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Metallica ride the lightning tab6/29/2023 Released on July 29, 1991, Enter Sandman reached No.16 in the US and No.5 in the UK. This time the drummer intervened, holding firm in his belief that the track was the perfect way to launch what he knew would be Metallica’s most important album.Īnd so it proved. ![]() The producer wasn’t convinced that the completed Enter Sandman was an obvious hit, preferring the thrashier Holier Than Thou as the album’s first single. Not everything Bob Rock suggested made it past Hetfield and Ulrich. 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). 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. ![]() ![]() “I was like, 'Fuck you! I'm the writer here!' But that was the first challenge from someone else and it made me work harder." “That pissed me off so much!” the singer told Guitar World in 2018. But the drummer and producer both thought the subject matter was too heavy, and told Hetfield so. The frontman’s original subject matter revolved around Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or cot death – the line "Off to never never land" was originally "Disrupt the perfect family”. Where the band had previously recorded their parts separately, he insisted the play together in the studio.Īnd it was Rock, along with Lars Ulrich, who pressured James Hetfield into rewriting the song’s lyrics. Yet Rock’s impact on Metallica was immediate. Lars would show up really late and I’d say, ‘What a fucking asshole you are…’ I don’t think people did that to them before.” When they’d do stupid things I’d call them on it. “When they started doing things the way they had always done, I just gave back to them. “I really didn’t give a shit, to be honest,” Rock recalled to Uncut in 2014. But having worked with some of rock‘s biggest egos, the producer certainly wasn’t unafraid to trample over the band’s feelings. Not that Metallica were entirely comfortable with Rock at first - nor vice versa. “You know: ʻOh, Bob works with Bon Jovi, Bob works with Mötley Crüe.ʼ But if Flemming Rasmussen worked on a Bon Jovi record, would Bon Jovi all of a sudden sound like Metallica?” “Some people thought Bob would make us sound too commercial,” said James Hetfield. ![]() Recruiting such a commercial producer was a clear signal of Metallica’s intent. Metallica had enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Danish producer Flemming Rasmussen since Ride The Lightning, but they figured they needed fresh input to help them execute their great leap forwards.Įnter Bob Rock, who had worked with Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, The Cult and Mötley Crüe. Stripped their sound right down wasn’t the only thing that that had changed. Metallica wanted their next record to be a 180-degree shift away from …And Justice For All’s complex time signatures and epic running times, and Enter Sandman encapsulated this back-to-basics approach. Hammett’s early morning riff would become the basis of Enter Sandman, itself the first song the band wrote for what would become their self-titled fifth album (aka the Black Album).
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