The Metal Militia
The 1970s-1990s had a wide selection of many different types of music. From the birth of rap, disco, and the evergrowing rock scene music flourished in these decade. Heavy metal, while not a new genre, was a big part of the music in the 1970s-1990s. Metallica was one of these bands that started out in the heavy metal scene and countinues to create good music to this day.
Metallica
Metallica started in Los Angeles October 28th, 1981. The founding members are James Hetfield as lead singer and Lars Ulrich as drummer. They soon recruited Dave Mustaine and Ron McGovney as bass and lead guitarist. Mustaine was soon fired and replaced with Kirk Hammet who is still in the band today. McGovney was also replaced with Cliff Burton. Metallica started out as primarily a heavy metal group with hit songs like “Master of Puppets” and “Ride the Lighting”. They had multiple tours and sold out plenty of concerts.
They were seeing great success in their early years. However tragedy struck when in Sweden on tour their tour bus skidded and flipped, killing Cliff Burton. His influence on the musical growth of the band had been enormous, combining the DIY philosophies of jamming and experimenting with an acute knowledge of musical theory. After 40+ auditions and faced with finding another band member they eventually hired Jason Newstead. By 1988 they released their fourth album “…And Justice for All” and the band was eager to create a new sound. In 1991 they released the “Black Album” and completly shifted from just heavy metal for the rest of their careers.
Through this success people still find themselves divided within their fanbase. A lot of older fans perfer the more heavy metal tone that Metallica once had and they felt Metallica were “sell outs” when they went mainstream with the “Black Album” in 1991. Once Metallica dropped the “Black Album” they gained millions of fans and finally became the band as we know them today.
They branched out to different sounds and styles throughtout the coming decades such as country rock and hard rock with songs like “Mama Said” and “The Memory Remains”. This shift in sound had its up and downs. While many people liked the hard rock hits from “Black Album” or the country and laid backfeels from “Load” lot of people did not like “St. Anger”. Lot of people felt it was a sloppy album with poor vocals and a thin sound from the drums. “St. Anger” also was the first album with a new band member since “…And Justice For All”. Robert Trujilo replaced Jason Newstead as the bands new bassist and remains in that position to this day.
Since “St. Anger” Metallica has released a couple mainstream albums although their popularity has not deminished. They still do tours all over the world almost every year. They are the first band to perform on all seven continents with their “Freeze Em All” tour in 2013. This year they released thier latest album “72 Seasons” and they are currently on their “72 Seasons” tour.
Metallica has had a major impact on the music rock scene with tours all over the globe and new albums to keep the sound fresh. Although Metallica has mostly split off from the heavy metal days of the 1980s they are still a great band no matter what genre of rock they perform. Hopefully they keep performing as long as they can and countinue to make great albums.
