Essential Metallica: Their 30 greatest songs, ranked

is a sonic assault that can be a tough listen, thanks in part to a clangy drum sound that cuts through the album’s mix. While the title cut often gets praise, it’s the pummeling opening track “Frantic” that sets the stage for an album conceived during band tumult and frontman James Hetfield’s rocky journey to sobriety. Both were documented in the 2004 film . The frontman’s lyrics, spewed out with a sense of anger and desperate anguish, directly confront his reality here: “My lifestyle determines my deathstyle!”

Channeling their inner Black Sabbath, Metallica serves up the melodic, slightly psychedelic “Fixxxer.” The track features eerie guitar wails, appropriate for an exploration of the trauma and scars of child abuse, and lyrics like “But tell me, can you heal what father’s done? Or fix this hole in a mother’s son?” This slow-burn album closer, an under-appreciated deep cut that is one of James Hetfield’s favorite Metallica tracks, was finally played live at their 40th anniversary show in San Francisco in December 2021.

Taking inspiration from horror maestro H.P. Lovecraft, “The Thing That Should Not Be” slithers along like one of the creatures from the author’s Cthulu mythos. The listener can actively dissect the various story references and allusions in Hetfield’s lyrics. Even the squealing guitar solos feel totally apropos for a horror movie; not surprising given Kirk Hammett’s love for the genre. The guitarist reportedly copped to the fact that one of the riffs here was cribbed from Rush’s “Jacob’s Ladder.”

Also known as The Black Album, Metallica’s Grammy Award-winning, self-titled fifth studio release slowed the tempos and enhanced the melodic quotient with mixed results. But the powerful and punchy “Sad But True” finds drummer Lars Ulrich pounding out every note with equal insistence as James Hetfield sings about the battle between the dark and light sides raging within everybody, and how the dark often takes over. This is Ulrich’s favorite Metallica tune, and he likes to regularly alter how he plays it live.

Our list picks up steam again with “Fuel,” the opening barnstormer from Reload, with Hetfield spitting out lyrics about the adrenaline rush some people (like him) get from racing fast cars. The singer is known for restoring and customizing cars and he even wrote a 2020 book about that pursuit called Reclaimed Rust. This high-octane tune snagged a Grammy Award nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1999, and the demo version (titled “Fuel For Fire”) featuring the original lyrics was used as the NASCAR theme song on NBC from 2001 until 2004.

To appreciate the nearly 20-minute epic “Junior’s Dad,” toss aside your preconceptions of , and let the negativity around this album’s reception slip from your mind. It was recorded not long after Kirk Hammett lost his father, and about two and a half years before Reed’s passing. This pastoral rock tune, which does build some gritty guitar riffs and chords into it, possesses an elegiac quality. Featuring Reed’s musings about a dispirited father-son relationship in its first half, the song then floats into a pure ambient tapestry. It’s music to trance out to, not bang your head to, and it shows how Metallica can capably span a wide musical breadth in a way most of their peers never have. Hammett called the song one of the best things the band has ever been associated with.

The multi-tempo final track on the band’s fourth album features some of the band’s most ferocious riffing, augmented by Lars Ulrich’s punishing double bass drumming. In his first truly personal song for the band, James Hetfield lays a lot of blame upon his religious parents, who sheltered him from the harsh realities of the world. Kirk Hammett has said that “Dyers Eve” is one of his favorite tunes to play live because his solo is incredibly challenging, so he feels a sense of accomplishment every time he nails it. The band didn’t tackle this speed demon live until March 2004.

After an ominous buildup, “Whiplash” revs up into an early Metallica riff monster. It’s pretty straightforward—an electrified ode to the cathartic release of letting loose at a metal show. Kirk Hammett has said that this was the late Kurt Cobain’s fave tune by the band—he requested it for a Metallica show he attended—and oddly enough, Motorhead won their only Grammy Award (for Best Metal Performance in 2004) with their cover of this track. That seems weirdly apropos, since Lemmy was revered by the band.

The melancholy “Until It Sleeps” contrasts tranquility and thunder as James Hetfield chronicles his late mother’s painful battle with cancer, which she lost when he was 16 years old. There is a haunting quality to this song, and the song’s video, directed by Samuel Bayer (who also helmed Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”), features dark imagery inspired by the fantastical and nightmarish paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. The clip won Best Hard Rock Video award at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards.

The opening salvos of “Spit Out The Bone,” with militant riffing and snare rolls, sounds like Mercyful Fate on speed. In fact, this hypersonic, seven-minute epic shows that Metallica certainly haven’t lost their fire or their desire to crank out premium thrash. They also give Robert Trujillo a distorted bass break in the middle. Given the fact that this track came out 35 years into their career, it sounds like the band aren’t just going through the motions here. They mean every note.

This song’s title arosed a little controversy because of the B-word, but anyone listening to Hetfield sing the title would know that he meant “complaint.” Perhaps emphasizing the word by pronouncing it “bit-cha!” didn’t help. Regardless, “Ain’t My Bitch” is an infectious mid-tempo hard rocker of the old school variety that opened the divisive Load album, and it is certainly a standout from any era.

Building upon an initial riff idea from then-newcomer Jason Newsted, who had the daunting task of replacing original bassist and guiding spirit Cliff Burton, this opening track to the fourth Metallica album fades in with backward guitar harmonies before launching into a riff-heavy sonic attack that balances menace with melody. Like “Fight Fire With Fire,” “Blackened” envisions the fiery end of humankind through nuclear war. The song title also inspired the name of Metallica’s future label, Blackened Recordings.

Death Magnetic was the first Metallica album in 20 years to truly recapture the spirit of the band’s thrash heyday. “That Was Just Your Life” rekindled that fire after so much experimentation on the intervening four studio albums. Sometimes you need to try new things in order to rediscover what inspired you in the first place. This opening track from their ninth studio album delivers the goods.

One of the highlights of their debut album, “Seek & Destroy” is heavier on musical might than lyrical insight. One aspect of the band’s first album that continues to impress, especially on this track, is how Metallica sounded so potent while working with such a limited budget. Like a number of their tunes, this one runs a bit long, but if you dig their sound here you’ll just enjoy the ride.

“Moth Into Flame” is the multi-tempo rocker than Metallica performed with Lady Gaga at the 2017 Grammy Awards, and which infamously featured James Hetfield’s vocals muted during the first verse. (We’re showcasing the rehearsal footage that Gaga posted on her YouTube channel.) The lyrics shine a spotlight on the excesses of and desire for fame that can lead to a celebrity’s self-destruction. The story of the late singer Amy Winehouse was reportedly an influence on Hetfield’s lyrics.

One of four headbangers co-written by original guitarist Dave Mustaine on their debut album (“Mechanix” from Megadeth’s 1985 debut is the original version, albeit sped up now), “The Four Horsemen” is one of the many early Metallica tunes to feature apocalyptic and Biblical imagery. At a young age, the Los Angeles-based band, who relocated to thrash-friendlier San Francisco within a year, was already starting to hit their stride. The lyrics here are not super deep (“you’ve been dying since the day you were born”), but there’s still a strong visceral impact to this riff-tastic rocker.

Starting off as an electric ballad in the vein of something from The Black Album, “The Day That Never Comes” follows the structure of “One” in that the song picks up in speed and aggression as it builds. But whereas that other tune is about atrocities of war, this track focuses on vain attempts at father-son reconciliation. (The video, on the other hand, interprets the song differently.) This is not the first time that familial dysfunction has reared its head on a Metallica platter.

One of the fastest tunes on their sophomore album, “Trapped Under Ice” is simple in its lyrical content and execution. But sometimes that’s all you really need when you want to get a metal high. Part of the charm of early thrash like this is the raw, powerful way it hits you in the gut—and that’s why the song still holds up four decades later. Metallica started playing “Trapped Under Ice” regularly again last year after a long hiatus.

One of the band’s big anti-war anthems, the intense “Disposable Heroes” utilized a lyrical approach similar to the one implemented on this album’s title track. Here, one perspective comes from a military commander sending young soldier pawns off to die in war. That is counteracted by words from a young grunt waking up to the horrors of the battlefield and how he’s been programmed into a dangerous role. Essentially, he’s controlled by a puppet master of a different sort. Longtime bassist Robert Trujillo picked this as his favorite Metallica song, citing its “power groove” aspect.

It’s interesting to note that some of the best material off of The Black Album is the mellowest, which goes to show how much the band had been maturing and changing after the initial thrash explosion of the 1980s. The opening seconds of “The Unforgiven” feature an Ennio Morricone film soundtrack cue played backwards. Some fans suspect it’s “The Ecstasy Of Gold,” which the band later adopted as a concert intro. Morricone scored the Sergio Leone spaghetti Western trilogy The Man With No Name, which made Clint Eastwood a star. It’s an unusual musical inspiration that Muse would later explore with the more grandiose “Knights Of Cydonia.” (Fun Fact: Jay-Z sampled the Morricone tune as well.) This Metallica song inspired two sequels, with “The Unforgiven II” from Reload being James Hetfield’s favorite Metallica tune.

An ominous bell tolling gives way to creepy, lurching riffs highly suited for an ’80s horror movie. The dramatic “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” which was the predecessor to “The Thing That Should Not Be” from , was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel of the same name. The book was inspired by the famed author’s experiences as a reporter during the bloody Spanish Civil War, and James Hetfield zeroes in on the horror of one particular moment in the story. “For a hill men would kill, why they do not know …”

Mirroring the opening cut from their second album, “Battery” begins gently with Spanish guitar work before breaking into a thrash intensive track. But unlike “Fight Fire With Fire,” this one is more nuanced with varying tempos. Lars Ulrich’s hyperactive drumming is emblematic of his style on ’80s Metallica in which he throws in a lot of snare and tom fills to make the music feel even more propulsive. It’s catchy as hell too.

Even though there are a lot of people who prefer some of the thrashier cuts on the band’s debut album, this is actually its most memorable. “Jump In The Fire” has an evil-sounding riff, a wicked mid-tempo groove, and incredible guitar work at the end. Kirk Hammett shreds on a solo written by Dave Mustaine, providing an electrifying coda to an already fiendishly fun song.

“Nothing Else Matters” is another ballad from with mellow guitar solos that showcase Metallica’s ability to deliver emotional power through restraint. When the group went on Howard Stern to perform the song with Miley Cyrus in 2021, Elton John called in to discuss his own piano-driven rendition featuring Cyrus singing. and genuinely moved that the Rocket Man called “Nothing Else Matters” one of the best songs ever written. “It’s fucking great, actually,” enthused Elton.

Metallica’s greatest anti-war statement, the pretty acoustic opening on “One” leads to more intense electric passages as James Hetfield adopts the persona of a World War I soldier lying in his hospital bed, his body blown apart, his mind praying for release from the pain through death. Inspired by Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 book Johnny Got His Gun, the video for “One” incorporated footage from the 1971 film adaptation that would later become a cult hit as a result of the song’s success, which included winning the first-ever Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 1991.

The title track to Metallica’s breakthrough album is an epic exploration of drug addiction and features some of the band’s most memorable riffing. “Master Of Puppets” quickly became one of their signature tunes. While it is emotionally wrought and highly charged, the band changes things up with a mellow midsection to counterbalance that energy and aggression with some contemplative moments. Although the lyrical point-of-view is mostly from the mocking and cackling villain of the story, one brief moment has the user crying out in despair against the false promises offered to him.

Of the numerous instrumentals Metallica has done, “Orion” is by far the best and the most cinematic in flavor. Split into three main sections, it opens as a subdued electric rocker that crescendos with intensity, followed by an elegant and delicate middle third, before launching into its galloping final act. The late Cliff Burton’s interest in classical and jazz clearly shines through on this track as he was one of the song’s architects.

“Fade To Black” is an important part of Metallica’s oeuvre. The structure of a gentle acoustic opening with melancholy overtones, leading into the latter half of the song as a faster electric dirge, would influence many other songs, including like “One.” James Hetfield also tackles the subjects of depression and suicide here without actually saying the words, topics that were rarely handled in heavy rock back then.

“Creeping Death” is Metallica at its most entertaining and visceral, from the track. It began as a song in Kirk Hammett’s former band Exodus, and he adapted it for Metallica. This is the revved up retelling of the story of the first Passover, in which the Angel of Death passed over the houses of enslaved Israelites while snuffing out firstborn spawn of the Egyptian people in retribution against their Pharoah. It’s addictive, headbanging fun that also has a great sense of groove. Still a blast!