The only Metallica albums that James Hetfield felt were too “forced”
When Metallica were pressured by reinvention, they made some of the worst choices of their career.
The world is generally fairly forgiving when it comes to Metallica’s mishaps, but there was once a time when even their most loyal of fans weren’t sure where things were headed, or if they’d even bring it back home, after suffering such a poorly guided new era that they thought would solidify their legacy; if anything, it set them back about ten paces.
To their credit, the band have faced more challenges than most. It’s natural for one of the biggest forces in rock to have its share of criticism, but with them, most scrutiny comes from the one thing that makes rock fans seethe: selling out. Or the other thing that tarnished an otherwise pristine streak: a pivot so abrupt from their roots that it seemed disingenuous.
In 1996, Metallica weren’t the Metallica people had come to know and love anymore; they reinvented themselves to an almost unrecognisable degree, donning short hair, leather jackets, and a sound that was more bluesy than hard rock. The result was Load, the infamous Metallica record that each member has since come to criticise as the period of time when everything was a little too hazy, so much so that they completely lost direction.
According to James Hetfield, Load and the follow-up, Reload, were victimised by their own pressure, and of the band’s push for a better sound, one different enough to distinguish from their earlier successes but still good enough to keep people engaged. Where they fell short, though, was that none of it felt organic, at least not in the same way that inspired them to greatness with their previous masterpieces.
“We’ve always been very organic,” Hetfield told The New Yorker, “Load and Reload felt different to me. Felt forced”. Elsewhere, he elaborated on how the music and accompanying image turned people off. “[We were] trying to be something we weren’t and that confused us even further musically,” he said, “A lot of the fans got turned off quite a bit from the music but mostly, I think, from the image. It just doesn’t work. You absolutely have to evolve, but let’s have it evolve naturally. It didn’t seem natural to me.”
This reluctance to embrace Metallica’s new image and sound is also what largely set up Reload to fail, too. Hetfield later said that he felt he went along with the other members’ ideas too much at the time, while Lars Ulrich argued that people didn’t give it enough of a chance because of their aesthetic. Still, despite the sourness around Load, Hetfield felt like Reload was “the right thing to do”, even if long-term reflections have made them reconsider whether they’d do any of it differently.
The biggest thing was that the two projects could have probably been condensed into one, considering that both Hetfield and Ulrich, as well as many fans, find there to be some good songs on both records. It probably would have been met with a kinder reception had it been a part of a smaller, more focused project, which could have enabled the band to move on sooner from their brief detour and not have to be constantly discussing why the material did or didn’t land as much as they’d hoped.
Ulrich mentioned that merging all the songs together wasn’t an idea any of them actually brought up at the time, but had they known it was even an option, who knows what it would have turned out to be. At least they can reflect on those experiences that have now shaped their legacy and know that, once they learn the hard way what not to do, they can get back on track.
