Song · Metallica
“Eye of the Beholder” by Metallica
From the album …And Justice for All (1988)
“Eye of the Beholder” by Metallica appears on 6 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1990 and 1999. It was first released in 1988 on the album …And Justice for All. Its best result is #348 on the KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1995). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #595 hard rock song of all time.
Watch
Video from YouTube (Metallica - Topic). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
"Eye of the Beholder" sits third in line on ...And Justice for All, Metallica's 1988 album, and it followed "Harvester of Sorrow" out the door as the record's second single. James Hetfield wrote the words, a political broadside about civil liberties, and shares the music credit with Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich, with Jason Newsted on bass and Flemming Rasmussen producing alongside the band.
The chorus lurches into 12/8 while the rest stomps along in 4/4, and that shifting ground is part of why Ulrich calls it his least favorite Metallica song, a square peg jammed into a round hole. They haven't played it all the way through since 1989; in the '90s it lived on only as a chunk of a Justice medley, one of which landed on the 1993 live set Live Shit: Binge & Purge.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Hard Rock & Metal
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 560 | Z-Rock | Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990) | 1000 |
| 1994 | 578 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1994) | 1000 |
| 1995 | 348 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1995) | 1000 |
| 1996 | 561 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1996) | 1000 |
| 1998 | 787 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1998) | 1000 |
| 1999 | 654 | KISW | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1999) | 998 |
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about "Eye of the Beholder" by Metallica.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.