KAMASI WASHINGTON

It’s the most ambitious tribute album ever: 53 artists covering songs from The Black Album! From Ghost to Biffy, we speak to some of The Metallica Blacklist’s most exciting – and surprising – participants

“The best moments just appeared out of nowhere”, says Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett of his band’s fifth album. “Parts of it kind of wrote themselves. To me, that’s real magic. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Magic or not, it worked. That record – officially self-titled but, of course, known to the world as The Black Album – is the biggest metal album of the last 30 years, and second only to AC/DC’S Back In Black in the all-time rankings. Since it was released on August 12, 1991, it has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, turning its creators into superstars on a scale that the four greasy street rats who released Kill ’Em All eight years earlier could never have conceived – and casting a monolithic shadow over every other metal album that came after it.

Kirk’s breezy memories of The Black Album’s genesis don’t tell the whole story. Sessions found the band holed up in a Hollywood studio for 10 grinding months, often at war with their new producer Bob Rock, racking up a $1.2 million bill in the process.

“It was tough, but there was never any hesitation or doubt about going down the wrong road”, says Kirk. “When we looked at everything, we fucking knew we had fucking great material.”

Not everyone was onboard with the new, streamlined Metallica of The Black Album, but the sceptics were swiftly steamrolled into the ground as the platinum discs racked up and the audiences grew bigger. Yet this was more than just an unstoppable commercial juggernaut – the success of songs such as Enter Sandman, Sad But True, The Unforgiven and grandstanding ballad Nothing Else Matters pushed Metallica out of the cloistered world of metal into the mainstream. Suddenly The Black Album became the metal album that non-metal fans loved.

And its cross-cultural impact is as relevant as ever 30 years on. A blockbusting reissue of The Black Album is being accompanied by The Metallica Blacklist, an epic compilation featuring covers of the album’s 12 tracks by 53 different artists from all parts of the musical spectrum. Modern metal icons Ghost, Corey Taylor, The Hu and Volbeat line up next to everyone from genre-mashing pop chameleon Rina Sawayama and vein-busting aggro-punks IDLES to reggaeton superstar J Balvin and pop royalty in the shape of Elton John and Miley Cyrus.

“If you’re going to cover a song, put your own personality into it, change it, fuck with it”, says Kirk of the tracks on The Metallica Blacklist. “The more fucked-up these versions are, the bigger the smiles on our faces.”

Today, The Black Album stands as a landmark in metal and beyond. We asked a bunch of the people who covered its songs for The Metallica Blacklist why it’s so important…