In over four decades, Bay Area thrash metal legends Metallica have explored a wide variety of sounds. They were originally rooted in the thrash metal underground. Then they exploded into more mainstream popularity by the early 1990s. With Metallica (better-known as the “Black Album”), they took a turn into a more simplified sound that managed to sell millions of albums and make them international superstars.
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Like any metal band that makes it really big, there’s always skepticism among die-hards as to whether they’ve sold out or not. As they progressed into the ‘90s and their sound became less thrashing and more expansive, many old-school fans were understandably upset. At the same time, a new legion of fans embraced them, and their catalog since has embraced a diverse palette of sounds. You can understand why they would try to experiment with performers of all music genres. But here are the five craziest Metallica collabs of them all.
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1. “The Memory Remains” with Marianne Faithfull (Reload, 1997)
The Load and ReLoad albums of 1996 and 1997 were polarizing releases from Metallica. The band had already strayed away from their thrash metal roots on the Black Album and reached a larger audience than anyone could have imagined. While that 1991 self-titled release was a more mainstream affair, they still retained their signature sound. Load and ReLoad pushed more boundaries, such as this bluesy stomper featuring Marianne Faithfull, the iconic, Grammy Award-nominated member of the British Invasion of the 1960s who also had associations with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd.
Her contributions here were lyric-less vocals with a touch of spoken word, and she brought a haunting vocal quality to the song that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. You’ve got to respect the fact that Metallica respects their peers and their predecessors, from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal patches on frontman James Hetfield’s denim jacket to bringing famed frontmen like The Kinks’ Ray Davies and Neil Young on stage with them.
2. “Junior Dad” with Lou Reed (Lulu, 2011)
We know, teaming up the metal titans with the monotone vocalist/spoken word artist Lou Reed sounded like a match made in hell (not in the good metal way), but if you got past the initial polarization you’d find that this nearly 20-minute track, at the very least, was worthwhile.
The epic ambient composition of “Junior Dad,” which has moments of gritty guitar, dissipates into dreaminess after its first half in which Reed muses on a father-son (dis)connection. It was recorded not long after guitarist Kirk Hammett’s father passed away, and two and a half years before Reed shuffled off this mortal coil. Listen with open ears and you’ll find it’s an intriguing addition to both artists’ canons. Hammett loved it.
3. “Enter Sandman” with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots (The Tonight Show, 2016)
The group’s most famous song got a mirthful makeover when the quartet teamed up with Jimmy Fallon and his house band The Roots to perform the Black album mega-hit on toy instruments. (The possible in-joke/reference here being that the song itself invoked European folklore and Peter Pan and featured a scared child in the video.) Hetfield played a toy clarinet, drummer Lars Ulrich a toy drum, Hammet a melodica, and bassist Robert Trujillo a miniature guitar. Other instrumentation included bongos, a Casio keyboard, ukulele, kazoo, hand clappers, toy xylophone, tambourine, toy cymbals, and various shakers.
Given the fact that all the members of Metallica are now parents, the collab makes sense and was something hilariously off-the-wall and fun to listen to. They certainly wouldn’t have done this in the ‘80s or ‘90s, and judging from Hetfield’s face while he was singing he was having a blast. Age in rock and roll is like in anything else – you generally stop caring what people think.
4. “Moth Into Flame” with Lady Gaga (2017 Grammy Awards)
If anyone was surprised by Lady Gaga showing up to rock out with the Bay Area thrashers at the 2017 Grammy Awards, they weren’t paying attention to her metal reverie. The mega pop star is actually a metalhead and has posted photos of herself with the likes of Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and Saxon frontman Biff Byford. That latter photo op alone should clue you into the fact that she loves the genre.
Gaga’s Grammy performance with Metallica, where she traded vocals and harmonized with James Hetfield on “Moth Into Flame” (from Hardwired…to Self-Destruct), is pretty good, although someone in the sound department messed up because we lost some of James’s initial vocals. The better sounding rehearsal footage is below.
5. “One” with Lang Lang (2014 Grammy Awards, 2017 Beijing concert)
Metallica collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony for the live S&M and S&M 2 albums, reworking for material in a symphonic context. But they are far from the first heavy rock band to go there – Deep Purple did it back in 1969. But in two live performances with acclaimed Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, they entered new live territory.
Lang Lang was nervous about performing with them live the first time because as a classical musician he was used to a strict form – classical performers interpret as oppose to improvise. But having performed “Rhapsody In Blue” with Herbie Hancock on the Grammy Awards six years prior, Lang Lang started to open up to improvisation. Watch the Beijing clip below – he’s invoking dramatic, often dissonant chords and melodies, and you can see that he’s clearly enjoying the moment.
Photo by Theo Wargo/WireImage
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