Since their inception, Metallica has been a band that can start an argument between people by coughing. Some may consider that to be shaped by the band's creative defiance (or their occasional veering into "terrible idea" territory), but it's because Metallica have one of music's most captivating stories. Built upon the foundations of two founding whose personalities and outlooks couldn't be more opposite on the surface, Metallica has turned perceived weaknesses into strengths and flipped off heavy metal's stringent rulebook from the very beginning.
Over the years, Metallica haven't always made good decisions. Despite being the most successful band in metal history with a back catalog loaded with classics, Metallica are defined by their perceived failures as much as their successes. These are the songs that define Metallica from all their albums, listed in no specific order.
10 Whiplash
Kill 'Em All (1983)
As two friends who met in a local LA classified newspaper, The Recycler, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich started Metallica in a kinship of hard partying and loud and fast heavy metal. The early days of thrash are some of the most exciting years in heavy metal history, with each band having the pure intention of banging heads and destroying the poseurs polluting the river with their toxic prancing glam metal. "Whiplash" is an ode to thrash's earliest days, wide-eyed and on a mission to maim the audience and anyone who gets in its path.
James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich started Metallica in a kinship of hard partying and loud and fast heavy metal.
Because Metallica would begin to make their sound more sophisticated from their sophomore effort onwards, Kill 'Em All is Metallica at their most primal. Every line of Hetfield's lyrics is a homage to "acting like a maniac" and the "Marshall noise piercing through your ears" at the band's live shows, where "Whiplash"'s simplistic riffing only adds to its adolescent charms. It all builds to a wonderful crescendo, where Hetfield shrieks "we'll never stop, we'll never quit, cos we're Metallica." 41 years later, he's not wrong.
9 Fade To Black
Ride The Lightning (1984)
Heavy metal is littered with artists that either pander (or can't wait to pander) to an audience that demands they follow the orders of an archaic rulebook, written between Black Sabbath's 1969 debut album and the mid-to-late '80s. Good for them, but Metallica let fans know it was their way or the highway really early into their career. It came on the band's second record, Ride The Lightning, as Metallica reveled in a reputation built on being one of the fastest and heaviest bands on the planet.
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With Anthrax, Slayer, and a burgeoning Megadeth all delivering world-class metal at the same time, Metallica expanded thrash's sound to new levels while their contemporaries were happy to define it. A "sort of" ballad, "Fade To Black" set the blueprint for Metallica's fearless creative mindset by unveiling a sprawling and epic canvas.
This canvas had as much in common with the dramatic musical landscape of Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" as it does anything in thrash metal. As the band who wrote "those people who tell you not to take chances, they are all missing on what life's about" on their debut album, this was Metallica putting their money where their mouth was.
8 Master Of Puppets
Master Of Puppets (1986)
It's always fascinating to hear Metallica fans giving their reasons for which album they prefer between Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets. Lightning goes faster and has a youthful energy to it that Puppets replaces with increased muscle, maturity, and songwriting nouse. No song defines the leap between phenomenal and legendary like the title track to Master of Puppets. In the same way they would write the world's defacto arena metal anthem 5 years later, "Master of Puppets" is the pinnacle of thrash metal.
Opening like a prison riot with cymbal chokes and a stuttering and maniacal lead riff, every moment of "Master of Puppets" is iconic. Its message of people being guided to the grave through corruption and substance abuse still rings true today.
It's unconventional without losing its wider appeal and in the middle section, as a demonic voice repeats the word "master" on what sounds like a descent to hell, Metallica produce what other metal bands simply cannot. Classical, artistic, and heavy, it's a section that's so great that it can be heard in the work of Mastodon, Blood Incantation, Trivium, and countless others today.
7 Orion
Master Of Puppets (1986)
The online masses have never run short of stones to throw at Metallica. From the aforementioned "Fade To Black" in 1984 to Napster, Some Kind Of Monster and more, everyone will run their mouth about Metallica, but you will never read a bad word about Cliff Burton. The patron saint of all things artistic in the heavy metal landscape, Burton was a creative force of nature.
His worldly outlook influenced Metallica to think beyond their peers. Everyone will run their mouth about Metallica, but you will never read a bad word about Cliff Burton. He was a virtuoso who brought classical music theory to heavy metal in a union that still breeds the best bands today, before his death in 1986.
Everyone will run their mouth about Metallica, but you will never read a bad word about Cliff Burton.
There can be an argument for Cliff's iconic "bass solo, take one" brilliance on "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)" to define his contribution to music, but "Orion" is everything Cliff Burton wanted Metallica to be. Artistic without ever being pretentious or sacrificing their reputation as a heavy metal band, it is an instrumental classic that is ushered in by his patient and forward-thinking bass.
It has a glacial heaviness to it that grooves and unfurls increasing layers as it spreads its wings further. Metallica proved they could do everything Slayer could do by this point in their career. Did Kerry King's mob ever manage anything remotely like this?
6 Harvester Of Sorrow
...And Justice For All (1988)
If fans want to understand why Metallica pivoted on The Black Album, the pro tip is to listen to ...And Justice For All's "Harvester of Sorrow". On an album where every song tries to outdo the previous one with its musical complexity and song length, "Harvester of Sorrow" foreshadowed Metallica's jump into hard rock territory before it happened in spectacular style. Built on a silent, unquantifiable fury that makes James Hetfield's brand of metallic hard rock better than other mortals, it is a jagged groove that punishes and revels in its own simplicity.
Metallica Hated One Song On James Hetfield's Favorite Album So Much They've Only Played It Live Once: "The Song That We Never Wanted To Play Live Ever"
There's more to the story behind a song so maligned that Metallica has only played it once in over 40 years.
On their next album, the likes of "Sad But True," "Don't Tread On Me,", and "Of Wolf and Man" all have the same songwriting blueprint as this ...And Justice For All anthem, proving The Black Album pays homage to "Harvester of Sorrow"'s brilliance several times. It's so significant that there's an argument that Metallica's whole musical trajectory changed with this song. It is also one of the best heavy metal songs ever written, which definitely helps.
5 Enter Sandman
Metallica (1991)
It is nearly impossible to imagine the concept in today's musical landscape, but Metallica were having Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso" or Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy". As Nevermind made the lives of every band associated with the '80s in any way a living hell, it's important to establish the impact of "Enter Sandman" and its significance in the Metallica story.
What's really important about this is that Metallica achieved their success on their own . Megadeth released a thrash classic in 1990 with the legendary Rust In Peace, but Metallica's "Harvester of Sorrow" template being polished up and powered by a riff that's as recognizable as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Whole Lotta Love" proves "Enter Sandman" brought more people to heavy music than ever before, and significantly more than Mustaine, King, or anyone else from the scene ever did.
4 Until It Sleeps
Load (1996)
Up to The Black Album, it felt like the only people complaining about Metallica were fans who couldn't keep Metallica in their heavy metal clubhouse any longer. Even if a lot of fans' preference is for the first four albums, The Black Album is still an incredible body of work and an outstanding achievement by any metric. Then, Metallica cut their hair and released Load, but they preceded it by making some of the worst choices for a lead single from a new album in the history of music.
Lars Ulrich Hates One Metallica Song So Much They've Not Played It Live In 36 Years "
The story behind why the legendary Danish drummer hates one of the songs from Metallica's classic albums so much.
Love it or loathe it, heavy metal is a brotherhood bonded by a restrictive rulebook. Metallica torched their relationship with heavy metal in a song that's artsy, weird, and, crucially, felt unrecognizable to Metallica fans.
The video is a stunning piece of art based on Hieronymus Bosch paintings and the song is an unclean, dirgey-yet-powerful number, but this all didn't feel like the band that wrote "Wherever I May Roam", and felt further still from the band described earlier in "Whiplash." Load is criminally underrated, but "Until It Sleeps" is the reason millions of people were turned off before they hit play.
3 We Did It Again
G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories (2002)
Part of being a Metallica die-hard is that you have to be prepared for the band to hit you with an absolute car crash of an idea every once in a while. Fyre Fest-associated rapper Ja Rule recorded a song with Metallica in 2002 that best shows their lapses in judgment. It came as the down-tuned simplicity of Nu Metal was threatening their age group in much the same way that Cobain and Nevermind had in 1991 - only this time, Metallica navigated the waters significantly worse.
This time, Metallica navigated the waters significantly worse.
This track came as part of the album G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories, a compilation of cast-off material by Murder Inc. associated producer, Swizz Beats. If that sounds like an abysmal collection to spend your time listening to, consider Swizz Beatz putting this song 16th of 17 songs on the tracklisting. Most people are unaware of this song's existence and point to the Lou Reed collaboration Lulu for this kind of reference, but if you want the gold standard of Metallica's bad creative decisions, look no further.
2 St. Anger
St. Anger (2003)
A lot of clichés in heavy metal are made true by word of mouth more than accuracy, and Metallica's St. Anger is one of the most derided albums in metal history. In truth, it is an album that is by a producer with a spine away from being something of extreme artistic merit. Bob Rock had been beaten down since working with the band on The Black Album, with his collaborations having extreme success mirrored by equally intense creative struggles.
He is a broken man in the band's movie Some Kind of Monster, so he can be forgiven for not really doing his job on an album that put Metallica back on the road and playing to more people than ever. What's fascinating is that Metallica have an album that is significantly worse than St. Anger.
The title track for St. Anger is a bleak classic, with its industrial snare drum giving the song a claustrophobic feel that's perfectly captured by the band recording the song's video in St. Quentin Prison. "Frantic" is far beyond the quality of anything on Metallica's latest album, and "The Unnamed Feeling" is a sinister beast with grinding rhythms and catchy vocal hooks. It all goes to show that reputation isn't always represented by facts.
1 Moth Into Flame
Hardwired...To Self Destruct (2016)
For all the bad-mouthing done in the band's general direction since around 1995, "Moth Into Flame" showed everyone who's boss again in 2016. For five minutes and fifty-one incredible seconds, Metallica unleash the kind of riffs and song structure that made people fall in love with them in the first place, and that brilliance is always within their grasp. It's not said anywhere near enough, but "Moth Into Flame" is good enough to be on the first four Metallica albums (and it would actually be improved with the guitar tone of that period).
8 Metallica Songs That Are Still Basically Perfect
From thrash to orchestras and HP Lovecraft, these are eight near-perfect Metallica songs that are considered classics by the metal community.
The sad truth is that heavy metal is hard to deliver when the body begins to wither. Michael Jordan is one of the greatest sports players to ever live, but there is a reason that no team is drafting him for their starting five in the NBA in 2025. Even when considering this literal fact of life, Metallica can still produce the goods out of nowhere. Don't count out another moment of greatness between now and Metallica's Hetfield and Ulrich eventually calling it a day.