Black At It Again

Metallica's Black album is simply their best, both musically and sonically. Released in 1991, this album debut 5 commercial singles and flourished in the top spot in 10 countries and remained in the top on Billboard for four consecutive weeks. The album went 16x platinum and has sold over 16 million copies as of today. Truely, understandable. I enjoyed this album as a kid and still do.

The song Enter Sandman stood out because of its musicianship, lyrics, and production. Recording "six days a week for months on end,"the group did some revising and some constructing. Lyrically and obscenely enough, singer and guitarist James Hetfield wrote the lyrics pertaining to crib death. After some thorough advisement, he was able to revise his original concept into something more pliable and thought provoking. During revision, Hetfield wanted to add a classic children's prayer to the song, producer Bob Rock brought his son into his home studio and they recorded the legendary result. The recording of this song is extremely complex. The band had many takes of different parts with different instrument attachments such as, but not limited to; changing the snare head 8-10x a day for different comparisons, changing guitar strings for sections of songs (Ex: from start to chorus), combined guitar cabinets (Ex: 9-11 cabinets, some custom built, some stacked, some curtained, all sonically defining Hetfield's vision), 40-50 mics for the drums and rearranging the room multiple times for different takes. The album portrays hard work and a great performance. Highly suggestible for anyone.

I know that many bands are influenced by Metallica's playing. However, I know of music Metallica is influenced by. Metallica's album Garage Inc. is a 16 cover song compilation of various artists. One song, in particular, originally performed by the punk band Misfits was covered on this album.

The song Die, Die my Darling was originally released in 1983 by the Misfits. This song is one of my favorites featured on Garage inc. This song was released shortly after the band broke up and was released on the album Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood. The recordings of this session were stored on 2, 16-track tapes and was originally for a different album. This session was moved and remixed to sound like other sessions on the album, however. Recorded at Mix-O-Lydian Studios, Gerry Danzig did all the writing and composition for this group.

Resources:

Palmer,R. (1991,September) Metallica KO Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.oclc.fullsail.edu:81/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=265130c7-06b5-4303-bb39-0ee9a3dc7054%40sessionmgr4010&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=9108261846&db=a9h

Benzuly, S. (2010, October) Classic Tracks: Metallica's "Enter Sandman" Retrieved from http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/classic-tracks-metallicas-enter-sandman/366232

Recording Sessions (1994-2016) Retrieved from http://www.misfitscentral.com/misfits/sessions.php