Metallica

Stadium-level bands inevitably wind up playing what are essentially greatest-hits tours. Whether it’s the Rolling Stones, AC/DC or Guns N’ Roses, these concert giants rarely showcase their most recent songs, instead relying on decades-old warhorses to keep their fans satisfied.

Little about Metallica’s formative days hinted that the group was already charting its every move and documenting each step for future purposes. The youthful members looked as menacing and resistant as they sounded. Their acne-splotched faces, worn denim jackets, long hair and bullet belts conveyed the same darkness and danger embodied by the high-school druggies-stoners and dropouts parents warned their own kids to avoid. The quartet’s music proved equally intimidating. 

In the time that Metallica recorded and manufactured its self-titled 1991 album, aka “The Black Album,” the Gulf War began and ended, East and West Germany were united for the first time since World War II, and the World Wide Web became publicly available. In the recording-studio lounge in Hollywood where the band was recording, the war’s progress plays out on a television set as the days turn into weeks and then months. World events come and go as the band chips away in isolation at what would become its most commercially consequential album.