Metallica - Did You Know?
March 30, 2018Music facts, music trivia, interesting stories and much more. Introducing the "Did You Know" page about American heavy metal band, Metallica.
Enjoy!
Metallica is an American heavy metal band that was formed in 1981, in Los Angeles, California. The band went through several member changes over the course of their musical career, and at the moment consists of James Hetfield (vocals, guitar), Kirk Hammett (guitar), Robert Trujillo (bass) and Lars Ulrich (drummer).
Metallica enjoyed a growing fan base in the underground music community and received great reviews for its first five albums. While Master of Puppets, Metallica's third album from 1986 is described as one of the heaviest and most influential thrash metal albums of all time, the band's fifth album from 1991, Metallica (also known as The Black Album) is band's first to root predominantly in heavy metal, and appealed to a more mainstream audience. Even with this change of pace and style in music with The Black Album, it achieving substantial commercial success and sold more than 16 million copies in the US to this day.
Our interesting fact of the day is about Metallica's song 'Enter Sandman' which opens the album Metallica. There is a line in the chorus of the song, which goes: "Take my hand, we're off to never never land". This line, is actually a reference to the children's story Peter Pan.
Peter Pan lives in the magical world of Neverland, while in the song, the sandman lives in never never land, which is a much less pleasant place. Also, the video clip to the song won best hard rock video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.
To this day, Metallica has released 10 studio albums, 4 live albums, a cover album, 5 extended plays, 37 singles and 39 music videos. They had won 9 Grammy Awards, and the band's last 6 studio albums (beginning with Metallica) have consecutively debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart.
Metallica ranks as one of the most commercially successful bands of all time,selling more than 125 million records all over the world as of 2018. They have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines like Rolling Stone, as they are ranked at the number 61 spot on the list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
As of 2017, Metallica is the third best-selling music artist since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, as they sold a total of 58 million albums in the US.
In 2009, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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The "Master" in Metallica's song "Master of Puppets" is a reference to drugs. Throughout the song, the "master" controls you and your life. Drugs is the master while the drug user is the puppet.
This song is the band's most popular live song, played in concert more than any other song. The crowd and fans dutifully shout back "master!" at appropriate times, which could be seen as the kind of conformity that the song warns against, but is simply an irresistible, adrenaline-fueled release.
In 2016, the song was preserved in the National Recording Registry by the United States Library of Congress, and is the first metal song to do so.
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Metallica drummer, Lars Ulrich, said that the best concert of the band was when they played in Moscow in 1991 (watch Metallica in Russia clip). There was between a half a million and a million people there, with Russian military helicopters hovering over the audience. It was like a scene taken from a movie.
As for their worst concert, Ulrich said that it was when the band played in Wembley Arena in 1992 (watch Metallica in Wembley clip), as Ulrich's drum kit was supposed to rise out of the stage, but for some reason did not, so Ulrich was playing for 10 minutes under the stage, surrounded by crew members with crowbars.
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The song "Sad But True" by Metallica is about blind faith in religion and the lengths people will go in order to practice their faiths.
The line in the song "I'm inside, open your eyes" means that God only exists in people's heads.
James Hetfield, Lead vocalist of the band got the idea for the song from the 1978 film Magic, featuring Anthony Hopkins, which is about a ventriloquist who is controlled by his evil puppet.
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The song "...And Justice For All" by Metallica is about false justice and how some people pay the judge to fix the court case: "Halls of justice painted green, money talkin'..."
The song "...And Justice For All" may have been inspired by the 1979 movie ...And Justice For All starring Al Pacino and Jeffrey Tambor. In the movie, Al Pacino plays a lawyer who realizes that the justice system is full of corruption and favoritism.
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The song "Wherever I May Roam" by Metallica was written by Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield about life on the road.
Metallica loves to tour and they used to have up to 200 shows on their tours. The song "Wherever I May Roam" talks about the weary travels during and at the end of the tour.
Guitarist of the band Kirk Hammett said after the Wherever I May Roam tour, that he bought a house the year before and that he haven't even seen it yet.
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