Current Directions in Metal Studies

7 The Unforgiven A Reception Study of Metallica Fans and ‘Sell-Out’ Accusations1 Eric Smialek During the 1980s, as Metallica grew in popularity, their quick tempos and complex song structures became markers of distinction from other metal bands, suggesting that they were able to achieve popularity without con- forming to popular song-writing norms. Metallica’s apparent refusal to compromise resulted in an aura of authenticity that would inflate the band’s underground prestige throughout the 1980s. The next decade of Metallica’s career included a series of moves that increasingly alienated many of the band’s fans, tarnishing its reputation to the point where high-profile metal musicians voiced opposition to the band (Christe, 2003, pp. 307, 312–313), and some writers spoke of Metallica’s inauthenticity as though it were a truism. Deena Weinstein (2000), for instance, after detailing many of the changes that fans reacted against, casu- ally referred to a 1998 Metallica concert as a ‘sell-out show’ in her historical summary of metal in the 1990s (p. 290). These reactions would only intensify into the new millennium with Metallica’s lawsuit against Napster, a legal battle that explicitly pitted the band against many of its fans in a way that made Metallica seem antago- nistic, ungrateful, and hypocritical—and perhaps most importantly, as I will later argue, conspicuously wealthy. Controversy surrounding Metallica has lasted well over two decades, touching on multiple issues of sensitivity for fans, including the significance of genre and its relationship with categories of identity, the effect of commerce on musical creativity and artistic moti- vation, and the expectations placed on musicians regarding stylistic change, notions of loyalty, beliefs about authenticity, and the process of aging within a subculture that prizes rebellion. This chapter aims to demonstrate how these concerns impacted Metallica’s increasingly controversial reception, deploying Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of cultural production to explain how fans’ frustrations became compounded over time and how their judgments were informed by broader social belief systems within metal subculture. The Canonization of Early Metallica, or Metallica and Authenticity Although the desire to be independent from mass culture is by no means unique to metal, several studies on metal music and fans have argued DOI: 10.4324/9781315742816-9 The Unforgiven 107 that individualism represents a common value for metal fans (Berger, 1999, pp. 264–269, 286–290; Kahn-Harris, 2007, p. 42; Purcell, 2003, p. 132). While this is most apparent in the kinds of transgression valued by audiences of extreme metal (Kahn-Harris, 2007, pp. 27–49, 127–129ff.), Metallica’s ability to convince fans and critics during the 1980s that they were complex, in control, and independent from the hedonism and overt sexuality of glam metal (Pillsbury, 2006, pp. 57–98, esp. 88–98), a symbol of mass culture for many metal fans of the time, played a central role in their subcultural consecration. For many fans and critics, these qualities were most evident in the band’s lyrics. Several contributors to Metallica and Philosophy devote considerable attention to the emphasis they find in Metallica’s lyrics toward individuality (Nys, 2007), freedom (Fosl, 2007, p. 78; Sotos, 2007), and the rejection of ‘normalcy and conformity’ (Wisnewski, 2007, p. 55). Musically, Metallica communicated these ideals through lengthy, complex songs that emphasize power and control using amplified, high-gain distortion and an emphasis on ensemble virtuosity.2 As Pillsbury (2006) has argued, these stylistic factors played an important role in marketing Metallica as a kind of ‘thinking man’s metal’ (pp. 57–98, esp. pp. 88–98), a stylistically coded affirmation of metal subculture’s tendency to value whiteness over blackness (notable in critics’ celebra- tions of metal’s independence from the blues), masculinity over femininity, and related dichotomies such as the mental over the corporeal and the rational over the emotional. When put this way, there is clearly a conservative element informing the subcultural consecration of early Metallica, one carried over from broader, entrenched societal value systems. This conservative element at least partially explains how the individuality that metal fans paradoxically share is one that is relatively constrained within subcultural norms related to fashion, speech, behavior, and one’s apparent independence from certain symbols of mass culture associated with abject identity categories (Huyssen, 1986, pp. 47–53). This relatively constrained notion of individuality led many fans to feel betrayed when confronted with Metallica’s increasing popularity beyond metal subculture. For them, Metallica’s shifts away from subcultural markers of authenticity were compounded by their suspicions toward the band’s growing mass audience. As Sarah Thornton memorably explained, the phrase ‘selling out’ stands in for this kind of reaction: ‘Selling out’ refers to the process by which artists or songs sell beyond their initial market which, in turn, loses its sense of possession, exclusive ownership and familiar belonging … ‘selling out’ means selling to outsiders. (Thornton, 1996, p. 124; original emphasis). For many 1980s thrash fans, Metallica represented an underground opposition to undiscerning outsiders responsible for saturating MTV’s daily request charts with glam metal. Metallica’s departure from the symbols of individuality and transgression most widely recognized by metal audiences 108 Eric Smialek broadcast an unwelcome message that audiences of underground metal could no longer claim ownership over the band. Especially considering the band’s underground reputation, Metallica’s ’80s albums have sold exceptionally well. Ride the Lightning (1984), Master of Puppets (1986), and … And Justice for All (1988) peaked at Nos. 100, 29, and 6 respectively in the Billboard Top 200 with respective sales currently at over 6, 6, and 8 million units.3 To some extent, these figures suggest a degree of popularity at odds with the subcultural consecration of these records as ‘a distinguished trilogy of albums’ (Pillsbury, 2006, pp. 36–39). At the same time, at least two factors complicate this opposition of economic success with subcultural prestige. For one, the total sales do not necessarily indicate how popular the albums were when they were first released. The albums’ canonical reputation undoubtedly boosted sales since the 1990s. Secondly, the popularity of a wide variety of music labeled ‘heavy metal’ in the 1980s suggests that the Trilogy’s audience was never limited to an underground subculture. As David Brackett (2014) explains, the popularity of heavy metal toward the late 1980s allowed ‘bands like Metallica [to] simultaneously maintain ‘underground’ status and experience mass popularity …’ (p. 400). With … And Justice for All, this situation would change in a way that would profoundly impact the band’s record sales and relationship with fans. Mass Media Recognition, Musical Changes, and Sell-Out Accusations And Justice for All marked Metallica’s first exposure to televised media recognition through ‘One’, the band’s first music video and first Grammy Award winning song. Describing the fan discourse surrounding the release of the ‘One’ video, Pillsbury notes how, despite the lack of supporting evi- dence, fans insisted that drummer Lars Ulrich denounced MTV and denied that Metallica would ever make a video (2006, pp. 152–153). He cites one fan for whom Metallica’s supposed disavowal of music videos acts as a symptom of the band’s shifting values toward the mass-media culture of MTV: ‘Metallica went from being the harshest, meanest fucking metal band, to some Alteri-metal happy MTV shit. […] They said they’d never do a video, that MTV sucked. Look at them now’ (p. 152). Regardless of the falsity of such accusations, they gain momentum through each speaker and listener, resulting in more and more fans’ interpreting Metallica’s videos as symbols of hypocrisy and mainstream media, and thus betrayal. Fans often cite the Metallica album (commonly called ‘The Black Album’) as the beginning of an ongoing selling out process. Metallica would become the first in a series of four Metallica albums to achieve a peak Billboard 200 chart position of No. 1. It also boasted five singles that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song ‘Enter Sandman’ peaking as high as No. 16. According to the Nielson Music 2012 Year-End Music Industry Report, Metallica has become the highest selling album since the implementation of SoundScan.4 To put this into perspective, the 15,845,000 units sold of The Unforgiven 109 the Metallica album nearly doubles the sales of Metallica’s next best-selling record, … And Justice for All, and exceeds the sales of post-1990s releases by Shania Twain (Come on over [1997] 15,524,000), Alanis Morissette (Jagged Little Pill [1995] 14,806,000), the Backstreet Boys (Millennium [1999] 12,209,000), and the Beatles’ compilation of no. 1 hits, Beatles 1 ([2000] 12,139,000).5 Astonishingly, the market success of the Metallica album suggests that a metal record has outsold the best- selling records of such mass- media-oriented genres as country pop, singer- songwriters, and boy bands. To a limited extent, one could explain the sales of the Metallica album by its stylistic changes from its predecessors. While most of Metallica’s ear- lier songs foreground ensemble virtuosity, the Metallica album significantly reduces the importance of that aesthetic. Metallica’s previous emphasis on ensemble virtuosity is now drastically cut in favor of ‘heaviness’, a different signifier of aggression and power. For instance, Metallica reintroduced the middle-frequency range to its guitar timbres in contrast to the previously ‘scooped’ guitar sound.6 In response to a Guitar World interview question about scooping the mids, Kirk Hammett replied, ‘Well, we used to do that […] but while making [the] Metallica [album], we rediscovered mid- range and how much louder and fuller our guitars sound with it in there’ (Quoted in Kitts and Tolinski, 2002, p.

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