A Metallica Biography (Part 3): From Then to Almost Now - The 90s
By Max on Apr 18, 2008 in Artists, Featured
Let’s continue with our Metallica biography, here come the nineties.
1990
It has now been a few years since the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. The glam rock era is long over and Metallica has opened up the world of metal and served it to the public like a hot meal.
Their next step: Create an even bigger portal to metal music for the mainstream world to enjoy, all the while building the Metallica empire.
Metallica: The Black Album
Despite it being their 5th album and not their 1st, Metallica dubbed their next music creation self titled. And since the name Metallica didn’t stick as the album’s name for the public, it became known as The Black Album.
Produced by Bob Rock, who has also worked with The Cult, Motley Crue and Bon Jovi, the band began recording the project in One On One Studio in North Hollywood. The process, however, took much longer than anyone expected. It was remixed at least three times, cost over a million dollars and became a wedge between many people, as time consuming projects usually do.
Finally in 1991 the album was released and it sold over 600,000 copies in it’s first week. KROQ, an infamous rock station out of Los Angeles began happily playing the songs on the radio and the album wound up going platinum. The result was their Wherever We May Roam Tour which lasted 14 months and took them through countries like the U.S., England and Japan.
1992: More Touring and Bad Luck
I sometimes wonder if it’s coincidence that metal and heavy metal performers often have a streak of bad luck due to delving into the macabre. On August 8, 1992 Hetfield suffered second and third-degree burns to a good portion of his body. Apparently the pyrotechnics system caused confusion on stage and Hetfield ended up walking through a 12 foot flame while singing to Fade To Black. The incident once again took the guitar out of Hetfield’s hands. This time John Marshall came to the rescue and helped the band finish their tour.
1993
While Hetfield continued to heal and tour with the band through 92, the end of 93 marked the release of Live Shit: Binge & Purge. Live Shit is a collection of memorabilia, videos, writings, letters and other various hoopla for the fans to enjoy. Other than that and the dwindling tour, however, 1993 was rather a quiet year for the band, universally speaking.
Load and Reload
Finally finishing up their tour late 1994 with Woodstock, the band retreated to the studio to begin working on it’s sixth album. In the middle of 1995, however, Metallica took a break, only playing 3 shows and naming the event Escape From the Studio 95.
The end of the short Escape tour marked the restart of the band’s dedication to the studio. In 1996, Load was released.
Some seem to think that the envelope pushing front cover of the Load album, which is called Blood and Semen III, marks some kind of change for Metallica. I disagree. The music contained inside the release of Load is what marked the somewhat unappreciated changes in Metallica. Hetfield, having been burned, cut his hair, which was understandable. With the release of Load, however, Metallica presented themselves as a crew cut, rag tag team and wound up headlining the very alternative rock festival Lollapalooza. Though the album wound up on the Billboard 200 and ARIA Charts at number one, many fans were angered by the band’s changes and accused them of “selling out”.
During the production of Load, Metallica had written enough material for two albums, which is how Reload came about. The second wave of songs that did not make in onto Load now had a home and proudly peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Top Canada Album Chart. Nevermind the fact that the second album cover was also created by Serrano, this time using blood and urine. To promote the album, Metallica performed on Saturday Night Live in 1997.
1998 and Garage, Inc.
Finally able to release their double album, Metallica created and released Garage, Inc. in 1998. Returning to their roots, Metallica placed on the first album in the collection, covers of great songs by their favorite bands like The Misfits, Killing Joke, Mercyful Fate and Black Sabbath. The second disc was a new release of the original The $5.95 EP: Garage Days-Revisited. The combination of flashbacks along with the rare recordings of the EP took the album to #2 on the Billboard 200. The band spent 1999 both relaxing and promoting the album.
Metallica Becomes Spoiled
The year 2000 marked the controversial actions of Lars, who basically sued Napster when the band found out that their demo song I Disappear was being played on the radio. Apparently the song had not yet been released and was, in fact, supposed to be released on the Mission Impossible II soundtrack. When the band traced where the song had leaked to the public, they discovered Napster and it was all over from there. The band even went so far as to hire a consulting firm to spy on Napster and uncover it’s networking and file sharing practices.
The controversy, in combination with Ulrich’s vehement disdain for Napster resulted in it’s liquidation despite the fact that originally, the company was only ordered to remove anyone sharing music files of bands and musicians who do not want their work shared. In the end, Metallica lost some fan base and Blender Magazine called Metallica one of the “Biggest Wusses in Rock”.
A Mottled History
The years that Metallica experienced, as outlined in this article, definitely convey the kind of mottled style or genre that’s associated with Metallica. They have gone through some very rewarding moments as well as some serious let downs and misunderstandings. And though the band has lost many of it’s original die hard fans of the 80s, their current fan base has done nothing but grow and the band continues to thrive through the 90s.
