Metallica’s Genre-Defining Moments: Songs That Shaped Heavy Metal

Metallica is one of a handful of bands that has helped shape the sound of heavy metal. While there were other metal bands before Metallica, such as Black Sabbath, it's obvious that James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich and the band's various bass players have helped define what it is to be heavy metal.

Metallica has evolved over the years, but they've maintained a consistent sound that is all things heavy. While Metallica was 100% thrash in their early career, they famously changed their sound to a more mainstream and melodic metal style, and that made them an even bigger success. Sure, they lost some of those early fans, but this band would never have become the worldwide powerhouse that they are today if they hadn't broadened their sound, and for that, we're grateful. Besides, it's boring to stay the same, and thankfully that's not Metallica.

Metallica performed their first concert on March 14, 1982, at Radio City in Anaheim, CA, and today, they're still performing shows around the world. Not many metal bands, or artists of any genre, can say that they can sell out arenas and stadiums for two nights in a row, but that's what Metallica has been doing on their latest tour.

People love Metallica for many reasons, and one of them is the band's songs. Certain songs from this group truly helped shape heavy metal.

Metallica's most significant change in sound came with The Black Album. That album was huge for Metallica, and it changed not only their sound but also their influence in the metal world. Heavy metal went from a niche genre and one that didn't get a lot of attention or respect to a genre that was suddenly cool. That was a lot to take for metalheads who relished being the outsiders, but it's the reality that when The Black Album came out, people who had never listened to metal started walking around in Metallica shirts and going to their shows.

'Master of Puppets': Defining Thrash

When it comes to thrash, though, there's one Metallica song that really defined the genre during its start, and that's "Master of Puppets." The song, off the band's 1986 album by the same name, is often considered their biggest and best thrash song, thanks to its complex strong structure, heavy riffing, aggressive rhythms and fast pace. With "Master of Puppets," Metallica created the perfect blueprint for thrash metal, and it's one that many bands have followed.

Of Master of Puppets, the entire album, musician Devin Townsend told Billboard in a 2017 feature that when the album was released, "it was a paradigm shift for me and the people around me as the stage had been set for them to really continue their momentum and they delivered in every way. Even the tonalities they chose, intentional or otherwise, were of such a foreign and antagonistic quality that it stood alone in a sea of fantasy inspired and image-centric heavy metal."

Matthew Kiichi Heafy, Trivium added, "If only one Metallica record could be shown to someone, Master not only summarizes all the ranges of sound Metallica excels at (from slow and melodic, to fast and brutal); it also encapsulates everything that had done in the past, present, and hinting at what was to come in the future. The Black Album got me into metal, and Master Of Puppets showed me what can be done with metal."

'Enter Sandman': Defining Melodic Metal

Metallica released their fifth studio album, The Black Album, on Aug. 12, 1991, and it was very different from their previous albums at the time. The Black Album changed so much for the group. Before this album, Metallica was an underground thrash band with a solid following. But, The Black Album made their musical style much more commercial, and the melodies and tuneful songs made for a much more commercial-friendly record.

Some of Metallica's biggest songs were on The Black Album, including "Enter Sandman," "The Unforgiven," "Nothing Else Matters," "Wherever I May Roam" and "Sad but True." The album also spent four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, making it their first album to go No. 1 on album charts.

Of those songs, "Enter Sandman" is often noted as the song that created the melodic and mainstream metal sound. Listeners and metalheads can debate about which songs off this album is the best, but the lush, rich riff of "Enter Sandman" and melodic nature of the song really helped define what it meant to be a heavy metal band that makes tuneful music.

The songs' meaning is incredible, too. As the Houston Press describes, "'Enter Sandman' is all about the liberation of living a life entirely free of fear. Maybe you've long considered the song an optimistic, life-affirming ditty."

Pitchfork said of the album, "After years of wild thrash metal, Metallica simplified everything and became the biggest band in the world. The Black Album's dark, muscular sound would permanently alter the course of heavy music." Later, they added, "But these are the guys who gave us Kill 'Em All; they won't stop until they've slayed Poison, Mötley Crüe, Ratt, and every last one of those platinum-blonde, spandex-wearing false heirs to the heavy metal throne with their own weapons: massive riffs, clean vocals, sharp arrangements, and layered mixes that gush from the speakers like knife wounds."

"Hetfield swallowed his annoyance and rewrote the lyrics, reframing it as a kind of twisted lullaby that drew on a child’s fears, real and imagined," Louder Sound adds in a September 2022 feature. "The Sandman of the title was a reference to a mythical figure who would sneak into children’s bedrooms to sprinkle sand in their eyes (ironically, the band had been sitting on the title Enter Sandman for 'six years,' according to Lars Ulrich)."

The gents of Metallica truly changed the musical world with their music, and that includes both the genres of thrash metal and melodic metal. So, it's not surprising that a band that even recently helped an EDM music festival would be adventurous enough to help spawn different musical movements.