Arts & Entertainment

Recorded in NoHo: Metallica's Black Album

Metallica was no longer just banging their heads; they were also opening their hearts.

Some of the greatest albums of all time have been recorded in North Hollywood, and it continues to be a central location for music recording today. Many people who live here drive by the studios everyday, unaware that some of the most famous artists in the world are right behind the walls.

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By the end of the 1980s, Metallica had become one of the world's biggest heavy metal bands the hard way, with no radio airplay and no music videos.

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1986's "Master of Puppets," which was their major label debut, sold over 500,000 copies and peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard charts, and its supporting tour saw the band playing to sold-out stadiums.

But despite this, hardly anyone on the street would ever recognize them because they never produced a music video, preferring to prove their mettle to metal fans on songwriting and performance alone. Instead of slick music videos and radio-friendly ballads, they composed epic thrash metal songs like "Disposable Heroes" and "The Call of Ktulu" that clocked in at over eight minutes.

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But by the end of the decade the band's attitude had changed. They finally decided to release a music video in 1989 for the song "One" off the album "...And Justice For All." The result was their first single that charted on the Billboard Top 40. And for the first time, mainstream pop music fans outside the closed thrash metal scene got a look at this band called Metallica. And they wanted to see and hear more.

The decision to produce a video did not come without a cost. Metallica wasn't the only popular thrash metal band that didn't make music videos. Megadeath. Slayer, Iron Maiden and other top bands had also gone the same route and it had become the way for a band to keep its "street cred" in the thrash metal scene. Many Metallica fans felt betrayed by "One" and likened it to when Bob Dylan went electric. In the band's VH1 "Behind the Music" special, Metallica's lead singer James Hetfield recalled being spit on by a fan for making the video. From that point on, the band has had to fight accusations from thrash metal fans for "selling out" and going mainstream.

But the band was undeterred from changing course. In 1990, they entered One on One Studios at 5253 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood to record what would become their biggest album of all time, the self-titled "Metallica." But metal fans around the world simply refer to it as "the black album" due to its cover that was basically all black with the word "Metallica" printed on it.

Everything changed with the black album. They hired a new producer, Bob Rock, to record the album, and made a conscious decision to record shorter, tighter, simpler songs. And some of the songs were even... gulp... softer.

"Sometime in the middle of the last tour, it just got really boring live playing some of these like ten-minute songs that were so progressive that you always had to sit there and like think about, 'OK this big drum roll is coming up, these tempo changes or whatever,'" the band's drummer, Lars Ulrich, told Much Music in an interview at One on One Studios during the making of the album. (One on One is no longer around and today is known as )

The decision to hire Bob Rock to produce the record was monumental. Rock was one of the biggest and most successful producers in the music industry and had built a reputation for making big bands even bigger.

"We thought one of the best sounding albums that was made over the last few years was the Motley Crue album that he made, 'Dr. Feelgood,'" Ulrich told Much Music. "It seemed that he had like the ability to make the best Motley Crue album, and the Bon Jovi album that he was involved with was like the best Bon Jovi album. He seemed to be able to bring out the best in whatever band he was working with."

Metallica, which was based in San Francisco, had recorded its previous album "...And Justice For All," at One on One and decided to return.

"North Hollywood, does that like add something to the music or what?" Ulrich was asked in his interview with Much Music.

"No, it takes away from it," Ulrich said, laughing. "We just never wanted to do a record at home in San Francisco. And, the earlier, like ["Ride the Lighting"] and ["Master of Puppets"] were made overseas because of like financial reasons and stuff, but with the 'Justice' album we thought we would make it closer to San Francisco."

In the same interview, Hetfield was asked if he liked recording in North Hollywood.

"No," he said. "It's too easy to have fun here."

The band charged full speed ahead with music videos and produced several to support the album, including "Nothing Else Matters," which was filmed at at One on One Studios and featured footage of the band recording the song. Basically a ballad — the band's first — the song's lyrics seemed to announce to the world the new direction they were heading —

"Never opened myself this way/Life is ours, we live it our way/All these words I don't just say/And nothing else matters."

Metallica was no longer just banging their heads; they were also opening their hearts. And they didn't give a damn what anyone had to say about it.

The black album remains a polarizing album to metal fans. Perhaps some of these comments posted by fans on blabbermouth.net's webpage about the album sum up their feelings:

Crap album... was the death of one of the greatest metal bands of all time.

Definitely not a bad album, but a big dissapointment if you loved the 80's Metallica.

Sellouts.

Many mark Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as the (temporary) death of metal, but The Black Album was it for me. I was 18, and every girl I knew loved that album. Catchy rock tunes was absolutely NOT what I was looking for from Metallica at that time. I remember making it about half way through it, grasping, hoping, to no avail. I can recall feeling like I was going to puke and s*** my pants at the same time.

With a softer, tighter, more commercial sound, and the videos the support it, the black album exploded on the music scene. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts in late August of 1991 and has sold over 22 million copies to date. Metallica no longer belonged to thrash metal fans; they belonged to the world.

"Metallica is no longer the cutting edge of metal, as it was in the beginning, but the band is expanding its musical and expressive range on its own terms," said Rolling Stone in its five-star review of the album. "This can only be a positive step for a group that is effectively bridging the gap between commercial metal and the much harder thrash of Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth."


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