The Metallica song Ronnie James Dio called perfect: “I was very surprised”
Despite being the single biggest heavy metal band to have ever lived, Metallica are actually kind of an outlier in terms of what metal is to most people. This was no accident. In fact, it may have been entirely the point. They were the vanguard of a new generation of heavy metal, arguably the first to actually call themselves heavy metal with pride, and yet also the first to take the whole thing (sort of) seriously. Ridding the genre of the camp silliness that had been a part of it since Ozzy Osbourne wailed “Oh no” at the apparition at the foot of his bed on his band’s title song.
This had been a long time coming. The term ‘Heavy Metal’ had always sat badly with previous standard-bearers like Mötorhead and AC/DC, who always saw themselves as rock bands first. In the 1980s, you got bands that took it as a badge of honour, before devolving further into two further groups. First, you had bands like Iron Maiden who embraced the camp, turning their stage prop Eddie into the band mascot and writing songs about flying aces and the devil. Second, you had Metallica, who took the genre’s constant flirtation with horrific imagery at face value.
Along with other more extreme metal bands like Diamond Head and Mayhem, they doubled down on the intensity in their music and lyrical content. Sure, they’ve got the riffs for days, but as a band that came up out of the LA thrash metal scene, they bludgeoned where most metal riffs still had the swagger of the blues rock primordial swamp they rose from. You can dance to ‘Breaking The Law’, but you can’t dance to ‘Battery’; there was only moshing.
One would assume that this would draw a cultural line in the sand. That there would be a generation gap in heavy metal but if there’s one thing you can count on metallers to do, it’s unite the tribe. To do so, Metallica made one of the most undeniable metal albums ever in 1991 with their self-titled effort, one that’s come to be known as The Black Album. It was a record that didn’t so much blunt their metal attack as it did widen it. Making a record that appealed just as much to fun-loving headbangers who’d spend the 1980s jamming to Mötley Crüe and Poison as it did their core base of intense thrash-metal fans.
For proof of how successful this was, one must only look towards former Black Sabbath and Dio frontman Ronnie James Dio. He is a man so inherently connected to the ludicrous, campy bollocks side of heavy metal that he literally invented the devil horns. The pint-sized powerhouse had nothing but good things to say about Metallica when he made a list of his favourite songs for metal blog Rhapsody.com. Coming in at number five on his list was the song that marked Metallica’s ascent from the biggest metal band in the world to the biggest band period, ‘Enter Sandman’.
Of the song and the self-titled album it came from, Dio said “I thought it was a great album, and I thought that song was especially great. I heard them venturing into another space when I heard that song. I was very surprised. It’s just a well-played, perfect song from them at the perfect time. Everyone expected something different — or maybe they expected something the same — and they gave them something very, very different, so that’s a great song.”
Even in a genre and scene as uncompromising as heavy metal, The Black Album showed you could have it both ways. That heavy metal was big enough for a band to crush the pit and have a stadium full of black-clad mentalists hollering through continent-sized choruses. Of course, Metallica would go on to be a very divisive band in the eyes of metalheads everywhere afterwards, but for one shining moment, they were undeniable. After all, if Dio says so, then it is so.
