Megadeth’s Big ‘Risk’ Did Not Pay Off

Once again, it is time for the Defector staff to go into seclusion for our annual company meetings and fall frolic. This year we are gathering in Atlantic City, America’s abandoned playground. We decided to hold a mini theme week to keep the site robust and full of blogs while we’re in meetings. This year’s theme: Risk!

Eight years earlier, Metallica had become the biggest rock band in the world. How they did it depends on who you talk to. The self-titled “Black Album” was either softer, slower, more accessible than their previous epic thrash, a concession to the tastes of contemporary music fandom, or, if you ask an early Metallica fan, they sold out. No matter. They sold. It went 16x platinum. Metallica, once the band of nitrous-huffing burnouts and metal-militia headbangers and your older brother who can’t keep a job and people who thought Guns ‘n’ Roses was for girls, was now MTV famous, solidly mainstream. This was absolutely not a given. It could have tanked. Their fans could have turned on them. Bruce Dickinson, frontman of Iron Maiden, gave Metallica credit for “taking the risk and deservedly reaping the enormous rewards.”