Artist Feature: Metallica - Paradigm Shift

Legandary producer - Bob Rock

The recording of the new album, entitled Metallica, started on October 9, 1990. The 4 previous albums had an aggressive, even frantic edge about them with the main focus on playing fast, technical pieces of music laced with sharp, riot-enticing lyrics. The new album had Metallica exploring a new, more commercial, approach to heavy metal... and with change comes conflict. The producer the band had hired, Bob Rock, changed the format they were used to when recording. 

  

A rarity at the time - all 3 Metallica guitarists in the same place at the same time

Having the all the band members play the songs in one place at one time was a new idea for Metallica. In the past, each member would lay down their piece individually from the others. However, Rock had the band sitting in one room playing the new songs ‘live’. This gave the album a ‘tighter’ feel in that they were in each other’s faces for the duration of the recording process. With the band in such close quarters and a new producer upsetting the natural order of things, tempers were bound to flare. Hetfield and writing partner Ulrich, which had a winning formula in the past, were permanently at loggerheads. 

The Lars Ulrich death stare

The band was also in conflict with Rock over the uncomfortable and foreign set-up in the studio. This would have the effect that Metallica would be re-mixed 3 times and come with a price tag of over a million dollars for the 8 months it was under construction. More negative effects of the recording would include Hetfield blowing out his voice, and subsequently needing vocal training for the first time in his career. The continued harassment of 'new' bassist Jason Newsted, divorces for Ulrich, Hammet and Newsted and major conflict with Electra records executives. The difficulties put aside, Metallica was a monstrous success.

The album saw a more mature Metallica moving away from the need to prove their musicianship by playing hard and fast, and instead adopting the approach of making good, melodic-but-still-heavy metal. [I wonder, to this day, if this was the bands decision or if it was the Bob Rock influance]

Released on August 12, 1991 the disk debuted at # 1 on the Billboard 200 and spent an amazing 4 weeks unmoved in the top slot. Selling 650,000 copies in the first week, Metallica would see the band enter the mainstream with a bang! Metallica became the album that you had to have, even if you weren’t a metal fan. Delivering 6 singles including the smash hits Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters and The Unforgiven, the Black Album (as it became known) is, until today, the top selling album of the SoundScan era – with 22 million copies sold worldwide and a 15x Platinum certification in the US alone.

After the release of the new offering, Metallica played the last Monsters of Rock festival on September 28, 1991 at Tushino Airfield in Moscow. The huge event was described as "the first free outdoor Western rock concert in Soviet history" and had a crowd estimated between 150,000 and 500,000 attendees, with some unofficial estimates as high as 1,600,000. The concert was marred with Soviet security police brutally beating concert goers. Official reports claim that the police officers saw the massive crowd of people “violently shaking their heads” and “smashing their bodies into other people” and believed that it would “cause a riot” that they would “not be able to control”. [perhaps a brief of the term “Mosh Pit” would have been in order?].
Watch the video of Metallica performing their brand new single Enter Sandman in front of the massive crowd below.

Not the actual incident...

The Wherever We May Roam tour in support of the album had Metallica headlining and selling out concerts in the US, UK and Japan for the duration of the 14 month schedule. The tour had an overlapping date in Montreal on August 8, 1992 which saw Guns ‘n Roses co-headlining with Metallica. During the course of the Metallica set, James Hetfield had a run-in with the new pyrotechnics set-up and saw him unknowingly walk too close to a pyro-point which produced a 4 meter flame during the interlude to Fade to Black. The set was cut short as Hetfield had suffered 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns on his left arm and was unable to continue playing. Jason Newsted recalls that Hetfield's skin was "bubbling like on The Toxic Avenger".

On a side note, Guns ‘n Roses front man Axl Rose, could have saved the show from being a total failure. But after arriving late on stage, he was met by an irritated audience and marched off stage like a little girl. What a dick!

After touring in support of Metallica for almost 3 years the band went on a short hiatus in 1994. They continued writing new music in their time off and in 1995 returned to the studio (with Bob Rock) for the recording of their 6^th studio album entitled Load. 

Sporting their new do's

Load saw yet another dimension shift for the ‘Tallica boys. This time even further away from their Thrash roots and approaching a more Bluesy-sound [and even sporting brand new haircuts]. Load saw Hetfield turning introspective with lyrics departing from the political and socially driven themes to more personal motifs. The songs The God That Failed and Mamma Said speak about James’ mother’s losing her battle with cancer and his relationship with her. Load is very different from anything the band has spewed forth previously in the sense that it does not have a balls to the wall, all out, frenzied sound. What it does do is show that Metallica (and James Hetfield in particular) are not just hot headed anarchists, but can produce heavy music with a personal message embedded without resorting to Bon Jovi-style pop-ballads.  

Load debuted at # 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 680,000 copies in its first week – making it the biggest opening week for Metallica. The album has since gone on to be certified Platinum 5 times over.

During the production of Load, the band had actually written enough music to make it a double album, but difficulties in recording so many songs saw some worthy tracks not making the initial cut. Metallica took the time to sculpt the remaining songs which resulted in the follow-up release, ReLoad in 1997. Lars Ulrich called Reload “the second half of Load” and that sentiment is supported by the fact that the majority of the songs are played in Eb tuning, as on this albums' predecessor. ReLoad was well received amongst critics and Entertainment Weekly said of the album: “...the boys are back in town, gnarling their way through bristly thrashers and slithery ballads recorded during and after the Load sessions. ReLoad continues their journey into stripped-down maturity while toying with fresh melodic textures.”  
ReLoad is the third consecutive Metallica album to debut at # 1 and as of 2010 is certified 4x Platinum (4,000,000 albums sold).