Metallica

Metallica crawled out of Los Angeles in 1981, the brainchild of singer and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and they came out swinging. The two of them went down into the trenches to forge thrash metal, all breakneck tempos, instrumentals and playing so aggressive it bordered on violence. They soon made San Francisco their home base. Dave Mustaine played guitar in the early days until he was fired in 1983 and went off to start Megadeth; Kirk Hammett stepped in on lead guitar, and Cliff Burton held down the bass.

Kill 'Em All in 1983 was a blast of pure speed, with "Seek and Destroy" as its battle cry. Ride the Lightning the following year showed that these kids could think as well as thrash, with "Fade to Black" slowing to a mournful crawl before the storm breaks. Then came Master of Puppets in 1986, a record of relentless, precision riffing from the title track to "Battery", often counted among the finest metal albums ever made and the one that first sold them in serious numbers. Burton's time with the band ended that same year, and Jason Newsted took over the bass.

...And Justice for All in 1988 got longer, knottier and colder, and "One" moved from a hushed, eerie ballad to a machine-gun barrage. The album brought the band their first Grammy nomination, and a Grammy for Best Metal Performance followed in 1990. With Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer they became known as thrash's Big Four, but none of the others went where Metallica went next.

The self-titled 1991 album stepped away from thrash into slow, crushing grooves, reached a mainstream crowd that had never gone near the genre, and became the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. "Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters" and "The Unforgiven" all came from it. Load, home of "Until It Sleeps", and Reload wandered off in other directions, the band took Napster to court in 2000, and Newsted left in 2001. St. Anger in 2003 was a troubled affair captured in the 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster, with Robert Trujillo arriving as bassist that year. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 2009.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.