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... llc was the proud father. In 1984, Metallica's second album was released. The much-anticipated "Ride The Lightning" spent almost a year in Billboard's top 200 ("The Band").
It features such tracks as "Ride The Lightning", "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and "Fade To Black." Even with its success, stations refused to play the album because of its harsh attitude. The album goes gold in the same year. Metallica's third album, "Master of Puppets", showed a more melodious approach to metal. The album also contained a more relentless and overdriven feel. The album was released in 1986. A million albums were sold within that year.
Soon after, Metallica is signed on for a European tour to promote the album. After Jason Nested replaced Cliff Burton, Metallica released a fourth album. "Garage Days Re-Revisited" consisted of all cover songs. The main reason for the release was to give fans a taste of Jason's playing ("The Band Bio"). The album was released in 1987, and is no longer in circulation. The material was later added to the album Garage Inc. "Garage Days Re-Revisited" is a big collectors item. Once Jason was warmed up to Metallica, the band got busy working on their next album. ."..
And Justice For All" was produced by Mike Clink, Guns N'Roses producer as well ("Biography"). The album was full of complete chaos and hysteria. Hetfield says: "Well, we finished the "Justice" album, which was the epitome of showing off, I feel, and just jamming as many riffs into one song as you can. " (Rotfeld, The Art Of James Hetfield 12). "One" and "Harvester Of Sorrow" were released as Metallica's first singles. Metallica also made their first music video ever to promote the album. Metallica then went on a world tour called the "Damaged Justice" tour (Holland 1). With new producer Bob Rock, Metallica set forth to bring the world their sixth album.
What has come to be known as "The Black Album", Metallica broke into the spotlight with the album's opening song "Enter Sandman." Released in 1991, it debuted at # 1 on the Billboard chart, and marked Metallica's ability to diversify. The album remains true to Metallica's own style, but at the same time fuels a new type of metal. Metallica jumped ahead to fill the gap between mainstream metal and thrash metal The album will remain as one of the most legendary albums of all time. (Palmer). Five years would pass until Metallica made another album. Released in 1996, "Load" was a big change in the band's musical style.
The songs were simpler and more melodic than the ones in the past. Metallica's follow-up album, "Re-Load", continued with the musical style of "Load."Re-Load" was released only a year later, because both albums were recorded at almost the same time ("Metallica-The Band"). Though the music changed a great deal, fans continued to grow. With a large fan base, Metallica felt like they could accomplish anything. In 1998, Metallica decided to go back to working on covers.
Eleven new cover songs were featured on "Garage Inc. ." Accompanying the new songs was the covers from "Garage days Revisited" and "Garage Days Re-Revisited." In 1999, Metallica joined up with the San Francisco Orchestra. They released a live performance that included two new songs. "S & M", witch stands for Symphony and Metallica, was seen as both brilliant and a big mistake. "S & M" sported both beautiful and yet uneasy transpositions of Metallica songs. In the spring of 2000, they released a single for the movie "Mission Impossible 2 ."I Disappear" was Metallica's first music venture in the new millennium, and proved they were not going to stop anytime soon. Of course Metallica would not have been able to make it so far in the business if they didn't have good financial stability. Record sales are a big part if a band wants to survive in the music industry.
Metallica has been able to sell many millions of albums. Both "Re-Load" and "Kill 'Em All" have sold three million copies. "Ride The Lightning", "Load", and "S & M" sold four million copies each. Five million copies of "Master of Puppets" and "Garage Inc. " were sold. .".. And Justice For All" sold a total of seven million copies since its release. The highest grossing Metallica album is "The Black Album." It has sold an amazing fifteen million copies, and has not yet left the Billboard top 200 ("Album Sales"). Without a record company to make a band's albums, there would be no album sales.
In January of 1983, Jon Zazula, a record shop owner in New Jersey, asked Metallica to play a few gigs. After hearing and meeting the band, Zazula tried to find Metallica a record deal. After many attempts, Zazula decided to found a record company of his own. Megaforce Records was born, and Metallica was the first to sign onto its label. "Kill 'Em All" was recorded and released under Megaforce Records in ' 83, and a year later "Ride The Lightning" was release. Problems start to arise between Metallica and Megaforce Records, and the band signs with the management Q Prime.
Shortly after Metallica signed a contract with their current label Elektra ("The Band Bio"). Ten years after being signed with Elektra, Metallica filed a lawsuit against them for more control and freedom with their music. Metallica had reached an agreement with Elektra's former chairman. Bob Krasnow agreed on giving Metallica better royalties and more freedom concerning records.
The joint venture was accepted, but Krasnow left Elektra before it was signed. After Krasnow left, the deal was cut. Now Metallica wanted to break free from Elektra altogether (Newman). Two months later, the lawsuit was settled. Metallica remained with Elektra Entertainment (Licht man).
Six years later, Metallica is back in court. This time they filed a lawsuit against the popular MP 3 sharing database Napster. Metallica charged Napster with copyright infringement, saying that it did not ask Metallica to share its music. After almost a year of battling, Metallica came out on top. Napster must now pay royalties to every artist that is shared on its database. This is might be considered the first step into a whole new realm of artistic control of their music.
This is just another first to be held by Metallica. One of there biggest firsts was made way back in 1981. Pointing the finger at any one band and saying that they are the geniuses that created thrash metal is not an easy job. But of course pointing at Metallica would be a great start. Metallica is the most recognizable thrash metal gods in the world today. Although they have not been favored as of late, they are none the less legends in metal.
Metallica played a gigantic role in developing and reengineering the metal genre. In 1981, metal was hit by a destructive blow that no one could recover from. Metallica started serving its beautiful creation known as thrash metal. Aggression and speed was the name of the game. The faster and harder it was, the better. The winning combination was a pinch of blues, a cup of metal, and a lot of speed.
After hearing Metallica, fans couldn't accept anything less. Fans needed thrash as much as they needed to breath. This being the case, the bar was raised to new heights. (Kitts, 18). Metallica had now set the stage for a new genre in metal. All the other bands had to do were to match up to Metallica. This was not an easy job.
Yet many bands did adopt thrash metal into their lives, they were not quite as effective as Metallica. Bands such as Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth are big successes from thrash. With their releases of three more albums, Metallica seemed to keep reinventing thrash and themselves. A decade after thrash was unleashed onto the public; Metallica released "The Black Album." The success of the album created a bridge from metal to mainstream music. The songs on the album had a strong structure to them. A heavy metal edge, yet with a more mature sound.
The album brought much respect and popularity to the metal genre. (Daughter, 35). As fan size grew, the music seemed to grow with it. Five years later, Metallica made yet another leap into mainstream music with the release of "Load." The album followed a completely different path from their past albums. The songs were even more structured and to the point than songs from their last album. Although they were not as complex as most Metallica songs, they dug deep into the heart of metal and came back up with a simplistic, yet still hard, refined felling to them. Metallica had once again set the stage for metal.
Metallica had now created a completely new breed of metal. Most know this breed as simply new metal. New metal follows the basic song writing composition techniques as most musicians. An intro, a basic riff, chorus, and perhaps an varied ending. Simple yet very effective, this music flourishes in the mainstream. Bands such as Korn, Linkin Park, and Sum 41 are considered as new metal artists.
The top selling metal bands in the world are new metal bands. Metallic has been through a good bit in the past. That is what has made them the legends they are now. Metallica has been able to adapt to the world around them in order to survive fro such a long time.
Its changing members, music style, and financial stability constantly help the band. As long as those key factors remain, Metallica will continue to endure well into the future.
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