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Metallica and Me Part 2: Enter the Sell Out
Posted by RK | Under Metallica and Me Tuesday Jul 1, 2008Metallica and Me Part 2: Enter the Sell Out
In August of 1991, Metallica released their “Black Album”. Some time previous to that, they cut their hair and started wearing makeup. Not Kiss style makeup, more Dave Navarro style make up. They also were no longer a Metal band, they were a Rock band. This wasn’t a bad thing for them, because it sold a bunch of albums.
The first song I heard a song off this album was Enter Sandman, I think on MTV . No longer restricted to Headbanger’s Ball, Metallica was now a MTV darling. The trimmed facial hair and eyeliner helped.
My Metal Friends were bummed. The mighty had fallen. Maybe this was just a phase and the thrash metal Metallica soon would return.
More Rock singles followed Enter Sandman: The Unforgiven, Nothing Else Matters, Wherever I May Roam, and Sad but True. Six minute plus power ballads. Yuck.
Nope, not a phase. This was Metallica. A kinder, gentler Metallica.
Later in the summer of 1991, a band fronted by some dirty left handed kid from Aberdean WA released an album with a baby on the cover chasing some money under water. Grunge was about to sell a butt load of albums and make some money. Metallica’s spies in the industry had seen this coming. They had sold out.
This didn’t make me like Metallica any more or less. My liking Metallica less stage was coming soon.
Below is what the Black Album would look like if viewed in the dark
[...] and alt-rock pulled the public’s attention from Riki Rachtman and Headbangers Ball. With Metallica’s sell out, more ‘alt-metal’ was making its way to ‘normal’ MTV. A show that once was [...]