Heavy Metal Metallica
Heavy Metal is a very popular genre in music. One of the most famous metal bands in history is Metallica. Metallica is one of the most influential metal bands. Many of their song were covered by numerous artists, and although, they had a few tragedies, they still managed to stay on top.
Metallica was started when drummer Lars Ulrich posted an advertisement in a local newspaper called “The Recycler.” The advertisement read: “Drummer looking for other metal musicians to jam with.” The original lineup of Metallica was vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, guitarist Dave Mustaine, bassist Ron McGovney, and drummer Lars Ulrich. The band recorded their first song called “Hit the Lights” in 1982.
Metallica had a few bad players, alcoholics and drug abusers. In 1983 Dave Mustaine was kicked from Metallica for drug abuse, violent behavior and alcoholism. Mustaine was replaced by guitarist Kirk Hammed. Later Metallica saw a show featuring Cliff Burton, they were amazed of his use of the wah-wah pedal and asked him to replace Ron McGovney. The reason they wanted to replace Ron is not only because Cliff was a better bassist, but also because they thought he would contributed nothing to the band and only follow. Cliff joints the band on the condition that they would move to San Francisco.
In 1983 Metallica recorded its first album, “Kill em all”. It was ranked 120 on the Billboard 200. The album was not a financial success, but it earned Metallica a growing fan base.
Metallica recorded their second album called “Ride the Lighting” in 1984. The album was recorded at Sweet and Silent studios and the album was ranked 100 on the Billboard of 200. A French printing press accidently made green covers for the album. The album features songs that are “Ride the Lighting”, “Fade to black” and the instrumental “The Call of Ktulu”.
In 1986 Metallica recorded their third album “Master of Puppets” at Sweet and Silent studio. The album was ranked 29 on Billboard of 200 and stayed there for 72 weeks. The album was the band's first certified gold and got six platinum in 2003. Some critics and fans consider the album “the greatest heavy metal album of all kind.'
Metallica supported Ozzy Osbourne from Black Sabbath for the tour in the United States. James Hetfield later broke his wrist skateboarding down a hill and had to continue the tour with vocals, guitar technician John Marshall played Hetfield's parts doing the tour.
On September 27, 1986, during the tour in Europe, members of Metallica drew cards to see which bunk on the tour bus they would sleep in. Cliff Burton won and chose to sleep in Hammets bunk. Around dawn, the bus hit ice, lost control and skidded, which caused the tour bus to flip several times. James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammet didn't get any serious injuries. However, Cliff Burton flew out one of the window and the bus landed on him and crushed him. His death wasn't confirmed until a crane lifting the bus snapped and the bus fell on him again. Burton's death left the future of Metallica in doubt. The members held additions to get a new bassist. Jason Nested was chosen to be the new bassist.
In October, 1990 Metallica recorded it's forth album “Metallica.” The album was remixed three times, cost about 1 million dollars and ended three marriages. However, the album got first on billboard of 200 and sold 650,000 copies on the first week. The album got certified 15 times platinum and became the 25th highest selling album in the United States.
Metallica was manly influenced by Jim Hendrix. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. Most of their songs are fast temped and have solos. Due to the creation of nirvana in the 1990's, the band started to focus on a new musical approach. The bands started to focus on non-metal influences. They stopped singing about drugs and monsters, their new approach focused on anger, loss, and retribution. Some critics and fans were not happy with these changes, which included haircuts, the cover for their album “load,” and the headlining for the alternative rock concert Lollapalooza. However the biggest musical change for Metallica was the release of the album “St. Anger.” Lars Ulrich got bored of solos so he decided to remove them from the songs which gave it a “raw unpolished sound.” He also used steel sounding snare drums which many fans and critics didn't like. The biggest change was that the guitars were tuned to drop c tuning.
To this day Metallica is one of the most influential heavy metal bands and is credited as one of the “big four” of the thrash metal genre along with bands Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth. Metallica has sold over ninety million albums world wide and 57 million of them were in the United States of America, this makes Metallica one of the most commercially successful thrash metal band. Some people believe that Metallica gave heavy metal a much needed charge. Jonathan Davis of korn said “I love that they've done things their own way and they've persevered over the years and they're still relevant to this day. I think they're one of the greatest bands ever.” Godsmack drummer Shannon Larkin said that Metallica has been the biggest influence to him stating “they really changed my life when I was sixteen years old; I'd never heard anything that heavy.” Metallica influenced many bands and artists, and their legacy will live on forever.
Bibliography
Type of resource MLA reference work cited format parenthetical notes
Wikipedia.org sec 1,2.3.4.6,11,12 wikipedia uknown
Metallica.com sec all members of metallica metallica
Book all john mciver mciver
Book all joe berlinger berlinger
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