Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Retro Video of the Week: "Hero of the Day" by Metallica

Twenty years ago today, Metallica released their sixth studio album, Load, which has kind of a bad reputation.  Despite the fact that is sold 680,000 copies in the first week, was #1 on the Billboard album charts for four weeks, and has now gone platinum five times over, Load is often reviled by Metallica fans (of course, the die hards didn't like the Black Album, either).  It's not as heavy as their previous albums and seemed to steer away from thrash and metal towards grunge and alternative rock.  As a result, it was considered more "mainstream," whatever the fuck that meant in the very musically diverse 1990s, where pretty much anything and everything was "mainstream."  

The album produced the band's first (and, to date, only) song that reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 ("Until It Sleeps"), but the song from the album I'm going with "Hero of the Day" because I think it has a cooler video (and it did hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks charts).

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