (chart number) MUST BE PROVIDED for NEW ZEALAND CERTIFICATION.
128. "Trofe Oversikt" (in Norwegian). International Federation of the Phonographic Industry of Norway. Archived from the original on November 18, 2013. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
129. "Wyróżnienia – Platynowe płyty CD - Archiwum - Przyznane w 2013 roku" (in Polish). Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry.
130. certweek IS REQUIRED FOR SWEDISH CERTIFICATIONS.
131. "The Official Swiss Charts and Music Community: Awards ('Metallica')". IFPI Switzerland. Hung Medien.
132. id MUST BE PROVIDED for UK CERTIFICATION.
133. "American album certifications – Metallica – Metallica". Recording Industry Association of America.

External links

• Metallica at Discogs (list of releases)

• Cite certification used for United Kingdom without ID
• Pages with empty short description
• 1991 albums
• Metallica albums
• Albums produced by Bob Rock
• Elektra Records albums
• Vertigo Records albums
• English-language albums
• Recording Industry Association of America Diamond Award albums
• Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance