50 Best Metallica Songs

BY DAN EPSTEIN, JOE GROSS, KORY GROW

IT’S BEEN JUST over 40 years since James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich formed Metallica, naming their San Francisco thrash band after the music they loved and would spend an unparalleled career transforming. The mix of speed, power, heaviness, and precision they perfected in the Eighties redefined metal, and when they decided to lay siege to the rock mainstream, they did it completely on their own terms. Over the years, they’ve proved their music could be emotionally and musically nuanced in ways that might not have seem possible when they hit the scene with Kill ‘Em All in 1983. Last year, when a huge group of artists, from St. Vincent to Moses Sumney to J Balvin, came together on The Metallica Blacklist to pay tribute to the band’s 1991 classic, The Black Album, it was just more proof of how vast their influence has been.

In honor of Metallica’s amazing run, here are the band’s 50 greatest songs, chronicling the high points for a band that’s never been afraid to challenge itself while remaining true to a core vision and message.

50. ‘St. Anger’ (2003)

After bassist Jason Newstead left the band in early 2001, one of the best-selling bands in human history decided to blow it up and start again. From the bang-on-a-can drum sound that baffled long-term fans to the nu-metal chorus and lyrics that couldn’t sound much more therapy-inflected (from “And I want my anger to be healthy/And I want my anger just for me,” to the immortal “I’m madly in anger with you”), “St. Anger” was the moment Metallica had to revise their music in order to move forward. —J.G.

49. ‘The Memory Remains’ (1997)

If you’re going to have a guest singer on a Metallica song for the first time, it might as well be Marianne Faithfull, the rare artist who can match their steely ability at staring down the dark side of existence. Hetfield sings about a fading Hollywood star clinging to the past on this rewrite of Sunset Boulevard — “Hide and swallow mansions whole/Dim the light of an already faded prima donna.” Faithfull swoops into the song with a grim, taunting refrain. To drive the point home, the spoken-word bit on the outro (“Say yes, at least say hello”) is lifted from the 1961 Marilyn Monroe movie The Misfits. —J.G.

48. ‘My Friend of Misery’ (1991)

The penultimate song on the Black Album, “My Friend of Misery” is that rarest of Metallica songs: a tune co-written by bassist Newstead. Opening with an elegant bass line before moving into one of the band’s patented cinematic intros, it features detailed, Thin Lizzy-ish  solos from both Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, and was slated to be an instrumental until Hetfield put some lyrical loathing on it. (“You insist that the weight of the world/Should be on your shoulders”). The song was covered brilliantly in 2021 by jazz saxophonist and bandleader Kamasi Washington for the tribute album The Metallica Blacklist. —J.G. 

47. ‘To Live Is to Die’ (1988)

This nearly 10-minute instrumental is a tribute to the late, great Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, made up of bits of music the bassist wrote and demo’ed. Burton has a songwriting credit, though Newstead plays on it. A classic slab of Metallica wander, “To Live Is to Die” interpolates a bit of poetry from German poet Paul Gerhardt as the guitar solos harmonize and break off. A fittingly lovely tribute to a musician who was crucial to Metallica’s early days, and everything that came after as well. —J.G.

46. ‘No Leaf Clover’ (1999)

One of two new songs written specifically for inclusion on 1999’s orchestral live album, S&M, “No Leaf Clover” combines the sort of slow-burning arena-rock groove that Metallica perfected in the Nineties with the sweeping grandeur of the Michael Kamen-conducted San Francisco Symphony. Hetfield’s emotional vocals and Hammett’s wild wah-wah solo up the intensity even further, resulting in a performance compelling enough to top Billboard’s Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for seven consecutive weeks. —D.E.

45. ‘Fuel’ (1997)

“Give me fuel/Give me fire/Give me that which I desire/Ooh!” With these noble words, galloping guitar, and drum thunder, Hetfield kicks off Reload, the second of two consecutive CDs that answer the musical question, “What happens when the world’s biggest metal band gets into grunge?” Perhaps paralleling the band’s shift from orthodox thrash and into something more alt-rock, “Fuel” tackles a classic topic: the awesome feeling of driving fast cars. Decades later, “Fuel” continues to light the nitrous and kick ass. —J.G.  

44. ‘Holier Than Thou’ (1991)

Hetfield has a complicated relationship with religion. Raised in a Christian Scientist household, he’s ascribed a lot of his rage to his mother dying of cancer after declining conventional treatment when he was a child. But, as a recovering alcoholic, he is also a big fan of a higher power. All of this comes together in “Holier Than Thou,” a Black Album rager that riffs on the Book of Matthew (“You lie so much, you believe yourself/Judge not lest ye be judged yourself”). Producer Bob Rock thought it might make a good first single for the Black Album. He was wisely overruled. —J.G. 

43. ‘Phantom Lord’ (1983)

Written by Hetfield, Ulrich, and Dave Mustaine, this hard-riffing track — which leads off Side Two of the band’s 1983 debut — proudly wears its new-wave-of-British-heavy-metal influences on its leather sleeve, both with its rampaging musical attack and its lurid lyrical images of battle and domination. But the unexpectedly mellow interlude at the 2:34 mark points to a moodier streak in the band’s music, which will fully flower with 1984’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” —D.E.

42. ‘All Within My Hands’ (Acoustic Version) (2020)

On St. Anger, “All Within My Hands” rumbles along with a unique sort of funky fury that doesn’t quite fit Metallica or even the raw-nerve riffery of St. Anger. The anti-love song (“Love is control,” Hetfield sings) contains weird section changes and grungy, moody departures on which Hetfield literally sighs. Years later, Metallica rejiggered it as a dusty campfire song for their Helping Hands … Live & Acoustic at the Masonic and S&M2 live albums, and suddenly, the tune felt like a fresh, newly inspired, secretly beautiful side of Metallica. “Maybe under every Metallica song there’s something pretty waiting to come out,” Ulrich has posited. —K.G.

41. ‘Until It Sleeps’ (1995)

Fittingly, for the first single off the alt-rock-inflected Load, “Until It Sleeps” sounds like a classic grunge track, clocking in at a lean 4:29 and sporting a watery, fretless-bass opening that likely made plenty of listeners check to see that they purchased a Metallica album. A meditation on Hetfield’s mother’s fatal bout with cancer that proved there was musical and commercial life after the Black Album, “Until It Sleeps” was a smash, hitting Number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and going Number One around the world. An industrial remix by Moby was used as a B side. —J.G. 

40. ‘(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth’ (1983)

The lone Metallica track credited solely to Cliff Burton, “(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth” was a solo instrumental piece — albeit with Ulrich joining in on drums in its final minutes — that the bassist had been perfecting since high school, one which showcased his uniquely dexterous, distorted, and wah-damaged brand of “lead bass.” Just as “Eruption” had done for Eddie Van Halen on his band’s 1978 debut, the inclusion of “(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth” on 1983’s Kill ‘Em All served jaw-dropping notice to the metal world that a new virtuoso had arrived. —D.E.

39. ‘Through the Never’ (1991)

A four-minute banger, “Through the Never” is one of the Black Album’s more straightforward songs — no big concept, no audible aspirations for radio play (except for the comparatively short length), just good old-fashioned American thrash chugging with twin guitar dynamism and lyrics about questioning existence (“Time and space never ending/Disturbing thoughts, questions pending/Limitations of human understanding”). “Through the Never” also served as the title of a 2013 Metallica concert film. —J.G.

38. ‘Hit the Lights’ (1983)

Hetfield and Ulrich were just a couple of pimply teens when they recorded their first composition, “Hit the Lights,” for buddy Brian Slagel’s Metal Massacre comp. Four decades later, it still sounds raw and unrelenting. “Metallica really created a form of music,” Slagel has said. “When they came out, there was no speed metal or thrash metal. They were doing something new, and if you look at bands who are successful, especially in this genre, they have to be doing something different and do it well.” —K.G.

37. ‘The Shortest Straw’ (1988)

A jagged screed against McCarthyism, “The Shortest Straw” is one of Metallica’s most ornate compositions, with a different finger-breaking riff emerging every few minutes and lyrics blasting mass hysteria. “Witch-hunt riding through, shortest straw,” Hetfield barks. “The shortest straw has been pulled for you.” Ulrich would refer to the time they wrote the track as their “CNN years.” “Some of the things on the last album were things that pissed me off,” he told Rolling Stone in 1991. “I’d read about the blacklisting thing, we’d get a title, ‘The Shortest Straw,’ and a song would come out of that.” The song is Metallica at their most extreme, and its brutal technicality is still awe-inspiring. —K.G.

36. ‘Motorbreath’ (1983)

Written in 1981 by Hetfield and his high school friend Hugh Tanner for their short-lived band Leather Charm, “Motorbreath” — which made its recorded debut two years later on Kill ‘Em All — remains the shortest song in the Metallica catalog, clocking in at just three minutes and eight seconds. It’s also the band’s most blatantly Motörhead-influenced track; even without the dead-giveaway title, the song’s punk-edged attack and its lyrical celebration of life in the fast lane provide ample evidence of heavy Lemmy worship. —D.E.

35. ‘Orion’ (1986)

The third (and unfortunately final) Cliff Burton-led instrumental to appear on a Metallica album, the eight-and-a-half-minute “Orion” — which features two different Burton bass solos — moves seamlessly from a heavy groove to a spacey interlude before resolving in a metallic march. “For me, ‘Orion’ was Cliff Burton’s swan song,” Kirk Hammett told Rolling Stone in 2016. “It was a great piece of music, and he’d written the whole middle section. It kind of gave us a view into what direction he was heading. … Our sound would be different if he was still here.” —D.E.

34. ‘Hardwired’ (2016)

“We’re so fucked/Shit out of luck,” growls Hetfield on the title track to the 2016 double-CD epic Hardwired … to Self-Destruct!. (Not a bad prediction, James.) Kicking off an 80-minute double album with 3:11 of pure rock fury (less than half the length of almost every other song on the album), and boiling over with double-kick-drum pounding and old-school thrash fire, “Hardwired” was a tight, focused reintroduction to a band that hasn’t released a new studio record since 2008. —J.G. 

33. ‘Leper Messiah’ (1986)

Though Hammett would later reveal that its title was lifted from David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust,” this punishing track from Master of Puppets has less to do with androgynous aliens than greedy televangelists. “Make a contribution and you’ll get the better seat,” sneers Hetfield, boiling the covenant between the TV preachers and their easily led flocks down to its craven essence. Hammett adds some spicy commentary of his own with a guitar solo that combines melodic arpeggios, blindingly fast single-string descending runs, and some wah-boosted blues licks. —D.E.

32. ‘Ride the Lightning’ (1984)

Metallica borrowed the title “Ride the Lightning,” about a possessed death-row inmate, from Stephen King’s The Stand, and a few riffs for the song from one of founding lead guitarist Dave Mustaine’s leftover riff tapes, which surprised the guitarist when he was forming Megadeth. “There’s certain riffs that you hear, and you just know who the songwriter is,” he has said. He credits the squealy intro and outro to Ulrich, and claims most of the rest of the riffs for himself. “I think they did great with it,” Mustaine said in 2017. “I got over them using my songs a long time ago. You can obsess on shit like that, or you can let it go, and nothing is gonna change it.” —K.G.

31. ‘Eye of the Beholder’ (1988)

With its ominous, slowly faded-in opening and bracing, syncopated chorus, the second single from … And Justice for All is oddly both trimmer and slower than most of  the rest of the album. It’s also one of the band’s more subtly political songs, a probing riff on one of Hetfield’s favorite themes — the struggle of the individual against authority. “Do you need what I need?/Boundaries overthrown/Look inside, to each his own/Do you trust what I trust? Me, myself and I,” he offers. Then the riff punches you back to reality. —J.G.

30. ‘Carpe Diem Baby’ (1997)

With a slinky, swampy guitar riff, some Thin Lizzy swagger in Hammett’s guitar solo, and Hetfield’s urgings to “take this world and shake it” and “squeeze and suck the day,” this Reload deep cut proves the album was more than just a bunch of Load’s leftovers. The song’s bluesy grooves and wry lyrics, like “Wash your face away with dirt, it don’t feel good until it hurts” perfectly capture the essence of what Metallica were going for at the time; it’s heavy and edgy in new ways without sacrificing any of their former power, and its title has become the band’s mantra. Hetfield even has “Carpe Diem” tat. —K.G.

29. ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ (1991)

Often cited as a precursor of thrash metal, “Stone Cold Crazy” — originally written and recorded by Queen for their 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack — didn’t require much retooling when Metallica covered it in 1990 for the Elektra Records 40th-anniversary compilation Rubáiyát. Additional drum and guitar flourishes (and a few Hetfield f-bombs) aside, the band stuck pretty close to the source material, but the results were impressive enough to snag Metallica their second Grammy for Best Metal Performance. —D.E.

28. ‘The Call of Ktulu’ (1984)

Inspired by horror author H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, the ominous nine-minute instrumental that closes 1984’s Ride the Lightning also has a fair amount of Iron Maiden in its DNA. “They [Maiden] had instrumentals on the first couple of records, like ‘Transylvania’ and ‘Ides of March,’” Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone in 2020. “When we were jamming on ‘Ktulu,’ it always felt it had a melodic sensibility and a voice all its own that didn’t need vocals or lyrics. It felt like it had a mood.” —D.E.

27. ‘The Four Horsemen’ (1983)

One of four Kill ‘Em All tracks co-credited to Dave Mustaine, “The Four Horsemen” began life as a song about a sleazy sexual encounter before James Hetfield steered the lyrics in an apocalyptic direction that better suited the raging music. The song’s melodic middle section — added after Kirk Hammett joined the band — may sound a little too reminiscent of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” for some, but the Tony Iommi-esque double-tracked solo that Hammett rips over it is more than worth the price of admission. —D.E.

26. ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ (1984)

Inspired by the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction, the opening track of 1984’s Ride the Lightning begins with a wistful baroque acoustic-guitar figure written by Cliff Burton, which symbolizes the peacefulness of Earth before nuclear annihilation sets in. A master class in playing heavy, precise, and really fast at the same time, “Fight Fire With Fire” features perhaps the most unrelenting 16th-note onslaught in the entire Metallica catalog, as well as some classic Lars Ulrich double-kick-drum action. —D.E.

25. ‘…And Justice for All’ (1988)

The second longest song on …And Justice for All is the title track, a nine-minute, 46-second suite about how money games the court system (”Halls of justice painted green, money talking/Power wolves beset your door, hear them stalking”). Perhaps the proggiest song on a very proggy record, “And Justice” fell out of the live set for years, probably because it was, well, very, very long.  As with all Justice tracks, Newstead’s bass is all but inaudible, giving us all the more room to hear the wiry twin-guitar attack and Ulrich’s drums. —J.G. 

24. ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ (1986)

Loaded with doomy, Black Sabbath-influenced riffage, “The Thing That Should Not Be” owns the impressive distinction of being the heaviest track on 1985’s Master of Puppets. Lumbering ominously forward like an ancient beast god rising slowly from the sea, the song returns to the H.P. Lovecraft works that inspired “The Call of Ktulu,” with Hetfield’s lyrics invoking the Cthulu cult’s prayers for the awakening of the immortal “Great Old Ones,” and the mind-bending horror and evil that will surely result whenever they do return. —D.E.

23. ‘The God That Failed’ (1991)

One of the darkest tracks on 1991’s already none-more-black Metallica, “The God That Failed” finds Hetfield channeling his feelings of alienation and frustration that resulted from being raised in a Christian Scientist household. The bleak, angry lyrics lament how his parents’ unshakeable faith had prevented them from seeking medical treatment for their respective cancers, with predictably fatal results. “The healing hand held back by the deepened nail,” he growls, as the music surges mournfully around him. “Follow the god that failed.” —D.E.

22. ‘Am I Evil?’ (1984)

Metallica have never been shy about acknowledging their influences, often saluting them with covers of their favorite songs. In 1984, their smoking rendition of Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” (recorded for the B side of their “Creeping Death” single) sent American thrash-metal fans frantically digging through record-store cutout bins in search of the English band’s albums — just as, three years later, their Garage Days Re-Revisited medley of “Last Caress/Green Hell” would trigger a whole new wave of interest in the Misfits. —D.E.

21. ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’ (1986)

The closest thing to a ballad on Master of Puppets, “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” was penned by Hetfield after a viewing of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and its desolate lyrics and somber music capture the impotent fury of a man confined to a mental-health facility. Hetfield’s emotionally nuanced performance also signaled a newfound sense of confidence in his own singing. “The improvement [on Master of Puppets] was massive,” album co-producer Flemming Rasmussen told Rolling Stone in 2016. “He was still a bit intimidated by doing vocals, but we did some stuff we wouldn’t have been able to do on Ride the Lightning.” —D.E.

20. ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ (1988)

Clocking in at a concise (at least compared to the rest of the album) five minutes and 45 seconds, “Harvester of Sorrow” was the first single released from 1988’s …And Justice for All, but its bludgeoning midtempo groove and stark lyrical images of a man pushed to madness and murder somehow failed to garner much in the way of U.S. airplay. Still, the song’s stomping beat and bellowed chorus are tailor-made for concert performances, which is why “Harvester of Sorrow” has remained a mainstay of Metallica’s set lists for decades. —D.E.

19. ‘Spit Out the Bone’ (2017)

Metallica’s most punishing closing track since “Dyers Eve,” “Spit Out the Bone” rails against technocracies with precision playing and Hetfield’s all-too-human anger. “Long live machine/The future supreme,” he sings sarcastically between gnarly, Mercyful Fate-inspired riffing. “Man overthrown/Spit out the bone.” “We could be a much more efficient race if we just allow computers to help us,” Hetfield has said. “And, yeah, they are helping us, but how far does that go? All of that craziness. So ‘Spit Out the Bone’ is that your bones aren’t needed. They break.” —K.G.

18. ‘The Unforgiven’ (1991)

“The Unforgiven” is so crucial to the Metallica canon they wrote two sequels to it (“II” on Load, and “III” on Death Magnetic). Opening with a reversed horn sample and rewiring the metal-ballad formula with heavy verses and a largely acoustic chorus, “The Unforgiven” is an absolute epic, a peak for the Metallica and Bob Rock hitmaking team, beloved by all except perhaps poor Kirk Hammet, who was made to replay the bluesy, heart-rending solo many, many times by the rest of the band before settling on a take they liked. Still, it’s a classic for a reason, the sound of Hetfield giving his damaged inner child a much needed hug. —J.G.  

17. ‘Dyers Eve’ (1988)

Metallica have always known how to end an album, and no closing track cuts deeper than “Dyers Eve,” Hetfield’s apoplectic explosion against shitty parenting. “Dear Mother, Dear Father, every thought I’d think you’d disapprove,” he barks. “Curator, dictator, always censoring my every move.” It’s Hetfield at his most vulnerable and his most personal. “‘Dyers Eve’ portrays a child who’s been sheltered from most of the outside world, as I was with this religion that my parents were involved in, Christian Science,” he has said. “That alienated me from a lot of the kids at school.… As a child, it really fucked with me as far as being different from other kids.” —K.G.

16. ‘Jump in the Fire’ (1983)

Another Dave Mustaine composition that found its way onto 1983’s Kill ‘Em All (albeit with substantial revisions from Hetfield and Ulrich), “Jump in the Fire” is a classic slice of early Metallica — fast, uncompromising, and chock full of new wave Of British heavy metal elements. Hetfield’s “message from Satan” lyrics come off as pretty standard Eighties teenage headbanger fare, but the blistering Hammett guitar solo that closes the song still sounds remarkably fresh and legitimately hellacious. —D.E.

15. ‘Blackened’ (1988)

The opening track of 1988’s …And Justice for All, the thrashy “Blackened” set the tone for the rest of the album’s extended, maddeningly complex compositions, packing at least 30 time-signature changes into its 6:42 running time. The first Metallica song to be co-written with new bassist Jason Newsted, who had replaced the late Cliff Burton two years earlier, “Blackened” paints a chilling (and unfortunately still relevant) portrait of the human race destroying itself and taking our home planet down with it. —D.E.

14. ‘Nothing Else Matters’ (1991)

This classic-feeling power ballad about missing home quickly became a fan favorite and a signature Metallica concert moment. Laced with strings (arranged by composer Michael Kamen), acoustic guitars, and one of Hetfield’s more passionate vocal performances, “Nothing Else Matters” is one of the few Metallica studio tracks that Hammett doesn’t play on at all — the solos are pure Hetfield, and some of his best ever, capping one of the band’s most heartfelt and unguarded moments. —J.G.  

13. ‘Whiplash’ (1983)

“We’ll never stop, we’ll never quit, ’cause we’re Metallica,” growls Hetfield on “Whiplash,” a statement of teenage bravado that sounds remarkably prescient nearly 40 years later. Written in tribute to the band’s loyal fans, the song — with its pounding drums, ferocious guitars, and evocative lyrics — perfectly captures the headbanging excitement of attending a thrash show in the early Eighties. Recorded in 1983 for Kill ‘Em All, the song’s badass credentials were further burnished in 2005, when Motörhead covered it for the Metallic Attack tribute album. —D.E.

12. ‘Damage, Inc.’ (1986)

Opening with Burton’s backwards, slowly swelling bass chords that echo Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh,” “Damage, Inc.” lulls the listener into a false sense of mellowness and then absolutely pummels the hell out of them. With its brutal lyrical imagery, merciless thrash assault, and a monster solo from Hammett, “Damage, Inc.” makes a more-than-worthy closing track for Master of Puppets. And though it sadly also marks the end of the band’s Burton era, the late bassist certainly went out on a high note. —D.E.

11. ‘Seek & Destroy’ (1983)

A standout track from 1983’s Kill ‘Em All and a mainstay of Metallica’s set lists for 40 years, “Seek & Destroy” palpably buzzes with the thrill of being a young metalhead heading out for a night on the town with your mates. Audibly inspired by Diamond Head’s “Dead Reckoning,” the hard-chugging song is highlighted by a thoroughly shred-tastic Hammett solo; though the guitarist would later bemoan a couple of “bum notes” he’d included during the rushed recording process, the realness of those stray bends just adds to the track’s excitement. —D.E.

10. ‘Wherever I May Roam’ (1991)

Every generation gets the weird sitar-sounding song it deserves, and the Metallica cohort’s was the smashingly badass “Wherever I May Roam,” which pits an odd guitar intro and guttural 12-string bass against one of the band’s all-time sickest riffs. Another song from the Black Album about life on the road (See also “Nothing Else Matters”), Hetfield belts about being a “vagabond,” while Hammett’s solo is one of his more exotic, busting out the wah-wah and exploring unusual scales. —J.G.  

9. ‘Disposable Heroes’ (1986)

Hetfield was barely 22 when Metallica first performed “Disposable Heroes,” a brutal war epic about a 21-year-old “bred to kill, not to care” and sent off to die, and listening to it now, you can still hear how he inhabited that character like a Method actor from the anger in his voice. The band soundtracked his fury with machine-gun-rattling riffs, expressionist guitar-solo splatter, and death-squadron gang vocals menacingly ordering the soldier “back to the front.” “That song has some of my favorite lyrics that James has written,” Ulrich once said. “He nailed the whole wasted irrelevance of a soldier going off to war and life playing out before his birth.” —K.G.

8. ‘Fade to Black’ (1984)

As thrash’s “Stairway to Heaven,” the first Metallica power ballad is also one of metal’s all-time best. With lyrics about suicidal ideation contrasting with the music’s triumphant structure, “Fade to Black” opens with a graceful acoustic figure and gradually builds into two closing minutes of absolute metal frenzy with twin guitars and a solo that gets more manic as it goes on. All of 20 when he recorded it, Hefield sounds like the depressed, angry teenager he had recently stopped being; no wonder a planet full of depressed, angry teenagers loved it. —J.G.

7. ‘Enter Sandman’ (1991)

The opening track of 1991’s Metallica — and the first song written for the project — “Enter Sandman” heralded a new arena-ready direction for the band, and resulted in their first million-selling single. Though far less complex and more groove-oriented than anything they’d previously done, the song sacrificed none of their prodigious power; built around Hammett’s massive E-minor riff (which the guitarist came up with after listening to Soundgarden’s Louder Than Love LP), “Enter Sandman” measures at least a 9.0 on the Headbanging Scale. And thanks to Hetfield’s sinister vocals and lyrics that ominously transform nursery rhymes and bedtime prayers into nightmarish visions, the song still casts an ominous spell even after countless listens. —D.E.

6. ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (1984)

The first truly straight-ahead metal song Metallica ever recorded, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” ditches the band’s early thrashy attack in favor of a swaggering groove highlighted by Burton’s fuzzed-out, high-register bass lines. (Fun fact: The “bells” on the intro are actually Ulrich banging on a cast-iron anvil with a metal hammer!) Inspired by the scene from Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the same name, in which antifascist fighters in the Spanish Civil War are slaughtered in an airstrike, the song is appropriately dark and brutal; its focused intensity, merciless momentum, and Hetfield’s authoritative vocals mark it as an obvious antecedent of “Enter Sandman.” —D.E.

5. ‘Battery’ (1986)

With its spaghetti-Western-style acoustic figures and grandiose arena-rock guitar harmonies, the first minute of “Battery” opens Master of Puppets in appropriately dramatic fashion, but then it’s off to the races with a bracing thrash assault. A shout-out to the San Francisco metal scene that embraced Metallica early on (the band played a couple of now-legendary 1982 shows at the city’s Old Waldorf club at 444 Battery Street), “Battery” is a reassuring statement of purpose from a band that’s beginning to commercially outpace the rest of the field — no matter how big they get, it promises, Metallica will stay true to the music and spirit that originally sustained them. —D.E.

4. ‘One’ (1988)

Partially inspired by the 1971 film adaptation of Dalton Trumbo’s anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun (scenes from which were interspersed throughout the song’s video), 1988’s “One” gave Metallica their first Top 40 hit — no small feat for a nearly eight-minute metal song about a wounded, limbless soldier who’s unable to see, speak, or hear. A masterpiece of tension and dynamics, “One” uses restrained, scene-setting verses to tee up the crushing chorus of “Hold my breath as I wish for death.” A rapid-fire bridge ratchets up the song’s intensity even further, before it finally climaxes with one of the greatest twin-guitar jams in the band’s entire catalog. —D.E.

3. ‘Sad But True’ (1991)

What may or may not be a mediation on Hetfield’s alcoholism (“I’m your only true friend now/They (They), they’ll betray/I’m forever there”) feels like the first song of the rest of Metallica’s life, the Platonic ideal of a post-pure-thrash Metallica classic. Still heavy but less musically complex than their previous work, “Sad But True” paved the way for a band ready for the big time. It’s had the afterlife of a fan favorite: Kid Rock sampled it for “American Badass,” while there are no fewer than seven covers of the thing on the 2021 tribute album “The Metallica Blacklist,” including versions from Jason Isbell, St. Vincent, and Mexican Institute of Sound. —J.G.

2. ‘Creeping Death’ (1984)

Hammett was still a fresh recruit when his Metallica bandmates raided the demos he’d cut with former band Exodus and found “Die by His Hand,” a whiplash-inducing thrasher Hammett had written at age 16 with a catchy chorus. Hetfield rewrote the lyrics to tell the biblical stories of Egypt’s plagues and Passover, and blended it into a song Metallica were already working on to create “Creeping Death.” The track’s bridge — when everyone starts chanting “Die! Die! Die!” — has become one of the defining moments of Metallica concerts with the audience singing along. —K.G.

1. ‘Master of Puppets’ (1986)

Now riding a new wave of appreciation thanks to Stranger Things, the eight-and-a-half-minute epic title track from the band’s third album is the quintessential Metallica track, the song you’d spin for somebody if you had only one chance to illustrate their enduring brilliance. Kicking off in classic “metal up your ass” thrash mode, “Master of Puppets” densely layers furious guitars over a whiplash rhythm section, while Hetfield howls about the dangers of addiction. Throw in a mournful interlude with gorgeously melodic guitar solos, a vicious rave-up highlighted by a particularly unhinged Hammett lead, and tons of odd meter shifts, and it’s no wonder Cliff Burton called it “the best Metallica song yet” back in 1986. —D.E.  

From Rolling Stone US.