Artist

Metallica

Los Angeles, United States • Formed 1981

Metallica is a music group from Los Angeles, United States, active since 1981. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

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Albums tracked

1,780

In collections

1981

Since

Biography

Hardest. Darkest. Heaviest. Obey your master.

The Arc of Metallica

The pivots — what forced Metallica to reinvent.

The Cliff Burton Years
Everything changed when they saw Cliff Burton playing a Rickenbacker bass through a Morley wah-pedal in a San Francisco club. They moved the entire band's operation from L.A. to the Bay Area just to get him to join, bringing a level of classical theory and sheer weirdness that thrash hadn't seen yet. You hear it in the melodic counter-harmonies on 'Ride the Lightning' and the sprawling, progressive arrangements of 'Master of Puppets' before his death in '86 changed their trajectory forever.
The Bob Rock Pivot
After the dry, bass-less technicality of '...And Justice for All' nearly broke them, they hired Motley Crue's producer to strip the songs down to the studs. Bob Rock forced them to record in the same room together for the first time, slowing the tempos and focusing on a massive, bottom-heavy radio sound. The result was the 1991 self-titled record that killed the hair metal era overnight and turned a thrash band into a global institution.
The Raw Therapy Phase
By 2001, Jason Newsted quit, Hetfield went to rehab, and the band hired a performance coach to keep from imploding during the 'St. Anger' sessions. They ditched guitar solos entirely and Lars played a snare drum that sounded like a trashcan lid to capture a ugly, unpolished document of their internal collapse. It’s the most hated record in their catalog, but it’s the sound of a billion-dollar machine trying to feel human again through sheer sonic friction.

Influences

Diamond Head — Metallica famously covered 'Am I Evil?' on a B-side and have cited the NWOBHM band as their primary blueprint. You hear the specific riff-to-gallop transitions all over 'Kill 'Em All.' Without Brian Tatler’s riffs, Lars and James don't have a starting point.
Misfits — Cliff Burton turned the band onto Glenn Danzig's horror-punk crew, leading to their 'Garage Days' covers and James wearing their 'Crimson Ghost' logo constantly. The down-picked, aggressive vocal phrasing Hetfield adopted is straight out of the Danzig playbook. It added a layer of grit that separated them from the more polished British metal acts.
Budgie — This Welsh power trio provided the template for the heavy-but-tight syncopation Metallica mastered. They covered 'Breadfan' and 'Crash Course in Brain Surgery,' lifting the structural transitions and speed-picking techniques wholesale. It’s the secret sauce for their more technical eighties output.
Motorhead — Lemmy’s crew taught them that you could be heavy as hell without losing the rock and roll swing. On their 10th anniversary, the band dressed up as 'The Lemmys' to play a set of Motorhead covers for the man himself. That dirty, overdriven bass tone and the refusal to compromise on volume is the foundation of the whole operation.
Thin Lizzy — The dual-guitar harmony is the core of Metallica’s melodic sensibility, and they took it directly from Phil Lynott’s band. They eventually covered 'Whiskey in the Jar,' but you hear the influence much earlier in the twin-lead sections of 'Orion.' It gave their thrash a sense of Irish soul and melody that their peers lacked.