Ultimate Albums: Metallica- Black Album
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2022
- With over 20 million copies sold worldwide, Metallica’s eponymous fifth album, better known as the ‘Black’ album, is one of the biggest-selling metal albums ever.
Famously, the San Francisco quartet had sold one million records with 1986’s Master Of Puppets without releasing a single or ever making a promotional video. But five years on, their stated aim was to take over the mainstream - or as their drummer Lars Ulrich would memorably state, to “cram Metallica down everybody’s fucking throat all over the fucking world.”
With Metallica, they accomplished just that.
With management company Q Prime suggesting - AKA, ordering - the band that the follow up to ...Justice "simply had to go big", they recruited Bob Rock. Rock had turned the trick for Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, and had made Mötley Crüe sound like the worldʼs greatest bar band - a fastidious perfectionist whose ear for music was a lot more finely tuned than some of his work suggested.
“The word ʻBobʼ strikes fear into all Metalheads,” James joked at the time. “But a producer isnʼt meant to make you sound like him, heʼs meant to make you sound like the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.”
And, for the most part, that's exactly what happened. The 'Black' Album produced a slew of hits, won the band Grammy Awards and netted them millions of new fans in the process. And you can't argue with the songs, either: Enter Sandman, Sad But True and The Unforgiven are all still up there with some of the best Metallica have ever recorded.
But there’s a reason that the men in black played the album in reverse order when they toured it in Europe in 2012: that reason being the first half of the album far out-strips the second half. Still, it’s hard to argue with Bob Rock’s astute assessment that this muscular, streamlined album is where Metallica became the Led Zeppelin of their generation.
I would never argue with anyone that doesn’t like this album, I understand if someone doesn’t like any album of any artist. But I think some of the more close minded people in the metal community don’t really understand what this album did not only for Metallica, but really metal as a whole. The thrash scene was kind of starting to fade away but this black album introduced so many people to metal music. There’s a lot of people my age, in their early 40s that we’re around the age of 12 or 13 when this album came out in because of this album not only did we become fans of Metallica, but we also got into other artist like Slayer, Ozzy , Megadeth , Pantera, Maiden, White Zombie, etc.
Numbers don’t lie. After the Black album came out people went and bought 100s of thousands of Slayer and Megadeth albums. Other than classic metal acts like Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden , you didn’t have a lot of hard or more extreme metal albums going platinum. And justice for all went platinum one time and that was really extreme metals. Most successful album before the black album came out. Slayer were respected and loved by the community, but they hadn’t even seen an album go gold yet and after the Black album comes out for their albums win gold. Megadeaths countdown to extinction had an audience waiting for it. It’s sold 2 million copies domestically, by the time Panteras far beyond driven came out there was 1 million people that went out and bought that album.
That black album kick the doors down from metal across the globe. Without it, I would’ve never have discovered albums like Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Vulgar Display of Power, Ride The Lightning, Paranoid, Blizzard of Ozz, Rust In Peace, and so many more. I’m not saying you have to like this album but I think it deserves to be respected for what he did for metal in general. It is literally the biggest selling album of the 90s. No other album that came out in the 90s and I’m not talking about just metal I’m talking about all types of music, and Garth brooks was huge in the 90s, 2Pac, and Snoop Dogg were huge in the 90s, none of those artist could put out an album that did the numbers the Black album did.
Amen. That needs to be the mantra to all the planks who rag on this album.
Thanks for putting this up! Excellent quality!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think I've seen this once when it first aired 20 years ago
Black album - now on number 35 million copies sold worldwide !
totally unreal, such a good album, humans will be listening to it 100 years from now
yahoo music now that really takes me back
Any chance you have the full episode on Slippery When Wet?
I don't but I'll put it on my list to look for.
Selling out means that you write material for fans and not for yourself. Metallica has always written for themselves.