How Metallica Joined The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2009: Biggest Hits and Legacy
Metallica has been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2009, inducted on their very first year of eligibility. For a band that spent much of the 80s and 90s being treated as too heavy, too fast and too far outside the mainstream for that kind of institutional recognition, getting in on the first try said a lot about how far metal had come by the time the 2000s rolled around.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame itself, based in Cleveland, exists to recognize artists who’ve had a major and lasting impact on the history of popular music. Founded in the mid-80s by a group that included Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun, it runs on a simple eligibility rule: a band can’t even be considered until 25 years have passed since its first commercial release. For Metallica, that clock started with their 1983 debut album Kill ‘Em All, which meant they became eligible in 2008 and were formally announced as inductees in January 2009.
Why is Metallica in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
The induction itself happened on April 4, 2009, at a ceremony in Cleveland, alongside Run-D.M.C., Jeff Beck, Little Anthony and the Imperials, and Bobby Womack.
Metallica became only the second pure heavy metal act ever inducted, following Black Sabbath a few years earlier — a detail the band and plenty of fans noted at the time, given how long metal as a genre had been treated as an afterthought by the Hall. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea did the honors, inducting the band with a story about hearing them for the first time on tour back in 1984. Onstage that night, Metallica played as a five-piece, bringing back former bassist Jason Newsted to perform alongside his replacement Robert Trujillo — Newsted and late bassist Cliff Burton were both formally inducted along with the band’s core lineup of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Trujillo. The night closed with an all-star jam featuring Flea, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Jeff Beck.
Metallica’s Biggest Hits
As for the songs that got them there, Metallica’s catalog is one of the most recognizable in rock, let alone metal. “Enter Sandman,” off 1991’s self-titled “Black Album,” is probably the band’s single biggest crossover hit — the song that introduced them to an audience well beyond the thrash scene they came up in. “Master Of Puppets,” the title track from their 1986 album, is widely considered one of the greatest metal songs ever recorded, and it’s no coincidence the band chose to play both “Enter Sandman” and “Master Of Puppets” at their own induction ceremony. Beyond those two, the hits keep coming: “One,” with its harrowing music video built around the film Johnny Got His Gun; “Nothing Else Matters,” the rare Metallica ballad that became a hit in its own right; “Sad But True”; “For Whom the Bell Tolls”; and “Fade to Black,” an early sign the band could write something other than pure aggression.
More than fifteen years on from that Cleveland ceremony, Metallica’s induction still stands as a marker of when heavy metal stopped being treated as rock’s disreputable cousin and started being recognized, officially, as part of the same story.
