Calling Metallica the biggest band in heavy metal doesn’t even begin to describe the Bay Area quartet’s level of popularity and influence. With 125 million albums sold worldwide, numerous indelible hit songs, some of the most successful concert tours ever mounted and a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Metallica is one of the most important groups in American popular music of the last 40 years.
Even with all those achievements, Metallica has never been a band to sit back and coast on past glories. Catch Metallica in concert now, and you’ll hear numerous songs from the band’s most recent album, 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, alongside classics like “One,” “Enter Sandman,” “Master of Puppets” and “Creeping Death.” Hardwired is as heavy and intense as any music the band has created since debuting with 1983’s Kill ’Em All, and the album made it onto many lists of the best metal albums of 2016. Singles “Hardwired,” “Moth Into Flame,” “Spit Out the Bone,” “Now That We’re Dead” and “Atlas, Rise!” all made the top five of the Billboard mainstream rock charts, and Hardwired was nominated for three Grammy Awards.
As successful as Hardwired has been, it’s nothing compared to the band’s greatest achievement, with its 1991 self-titled fifth album (commonly known as The Black Album), which remains one of the longest-lasting albums on the Billboard album charts (at more than 500 weeks), and one of the best-selling albums of all time worldwide. Although Metallica’s earlier albums achieved critical acclaim and helped establish the thrash metal subgenre, The Black Album took the band to a whole other level, with its more accessible hard rock sound and massive arena-friendly hooks, on songs like “Sad but True,” “Wherever I May Roam,” “The Unforgiven,” “Nothing Else Matters” and, most importantly, “Enter Sandman,” which is still the band’s most well-known song and closes nearly every Metallica concert.
Singer-guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich have formed the songwriting core of Metallica since its earliest days, and guitarist Kirk Hammett has played alongside them since just before Kill ’Em All was recorded. The band is currently rounded out by bassist Robert Trujillo, who joined in 2003, making for a remarkably stable lineup in an era when many classic rock acts feature only one or two members who’ve been around for any substantial amount of time.
With the ferocity and dedication that Metallica still brings to its albums and live shows, there’s no reason it can’t hold onto its place as the biggest band in metal for years to come. “A lot of people are retiring, and we feel very energized and rejuvenated,” Ulrich recently told radio station WMMR. “I mean, we want to go long. We hope we can get another 20, 25 years out of Metallica.”
T-Mobile Arena, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 26, starting at $75 plus tax and fee. 888.929.7849 AXS
