The Black METALLICA Album Was Released Today 35 Years Ago
Significant longplayers from yesteryear
12 August 2026
Rolling Stone – August 1991
Metal giants METALLICA released their hugely successful, critically and
sales-wise, self-titled album, known as The Black Album, on 12 August 1991,
today 35 years ago. It was their 5th one.
It debuted at number one in ten countries and spent four consecutive weeks at
the top of the Billboard 200, making it Metallica‘s first album to top the album charts.
With over 30 million copies sold worldwide, the record is one of the best-selling
longplayerts worldwide.
The LP was a change in Metallica‘s direction from the thrash metal style of the band’s previous four studio albums towards a more commercial, heavy metal sound. Despite
this, it still had characteristics of thrash metal.
Title: The group had many discussions about the album title. The original working title
was Married to Metal as a result of Hammett, Ulrich and Newsted‘s divorces, but was downplayed as a running joke, according to Ulrich. Other names considered were Five and the title of one of the songs, but eventually chose an eponym because they “wanted to keep it simple.”
Artwork: The album’s cover depicts the band’s logo angled against the upper left corner and a coiled snake derived from the Gadsden flag in the bottom right corner. For the initial release, both emblems were embossed so they could barely be seen against the black background, leading to the LP’s nickname The Black Album.
Rolling Stone said: “Several songs sound like hard-rock
classics. Metallica is an exemplary album of mature but
still kickass rock & roll”.
SINGLE
ALBUM
