"Metallica was easily the best, most influential heavy metal band of the '80s, responsible for bringing the music back to Earth."Instead of playing the usual rock star games of metal stars of the early '80s, the band looked and talked like they were from the street. Metallica expanded the limits of thrash, using speed and volume not for their own sake, but to enhance their intricately structured compositions.
The release of 1983's Kill 'Em All marked the beginning of the legitimization of heavy metal's underground, bringing new complexity and depth to thrash metal.
With each album, the band's playing and writing improved; James Hetfield developed a signature rhythm playing that matched his growl, while lead guitarist Kirk Hammett became one of the most copied guitarists in metal.
Lars Ulrich's thunderous, yet complex, drumming clicked in perfectly with Cliff Burton's innovative bass playing.
After releasing their masterpiece Master of Puppets in 1986, tragedy struck the band when their tour bus crashed while traveling in Sweden, killing Burton.
When the band decided to continue, Jason Newsted was chosen to replace Burton; two years later, the band released the conceptually ambitious ...And Justice for All , which hit the Top Ten without any radio play and very little support from MTV.
But Metallica completely crossed over into the mainstream with 1991's Metallica, which found the band trading in their long compositions for more concise song structures; it resulted in a number one album that sold over seven million copies in the U.S. alone.
The band launched a long, long tour which kept them on the road for nearly two years. By the '90s, Metallica had changed the rules for all heavy metal bands; they were the leaders of the genre, respected not only by headbangers, but by mainstream record buyers and critics.
No other heavy metal band has ever been able to pull off such a trick. However, the group lost some members of their core audience with their long-awaited follow-up to Metallica, 1996's Load. For Load, the band decided to move toward alternative rock in terms of image -- they cut their hair and had their picture taken by Anton Corbijn.
Although the album was a hit upon its summer release -- entering the charts at number one and selling three million copies within two months -- certain members of their audience complained about the shift in image, as well as the group's decision to headline the sixth Lollapalooza.
Re-Load, which combined new material with songs left off of the Load record, appeared in 1997; despite poor reviews, it sold at a typically brisk pace through the next year.
Garage Inc., a double-disc collection of B-sides, rarities, and newly recorded covers, followed in 1998. In 1999, Metallica continued their flood of product with S&M, documenting a live concert with the San Francisco Symphony; it debuted at number two, reconfirming their immense popularity.
Fuck NapSter
The band spent most of 2000 embroiled in controversy by spearheading a legal assault on "Napster", a file-sharing service that allowed users to download music files from each other's computers.
Aggressively targeting copyright infringement of their own material, the band notoriously had over 300,000 users kicked off the service, creating a widespread debate over the availability of digital music that raged for most of the year.
**Interview**
Interviewer: You spent much of last year fighting Napster. Now it's gone into business with BMG and is changing from a free service to a pay service. Is the therat over? Or will a similar site pop up?
Lars Ulrich: There are all sorts of mini-Napsters out there. But Napster is successful because it's Computer 101-with some of the other companies, the software becomes really complicated. And they're not going to get out of the gate in the same way Napster did. Now everybody has their guard up. With every new technology some 19-year-old kid can come up with, somebody five minutes behind can come up with a way of blocking it. It's never going to go away. But I think it can get to a point where it becomes sort of nuisance,comparalbe to,say,bootlegging and piracy...
Interviewer: What did you accomplish by going after Napster?
Lars Ulrich: What we've accomplished most is to bring an awareness to the American public. It turned into the first big issue of the 21st century. People seemed to be more passionate about it than the presidential thing. Obviously, this has been the fucking wake-up-call of the millennium to everybody who has anything to do with intellectual property. There's this whole circle of older ladies who create sewing patterns. All of a sudden, these sewing patterns are being stolen and traded on the Internet. And these little old ladies aren't getting their royalties.
Interviewer: So now Metallica is allied with a bunch of old ladies?
Lars Ulrich: [Rolls his eyes] There's your sound bite.
Interviewer: Some of your fans took Napster's side, instead of Metallica's.
Jamez Hetfield: [Grins] Because they're lazy bastards and they want everthing for free. I think Napster won the press war. It hurt the fans' perception of us - they see Metallica as some big bad guys who wanted to take their free stuff away. I like playing music because it's a good living and I get satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction...
Interviewer: So Napster damaged Metallica?
Jamez Hetfield: I don't want it to read "Napster has damaged Metallica". It's pretty difficult to hurt us. They did damage to how Metallica fans perceive us.
Lars Ulrich: I don't agree. We've taken hits from day one! between haircuts and using Motley Crue-Bon Jovi producer Bob Rock, to headlining Lollapalooza to writing ballads to making records with a symphony orchestra. That's part of being an instigator and a forerunner.
Interviewer: What sort of things did the fans say to your face?
Jamez Hetfield: Some fans said, "Leave Napster alone, dude"-if they were suicidal [laughs].But that was after "Metallica rocks,dude". So you would turn your "thanks" into a "fuck you". I've gotten in plenty of arguments with fans who just wanted to 'discuss' it. This poor girl in Atlanta, I made her cry. She felt money was evil. Why don't you go live in Canada or some socialist country?
Lars Ulrich: If you'd stop being a Metallica fan because I won't give you my music for free, then fuck you. I don't want you to be a Metallica fan.
Kirk Hammett: I'm still shocked at the reaction people have. I thought it was so obvious. People are taking our music when they're not supposed to, and we want to stop them. Computers make it seem like you're not stealing, because all you're doing is pressing a button. The bottom line is, stealing is not right...
Jamez Hetfield: [laughs] Metallica loves to be hated.
In January 2001, bassist Jason Newsted announced his amicable departure from the band. Shortly after the band appeared at the ESPN awards in April of the same year, Hetfield, Hammett, and Ulrich entered the recording studio to begin work on their next album, with Hetfield lined up to handle bass duties for the sessions (with rumors of former Ozzy Osbourne/Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez being considered for the vacated position).In July, Metallica surprisingly dropped their lawsuit against "Napster", perhaps sensing that their controversial stance did more bad than good to their "band of the people" image.
In late summer 2001, the band's recording sessions (and all other band-related matters) were put on hold as Hetfield entered an undisclosed rehab facility for alcoholism and other addictions. He completed treatment and rejoined the band and they headed back into the studio in 2002...
"Of the thousands of bands that have crawled out of rehearsel garages into recording studios, only seven have sold more albums in the U.S. than Metallica has. Of those, two are long-gone legends (the Beatles and Led Zeppelin), and the others - Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones and Van Halen."