Do you have headbanger’s blood flowing through your veins? Do you relax to the sound of smashed china and thumping double bass drums the way old ladies relax to windchimes? Then Metallica’s 25+ year history is no-doubt already near and dear to your heart. Whether you prefer the era of straightforward skull-crushing thrash that was Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets, the hard rock experiment that was The Black Album, or the stunning return-to-form of the new Death Magnetic, nobody needs to tell you why Metallica remains the best-selling act in all of metal music.

But lets say high-pitched synthesizers and puffy hair was more your speed back then. Maybe you used to headbang, but only to Gary Numan, and only when nobody was watching. I understand. It was a confusing time back then, when Metallica first came out swinging. Maybe you were afraid to headbang out of fear of messing up your $80 perm. Maybe it even all just sounds like noise to you, and you just don’t get the music these kids are listenin’ to these days. Nobody can blame you for that, but just for kicks, let’s take a second to throw those horns up and learn just what the blood and thunder is all about.

Yes, Metallica is loud. Perhaps even one of the loudest and heaviest bands of their time, but it’s not just about being loud. Seven minute songs, even from the very start, were not uncommon for Metallica. Structured symphonically, early epics like The Four Horsemen and The Call of Ktulu were not just loud and aggressive, but artistically passionate in a way other thrash metal at that time wasn’t. Featuring melodic breakdowns and obvious musical intelligence, Metallica’s work lives on due to it’s virtuosity and scope. Though their S&M live album, backed by a full symphony orchestra, was considered a strange move at the time, nowadays it seems like a perfect fit. Metallica’s classical foundations have allowed them a degree of timelessness that explains their mass appeal, even among people that don’t normally enjoy heavy metal music. This fact is made obvious with The Black Album, which featured a more commercial mainstream sound and sold more copies than any other album released in the last fifteen years.

Okay, so musically they have a wealth of artistic merit. But lyrically, isn’t it all just monsters, violence, and the devil? Well, to a degree, but the band’s knack for tackling deep, introspective emotional issues is not overlooked. One of their biggest early songs, Battery, is as aggressive and angry as they come. Yes, Battery is angry, but it’s also about the control anger physically has over one’s actions, and the personal struggle of trying to resist it. In layman’s terms: it’s not a song about breaking stuff, it’s a song about questioning why exactly stuff gets broken. All Metallica songs follow this general idea, yes it’s loud and vicious, but with a sense of personal futility and emotion that bleeds into every second. For a later example, Nothing Else Matters is about the bond between the vocalist and his girlfriend, which he is determined to keep strong even as constant touring threatens to keep them apart. The Unforgiven, another Black Album track, is simply about regretting a lack of risk-taking in life. Broad issues virtually anyone can relate to, but still with enough monsters, violence, and the devil all around to satisfy connoisseurs of the heaviest of music as well.

So, even if you rocked a perm or not, is it any wonder that Metallica is the musical titan that it is? Do you understand why your mother calls metal music “noise” but still shrieks with joy when Enter Sandman comes on the radio?  Either way, 18 Grammy nominations and 9 awards later, Metallica continues to epitomize the heavy metal music industry.  Never to be rivaled and especially never to be tread upon, Metallica’s classical approach to heavy metal is proudly immortalized with album cover t-shirts and many great buckles and gifts.