Ultimate Albums: Metallica- Black Album

With over 20 million copies sold worldwide, Metallica’s eponymous fifth album, better known as the ‘Black’ album, is one of the biggest-selling metal albums ever.

Famously, the San Francisco quartet had sold one million records with 1986’s Master Of Puppets without releasing a single or ever making a promotional video. But five years on, their stated aim was to take over the mainstream – or as their drummer Lars Ulrich would memorably state, to “cram Metallica down everybody’s fucking throat all over the fucking world.”

With Metallica, they accomplished just that.

With management company Q Prime suggesting – AKA, ordering – the band that the follow up to ...Justice "simply had to go big", they recruited Bob Rock. Rock had turned the trick for Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, and had made Mötley Crüe sound like the worldʼs greatest bar band – a fastidious perfectionist whose ear for music was a lot more finely tuned than some of his work suggested.

“The word ʻBobʼ strikes fear into all Metalheads,” James joked at the time. “But a producer isnʼt meant to make you sound like him, heʼs meant to make you sound like the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.”

And, for the most part, that's exactly what happened. The 'Black' Album produced a slew of hits, won the band Grammy Awards and netted them millions of new fans in the process. And you can't argue with the songs, either: Enter Sandman, Sad But True and The Unforgiven are all still up there with some of the best Metallica have ever recorded.

But there’s a reason that the men in black played the album in reverse order when they toured it in Europe in 2012: that reason being the first half of the album far out-strips the second half. Still, it’s hard to argue with Bob Rock’s astute assessment that this muscular, streamlined album is where Metallica became the Led Zeppelin of their generation.