The best Metallica songs
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
"We'll never stop, we'll never quit, 'cause we're Metallica!" In early 1984, San Francisco's titans of thrash metal issued "Whiplash," the first single from their 1983 debut album Kill 'Em All — and it remains a riotous rallying shout nearly four decades later. Metallica endured as the ragged rhythms, blistering guitar work, and flat-out pace of eighties thrash gave way to the more defined volatility and global reach of their self-titled 1991 album. Its packaging was all black — you know, like their hearts — and as time has marched on the bell has continued to toll.
From '90s radio staples like "Nothing Else Matters" and "Enter Sandman" to early classics "Ride the Lightning" and Stranger Things resident hesher Eddie Munson's fave "Master of Puppets," here are our picks for Metallica's biggest and best metal moments.
"Whiplash" (<i>Kill 'Em All</i>, 1983)
When Metallica entered a Rochester, New York recording studio in spring 1983 to record their first full-length studio album, it was on the heels of firing Dave Mustaine, their first lead guitarist. The bad blood between vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, bassist Cliff Burton, and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett on one side and eventual Megadeth founder Mustaine on the other boiled for years, and one can only wonder what might have happened had he stayed in the band. But what did happen was the raw, explosive crunch of Kill 'Em All's standout cut "Whiplash," with its unrelenting shredding introducing the world to what would become one of the most culturally significant metal groups to date.
"Seek & Destroy" (<i>Kill 'Em All</i>, 1983)
This nearly seven-minute standout from Kill 'Em All has been a constant on Metallica's live performance setlists since its inception. With its shoutalong chorus — "Searching!" Hetfield screams, and the black T-shirted faithful respond with "Seek and destroy!" — tiers of increasingly insane guitar solos, and an unforgettable lead riff, it's the kind of song that's forever locked and loaded as the visceral kickoff track on a playlist for your road trip into the unknown.
"Ride the Lightning" (<i>Ride the Lightning</i>, 1984)
The title track of their 1984 follow-up to Kill 'Em All displays a newfound musicality to Metallica's muscular thrash sound — and marks the last songwriting vestige of the Dave Mustaine era. The band was still penniless, but also more hungry to capitalize on their early success, and Ride the Lightning, originally released independently, was the record that got them signed to Elektra. With its churning and shifty time signatures and extended bouts of Kirk Hammett guitar wizardry, "Ride the Lightning" is the sound of a band with its creative fuse lit… and right on the cusp of detonating.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" (<i>Ride the Lightning</i>, 1984)
A grooving, stomping showcase for the talents of original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, whose musicianship was key to expanding the group's palette as songwriters, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" features Burton's technique of playing bass through the distinctive warp of a wah-wah pedal. Of course, it also showcases the foreboding, intoning resonance of a bell, which, as heavy metal goes, is one of the genre's finest traditions. In its title and subject matter, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is also an allusion to Ernest Hemingway's 1940 wartime novel of the same name, amping up the dread of the source material with sonic slog in the best way.
"Fade to Black" (<i>Ride the Lightning</i>, 1984)
As surprised as some were to hear acoustic guitars in the mix on later ventures like The Black Album and Load, Metallica was exploring a more skeletal version of that sound all the way back in 1984, as "Fade to Black" proves. Lyrically, it was also a harbinger of the deeper themes the band would continue to probe as their sound and fury evolved over the ensuing decades ("Getting lost within myself / Nothing matters, no one else"). And in that sense, "Fade to Black" is a primer of what Metallica became, in both its schematic bleakness and sonic heft.
"Creeping Death" (<i>Ride the Lightning</i>, 1984)
From its galloping rhythms and burly drum breaks to lyrics that explore the nature of biblical plague, "Creeping Death" is one of the moments in Metallica's early discography that reveals thrash metal's roots in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, that hoary sound that emerged from Great Britain embodied by Iron Maiden and Motörhead. "Creeping Death" has also gone on to be a favorite on lists by critics and fans alike, with Rolling Stone readers once declaring it one of Metallica's top 10 greatest songs.
"Master of Puppets" (<i>Master of Puppets</i>, 1986)
Look, when a throng of demon bats are flailing their way toward you and your friends, your best method of fighting back is playing "Master of Puppets" on your electric guitar. That's what '80s metalhead Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) discovered in the season four finale of Stranger Things, and the character's performance catapulted the title track from Metallica's 1986 album back onto the Billboard (and TikTok) charts. It's not like "Master" needed the throwback Netflix hit to be successful, though. It's the band's most-performed song of all time, and helps mark the final appearance of Cliff Burton, who was tragically killed in a bus crash soon after Master of Puppets was released.
"Orion" (<i>Master of Puppets</i>, 1986)
An instrumental saga stretching past eight minutes, "Orion" was one of original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton's favorite songs, and it was played at his funeral. His playing is paramount to the song's structure as he solos on his instrument, moments that became an elegy after his death during the promotional tour for Master of Puppets. "Orion" is steeped in melancholy, for sure. But it also stands with a long history of heavy music, looking to the stars and larger universe for inspiration and meaning.
"One" (<i>...And Justice for All</i>, 1988)
Metallica had never made a music video before the clip for "One." But when they relented, it was among the most harrowing things to be seen on MTV. The song explores the story of a soldier gravely wounded during the Great War, with his limbs and jaw blown away, he lies helpless in a hospital bed and begs the Lord for mortal release amidst a pummeling, memorable guitar riff and double-bass attack (Darkness imprisoning me / All that I see, absolute horror!"). To capture that shell-shocked terror in video form, Metallica incorporated footage from the 1971 film Johnny Got His Gun, which draws on the same themes of "War is Hell." Despite its heavy-duty subject matter, "One" and its video helped score Metallica their first charting hit.
"Enter Sandman" (<i>Metallica</i>, 1991)
The first track and lead single off Metallica's paradigm-shifting fifth studio album — it's self-titled, but everybody calls it "The "Black Album" — is "Enter Sandman." The top 20 Billboard hit was the propellant that ignited the band's international ascendance, and carved the new contours of their sound as it evolved the dynamics of heavy metal and hard rock. "Enter Sandman" hits on its central memorable riff and keeps at it relentlessly. Figure in some heavy bottom end from veteran producer Bob Rock, and the whole thing becomes an onslaught of darkness "off to never-never land."
"Sad but True" (<i>Metallica</i>, 1991)
Delivered as a one-two punch with "Enter Sandman" at the top of The Black Album's A-side, "Sad but True" inversely emphasizes the bottom end of its production. This is a song that, sonically, begins in the basement, and then digs down even deeper, down into a subterranean lair of its own making. Driven by that Lars Ulrich/Jason Newsted drum and bass combo, there's also space for James Hetfield's vocal to lend emphasis to the open space in the verses. "I'm your eyes while you're away! I'm your pain while you repay!"
"The Unforgiven" (<i>Metallica</i>, 1991)
Joining "Nothing Else Matters" in the power ballad department on Metallica's landmark 1991 album is "The Unforgiven," a song with the cinematic scope of a Western, and befitting its titular inspiration. The heavy trudge of electric guitar joins James Hetfield in the verses, while twinges of acoustic guitar adorn its chorus, adding more of that scorched earth, desert drift feeling. Also like a movie, "The Unforgiven" has inspired two sequels in song form: "Unforgiven II" on Reload and "Unforgiven III" on the 2008 album Death Magnetic.
"Nothing Else Matters" (<i>Metallica</i>, 1991)
A power ballad? From Metallica? That was the initial reaction from certain factions of the group's longtime fans when The Black Album unveiled "Nothing Else Matters" as a single. But hey, they came around. Part of a long tradition in the metal genre of brooding, slow-paced rockers that shimmer like the candles in a Medieval castle's chandelier and enter a singer's thoughts through a side door, "Nothing Else Matters" has become a fan favorite over the years, and would often be dedicated to the live audience during Metallica concerts.
"Until It Sleeps" (<i>Load</i>, 1996)
Metallica's highest-ever chart hit, "Until It Sleeps" deals directly with James Hetfield's upbringing as a Christian Scientist, and how his parents' strict "no doctors" belief system contributed to his mother's death from cancer. (The disease is the ominous "It" of the song's title.) "Until It Sleeps" is also very of its era. Load was released in 1996, five years after The Black Album and Metallica's shift toward a more conventional, radio-friendly metal sound, and it drew on the aesthetics of alternative rock and grunge, which were ubiquitous by the mid-1990s.
"Fuel" (<i>Reload</i>, 1997)
It's true that with Reload, Metallica continued to evolve, both sonically and as songwriters. But while the album has its contemplative "The Unforgiven II" moments and even features a guest vocalist in the terrific Marianne Faithfull, kickoff track "Fuel" is a still a glutton for the "punchy hooks and gut-clenching heft that elevated recent Metallica CDs," as EW's Dan Snierson wrote upon its 1997 issue. "Give me fuel, give me fire / Give me that which I desire, uhh!" With James Hetfield at his most yowly and guttural, "Fuel" offers a rewarding tool kit of throwback thrash thrills, propulsive drumming, and an air raid electric guitar from Kirk Hammett. The Grammy-nominated song, and Reload itself, also marked the last time Metallica would record in the studio with bassist Jason Newsted.
Related content:
