Metallica – The Five-Albums Test

Metallica is on my mind because their current residency at the Sphere in Vegas has flooded my social media. I have serious FOMO about the residency, so I am revisiting the front end of the Metallica catalog (the first five studio albums). I am listening to the remasters on Tidal (24-bit/96 kHz FLAC), which are sonically fantastic.

I first heard the band as an undercard (afternoon set) at the Monsters of Rock tour at the Minneapolis Metrodome in 1988. That tour included headliner Van Halen (Sammy Hagar version), Scorpions, Dokken (who I don’t remember seeing that day), Metallica (just ahead of the release of …And Justice for All), and Kingdom Come (a one-hit-wonder Zeppelin knockoff).

Metallica blew my mind at that show. I had heard of them, but I had never heard them. They weren’t on the radio, yet they were a buzz band playing 2000- to 6,000-capacity rooms. Clad in black, they leaned into their wind machines like they were playing against a straight-line wind. Their fans, in their black Metallica T-shirts, were the first true headbangers I had witnessed. They helped make Metallica’s set the most memorable of the day. And the music? All I remember is that it was loud. How loud? The hairs on my legs were moving in rhythm to the beat, and my chest felt like I was getting CPR.

Although I found their music harsh that day, I was intrigued. The first Metallica album I bought was …And Justice for All when it came out that fall (1988). I loved that album. It was not my typical music, but I liked it: punk intensity, heavy metal vibes, musicality, a dash of prog, and serious lyrics (despair, systemic injustice, and the trauma of childhood). It was impressive.

I consider myself a minor Metallica fan. I have most of their catalog (on CD and vinyl). I saw them twice, the aforementioned Monsters tour and at the apex of their The Black Album era. Yet I don’t have a Metallica T-shirt in my wardrobe (dominated by band and brewery T-shirts), and they might not even be in my top 100 music artists (if I had such a list).

Music critic Steven Hyden has a special artistic honor: The Five-Albums Test. He suggests that true musical greatness isn’t just about having a couple of great records, but managing a streak of five consecutive great studio albums. Few achieve this. Revisiting the first five albums, I now realize Metallica succeeded at the five-album test:

As I revisit their catalog, I am surprised by how accessible it all sounds now. When I first heard it, it seemed so heavy and harsh. I have changed, but Metallica has also normalized thrash through their massive popularity. They have bent music culture toward them. You could argue they dumbed down their sound and sold out with The Black Album, but I see it as a maturation of their sound and an apex they would never repeat.

The next album I picked up was a vinyl version of their 1983 debut, Kill ‘Em All (it was cut out), which didn’t hook me at the time. It subsequently has. Looking back at it now, it is an amazing debut; however, it seems infantile compared to what followed. They had the seed of Metallica, but they had not yet fully found their sound. At the time, it wasn’t enough to get me to backtrack through their catalog.

And then came their commercial breakthrough: The Black Album (1991). That hit me hard. The band slowed things down, added some sugar to it, and made a pop metal masterpiece – including the ubiquitous, radio-friendly hit song: “Enter Sandman.”

My work situation sucked, and I remember spinning a CD of The Black Album at top volume on the way to work. It was cathartic. Nirvana’s Nevermind was part of the soundtrack too. 1991 was a good rock year (specifically that fall):

• Pearl Jam – Ten
• Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
• R.E.M. – Out of Time 
• Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion I & II
• Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears 

All those albums were great. My kids were young, and I listened to a lot of music when hanging out with them.

But after The Black Album, none of their subsequent releases hit me. But the back catalog of Ride the Lightning (1984) and Master of Puppets (1986) provided plenty to explore. The Black Album is the band’s apex, and everything before is excellent (each subsequent album built on the prior). But after The Black Album, not so much.

Master of Puppets was my next album, and though it’s considered one of the greatest metal albums of all time, it didn’t hook me in the early 90s. Now seems so accessible, and I have learned to love it.

Ride the Lightning… was my final installment of the band: Metallica becomes Metallica. This was the hardest of the five for me to get into (pure thrash is not my thing), but now I fully appreciate it. It is a huge step forward from Kill ‘Em All.

Metallica slipped out of my listening rotation for decades (with an occasional return to The Black Album), but now they are back. They sound better than I remember, and the first five are a remarkable run.