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Load is the sixth album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released in 1996. (See 1996 in music). For many fans, Load (as well as its 1997 companion, Reload) marked the end of Metallica. Many felt that the songs weren't in fact heavy metal songs, but instead resembled the then-popular grunge and alternative styles of rock (Metallica's decision to participate in the 1996 Lollapalooza tour--arguably the symbol of alternative rock during the 1990s--only solidified those opinions). The album also marked the first appearance of a new Metallica logo, notably rounding off the stabbing edges of the band's earlier logo. All members of the band had also cut their heavy metal long hair prior to the release of the album, a gesture which seemed to confirm Metallica's separation from the metal tradition for many fans. Adding to this was a series of "Calvin Klein" style photographs in the album's booklet, showing the band swilling brandy and smoking cigars while fashionably dressed, all in a dramatic departure from their usual "street" image.
It's fairly easy to hear what disappointed those fans who had hoped for some return to the style of songs written before The Black Album of 1991. Indeed, if anything the music on Load moves further away from that imagined ideal. Hetfield's riffs dispense almost entirely with most of the sonic markers that characterized Metallica's sound in the 1980s and he actively incorporated a more "bluesy" feel to many of the riffs and vocal delivery. While some critics and historians have argued that heavy metal has always been based on some version of the blues, Metallica and other thrash acts in the 1980s wrote music that made such claims difficult to defend. On Load, however, Hetfield's foregrouning of such "bluesy" components such as pentatonicism and double-stopped bends, and the absence of things such as phyrigian or locrian modalities signaled that this was music of a more "experimental" nature. Vocally, Hetfield now usually sang in a "clean" timbre, without distortion, and freely exclaimed, shouted, as well as let his voice "break" for effect.
Metallica was easily the best, most influential heavy metal band of the '80s, responsible for bringing the music back to Earth.
Metallica expanded the limits of thrash, using speed and volume not for their own sake, but to enhance their intricately structured compositions.
By the '90s, Metallica had changed the rules for all heavy metal bands; they were the leaders of the genre, respected not only by headbangers, but by mainstream record buyers and critics.
Thus, sociologically speaking, the fact that Load, Metallica's first album in five years, recently debuted at the top of the Billboard charts may well mean that we are about to return to an era where thunky metal reigns supreme.
Metallica used to be referred to as the only "smart" metal band on the planet--though what their smarts consisted of, other than not writing songs about beer and broads, was always a bit hazy.
Metallica has actually been much more successful at amalgamating other aspects of hard rock into their mix than most of their ilk, probably because it always eschewed the more obviously offensive aspects of metal to begin with.
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