In 1991, Metallica crashed into the mainstream with their fifth, self-titled album, sometimes known as The Black Album due to its sparse black album cover. The 12-song record represented a significant change in style for the band, from heady thrash to more commercially digestible forms of metal, and over the years it became one of the best-selling albums of all time. The Metallica Blacklist is an ambitious tribute to Metallicas best-loved material, collecting four hours of a wide range of artists covering the songs that made up the album. The 53 different interpretations of Black Album tracks include faithful metal renditions (White Reapers chugging take on Sad But True is especially true to form), spiritual jazz (Kamasi Washingtons spacy grooves on My Friend Misery), indie rock reworkings (Phoebe Bridgers especially delicate reading of Nothing Else Matters and St. Vincents hard-edged electro-rock version of Sad But True stand out), drum-n-bass remixes, and many, many other stylistic variations. ~ Fred Thomas
Rovi