Album of the Day

Metallica was already the greatest heavy metal band of the 1980s when they went to work with producer Bob Rock on their fifth studio release. The self-titled 1991 “black album” would become the band's biggest ever, entering the chart at No.1 and eventually selling more than 13 million copies in the U.S. alone. Metallica's commercial breakthrough owes much to one of the quartet's strongest sets of songs – the dozen originals include “Enter Sandman,” “Sad But True,” “The Unforgiven,” “Nothing Else Matters” and “Wherever I May Roam” - all of which were successful singles. A couple of these were ballads, and though the tempos were sometimes slower and the arrangements streamlined, Metallica was incredibly intense, and the instrumental performances as epic as ever.