ALBUMS

History

Kill 'Em All
In late spring 1983, the band travelled to Rochester, New York to record their first album,"Metal Up Your Ass." However, due to conflict with the record label regarding the title, the album was later renamed Kill 'Em All. The album was not an initial financial success, but it earned them a growing fanbase in the underground metal scene. Despite the animosity, Dave Mustaine, still has co-writing credits for "Jump in the Fire" (with different lyrics from earlier demos), "Phantom Lord", "Metal Militia" and "The Four Horsemen" (originally titled "The Mechanix", or alternately "Mechanics", and listed as such on early demo tapes, with the earlier demo version having entirely different lyrics. The 1989 re-release included fan favorites "Am I Evil?", from Diamond Head, and "Blitzkrieg" from the band Blitzkrieg, which were later included in their Garage album.

Ride the Lightning
A year later, Metallica released Ride the Lightning. The album's inclusion of a slower, more introspective song, "Fade to Black", set Metallica apart from other thrash bands. Despite some claims of selling out, classic fans note this album has many worthy numbers. In addition to the title track and "Fade to Black", it boasts "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "Creeping Death", and the 9-minute instrumental "The Call of Ktulu." Dave Mustaine still has credits recognized for "Ride the Lightning" and "The Call of Ktulu".

Master of Puppets
When Ride the Lightning caught the attention of major labels, Metallica signed with Elektra Records. Their first release with Elektra was 1986's Master of Puppets, which would serve as their breakthrough album. Despite the fact that no singles were released from the album, the band received minor airplay from album tracks "Master of Puppets" and "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)". Fans looking for an alternative to glam metal bands of the day relished in furious songs such as "Battery" and "Damage, Inc.". The band gained even more exposure when they were asked to open for Ozzy Osbourne, and Master of Puppets climbed to number 29 on the Billboard Top Album Charts. Some critics consider the album to be the "greatest heavy metal albums of all time".




...And Justice for All
...And Justice for All, the first studio album since Burton's death, was released in 1988. The album was a massive commercial success, reaching number 6 on The Billboard 200, their first album to reach the top 10.
On the album very little of Newsted's bass is audible. According to Newsted and the other band members, this is a result of the internal hazing and bullying toward Newsted for being the newest member and replacement for Cliff Burton. Ulrich has also stated his opinion that the lack of perceived bass resulted from Newsted exclusively mirroring Hetfield's rhythm tracks.
Although the song-writing was praised, the production of this album was heavily criticized as Lars Ulrich's drums clicked more than thudded and the guitars had a thin sound. The Damaged Justice tour followed to promote the new album. Fans again appreciated fast and furious tunes, as well as lengthy songs, such as on "...And Justice for All" (9:45) and "To Live Is to Die" (9:48). In fact, all the songs are over 5 minutes, with 7 of 9 songs over 6 minutes long.
Despite criticism, in 1989, Metallica received its first Grammy nomination for the album. The nomination was for the newly created Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrument categories. However, the award was given to Jethro Tull for the album Crest of a Knave. The result generated much controversy, as Metallica was widely expected to take home the award and was standing off-stage waiting to receive it after performing the song "One" for the telecast. Jethro Tull (who was considered by most to not even be a Hard Rock/Metal group) had not even bothered to attend the ceremony, assuming that their chance of winning would be a long-shot. Lars Ulrich even referred to the snub in accepting a Grammy for "Enter Sandman" three years later, stating, "We gotta thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year".
Following Metallica's release of ...And Justice for All, they embraced the mainstream music world with their debut music video for the song "One". The band performed the song in an abandoned warehouse, and was then extensively "remixed" with footage of the film version of Johnny Got His Gun. Rather than organize an ongoing licensing deal, Metallica simply bought the rights to the film outright. This is why the film has not had a subsequent DVD pressing. The end result featured a coherent but shortened "mini-movie" version of "Johnny Got His Gun" with an intricate level of synchronization between the song and the film's dialogue, creating a singular narrative between the two.

Metallica (The Black Album)
In 1991, Metallica released their self-titled album, Metallica (popularly known as The Black Album by fans), which included such songs as "Nothing Else Matters", "Sad But True," "The Unforgiven," "Holier Than Thou," and "Wherever I May Roam." The record was co-produced with Bob Rock, whose resume included work with hard rock acts The Cult, Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe. The album featured a black cover that had a very pale image of a snake in one of the corners, with the band's name in the opposite corner. The album art evoked humorous comparisons to fictional band Spinal Tap who in the spoof rockumentary This is Spinal Tap put out an album with an all black cover.
The majority of the making of the Metallica album and the following tour was documented in A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. The recording sessions were a long and arduous process, lasting over a year due to infighting among the band's members and endless arguments with Rock about the album's direction, scope, and sound. The cost of recording the album was over $1 million (as stated on Behind the Music: Metallica). However, despite the battle to finish the album, it quickly became the band's most successful release, charting at number one on the Billboard charts.
The album's first single was "Enter Sandman", which showed off the new album's slowed-down style of music compared to Metallica's previous work. The Black Album is currently tied for the 26th spot of highest selling album of all time in America.
Due to the album's new style of sound, more charges of selling out would be aimed at Metallica throughout the 1990s, to which the band often joked that they did indeed sell out - each and every date of the tour . In 1992 during a hugely financially successful co-headlining GNR-Metallica Stadium Tour with Guns N' Roses, Hetfield suffered severe second and third degree burns to his left arm due to pyrotechnics during the opening of "Fade to Black", leaving him unable to play guitar for a portion of the tour. Former Metallica roadie and Metal Church guitarist John Marshall filled in for the rest of the tour on guitar while Hetfield continued to sing.


Load, ReLoad, Garage Inc., S&M
After almost three years of touring to support The Black Album, including a headlining performance at Woodstock 1994, Metallica went straight back into the studio to write and record their sixth studio album Load. They took a break in the summer of 1995 and played 3 outdoor shows which included Metallica organizing and headlining Donington Park UK supported by Slayer, Skid Row, Slash's Snakepit, Therapy? and Corrosion of Conformity. The Short Tour was entitled 'Escape from The studio Tour 1995'. On December 13 of that year, they recorded their rehearsal for Lemmy's 50th birthday party; four Motörhead covers which was entitled "Motörhead–ache" when it was released as part of the Hero of the Day singles collection. The band spent around a year writing and recording new songs, resulting in 1996's Load. During early production, Load was intended to be a double album. Ultimately, it was decided that it would be best to release half of the songs first, continue to work on the remaining songs, and release them the following year. This resulted in the follow up album, ReLoad.
By 1996, with the release of Load, all band members had cut their hair (although Hammett eventually grew it back), which was ridiculed by fans, including band friends Alice in Chains, whose edition of MTV's Unplugged featured, on Mike Inez's bass, the words "friends don't let friends get Friends haircuts"
These albums represented a significant musical change for Metallica. The band's breakneck metal tempos and layered guitar compositions had largely been replaced by bluesy guitar tones and slide guitar. Several songs include the use of new instruments including the use of the hurdy-gurdy and violin in "Low Man's Lyric". The changes on Load and ReLoad had been anticipated by earlier experiments (especially on The Black Album).
Sales of these albums were lower than sales of the previous three albums. Hetfield noted later in the documentary film Some Kind of Monster that the songs on these two albums were initially thought by the band to be of only average quality, and polished and reworked repeatedly until judged to be releasable. Hetfield also felt, however, that Metallica's changed image worked to the songs detriment, saying that " 'Bleeding Me', is, I think, some of my better lyrics of all time, and what are people talking about? Lars' fuzzy jacket."
In 1998, Metallica compiled a double CD called Garage Inc.. The first CD contained newly recorded covers ranging from Killing Joke, The Misfits, Thin Lizzy, Mercyful Fate, and Black Sabbath to more unexpected choices like Nick Cave and Bob Seger (the band's cover of Seger's "Turn the Page" garnered extensive radio airplay). The second CD gathered together previously released covers, including the original The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited, which had become a scarce collector's item. The CD also included B-side covers going as far back as 1984. Their cover of Queen's Stone Cold Crazy had won a Grammy for Best Heavy Metal Performance.
On March 7, 1999, Metallica was inducted into the San Francisco Walk of Fame. The mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, proclaimed the day "Official Metallica Day" in San Francisco. A month later, on April 21-22, 1999, Metallica recorded two performances with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, then conducted by Michael Kamen. Kamen, who had previously worked with Bob Rock on "Nothing Else Matters", had approached the band eight years prior, just after The Black Album was released with the idea of pairing Metallica's music with a symphony orchestra. Kamen and his staff composed additional orchestral material for a number of Metallica songs and the concerts featured broad selection of songs dating as far back as Ride the Lightning. Metallica also wrote two brand new Kamen-scored songs for the event, "No Leaf Clover" and "−Human". The audio recording and concert footage were released later that year as the album/concert film S&M, in November 1999, on CD, VHS, VCD, and DVD.



St. Anger
In July, 2001, Hetfield entered rehab due to "alcoholism and other addictions". For nearly a year, Metallica ceased to function in any meaningful way. Ulrich and Hammett, for the first time, seriously considered the possibility that Metallica might be finished. Hetfield eventually returned to the band following his rehab hiatus and was required to work only four hours a day and spend the rest of his time with his family. Metallica continued slowly as a three-piece throughout the writing and recording of their next album. Longtime producer Bob Rock handled bass duties for the sessions. The making of the album was documented for the movie, "Some Kind of Monster". The film also exposed to fans that Metallica had sought the guidance of a therapist, Phil Towle, to deal with a vast amount of the band's inner turmoil.
Following the album's recording, Metallica held auditions for Newsted's permanent replacement in early 2003. Robert Trujillo formerly of Suicidal Tendencies, and Ozzy Osbourne's band, was chosen as the new bassist. Robert's resume also included Infectious Grooves as well as a stint with Black Label Society on their Boozed, Broozed, and Broken-Boned DVD. As Metallica moved on, Jason Newsted also found a new musical home joining Canadian thrash metal legends Voivod in 2002. In an interesting turn of events, Jason also became Robert's replacement in Ozzy's band during the 2003 Ozzfest tour (which included Voivod as part of the touring bill).
In June 2003, Metallica's eighth full-length recording, St. Anger, debuted at number one on the album charts. Being an intentionally raw and unpolished album, harsh criticism from fans followed. The record's under-produced sound, Hetfield's "flexible" sense of pitch, Ulrich's steely sounding snare, and the absence of any guitar solos received particular criticism. Despite this, the album won the best metal performance at the 2004 Grammys.
The song "St. Anger" was used as the official theme song for WWE's SummerSlam 2003.
Having toured extensively for two years in support of St. Anger on the Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003 in festivals featuring Mudvayne, Deftones, Linkin Park, and Limp Bizkit and then the lengthy Madly in Anger with the World tour with Godsmack (in which nearly every performance was professionally recorded and sold on livemetallica.com) Metallica took a break from performing and spent most of 2005 with friends and family; however for two historic shows on November 13, 2005 and November 15, 2005, the band opened for the Rolling Stones at AT&T park in San Francisco.