‘The Unforgiven II’: the most sell-out Metallica song
For any metal band, the last thing that they want to be compared to is pop music. This was the genre meant to separate them from the mainstream, so having millions of people reacting to their music in the same way that people reacted to Michael Jackson wasn’t normally the reaction that everyone was going for. Fans come to these shows to headbang, not sing along, but Metallica had already started moving in a slightly pop direction when they entered the 1990s.
Granted, the whole thing was intentional. While the words “pop” may have never been a part of their vocabulary, they at least realised that a producer like Bob Rock could help them get the sound they wanted, which normally relied on going back to structures that wouldn’t be alien to the Top 40. So now, without having to deal with eight minutes of ‘Harvester of Sorrow’, mainstream rock fans have no problem latching onto the hooks of ‘Enter Sandman’ or the soft ballad ‘Nothing Else Matters’.
Regardless of the string sections and slower tempo, ‘Nothing Else Matters’ doesn’t really qualify as the most “sell-out” version of the group. No, that would have to wait a couple of years when the Load series of albums dropped. Everyone may have wanted to drop this supposed ‘Alternica’ to embrace their inner Alice in Chains, but a lot of those records are still fairly competent, as are hard rock records that have a bit more of an edge to them.
However, whereas Load had a more brooding atmosphere behind it, no one can be given a greater bait and switch than what happened on ReLoad. It felt like the band were heading back to their roots for a brief second when the opening notes of ‘Fuel’ started, but ‘The Memory Remains’ reminded everyone that they were going to continue serving up softer ballads throughout this era, and that came with them cannibalising one of their older tunes.
While the story of ‘The Unforgiven’ from The Black Album lent itself well to a sequel, ‘The Unforgiven II’ is a far more mainstream attempt from them. Any ballad should be something a bit sweeter on the ears, but compared to the first one, this sequel pales in comparison to the original by doing everything by the book and making a cookie-cutter version of what a mainstream rock song is supposed to do.
After all, the biggest draw of the original was flipping the formula by having a loud verse and soft chorus, but bringing everything back to the status quo by having a soft verse and loud chorus feels a bit like cowardice on their part. And when looking at the lyrics, James Hetfield seemed to be looking to create his own version of a hair metal ballad in some parts of this tune.
Whereas the first one was the story of a man who always felt marginalised and dies with regret in his heart, this is about finding that one special person who somehow is broken the same way he is. Yep, in its own twisted way, this is Hetfield’s version of a silly love song, and while ‘Nothing Else Matters’ proved that he could do it well, hearing him say the title verbatim by ending the chorus with ‘Are you unforgiven too’ is a lot more hamfisted than what he did on the original.
But that shouldn’t be a major detractor, either. ‘The Unforgiven II’ may be one of the main reasons why many fans jumped shipped during the Load era, but the fact that it also ends on a mysterious major chord hints that the story might not be over for this character. And when Hetfield took everything out of the box again on ‘The Unforgiven III’, it finally felt like it had come full circle. ‘The Unforgiven’ helped set the dark scene; the sequel was the big-budget romance story, and the final stop on this journey is about the man finally learning to forgive himself.
