For their first five albums (yes, I’m including the so-called “Black Album”), Metallica were one of the finest Heavy Metal bands in the world. But I’m not going to play Devil’s Advocate with this one—there’s really nothing I can say in defense of this song or the album it came from, and I’m not going to try. The first problem with this song is that it is, quite unmistakably, a Nu-Metal song in the style of bands like Korn or Limp Bizkit. Given that Metallica’s primary target audience tends to have complete contempt for that variety of metal (and to be fair, they aren’t the only ones), this alone almost guaranteed a poor reception. But there’s plenty to hate about this track even if you like that kind of music—the sloppy, random drumming, the pretentious, idiotic lyrics, the bargain-basement production—even lead singer James Hetfield is in terrible voice. This is perhaps the most legendarily awful heavy metal track in history, and certainly the most notorious one to be released by a good band.
Verdict: Bad