Songoftheday 12/28/17 - Something's wrong shut the light, heavy thoughts tonight and they aren't of Snow White...
from the album Metallica (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from the speed-metal band Metallica, who had first tasted mainstream success in the spring of 1989 with their first top-40 pop hit "One". With the momentum of that success, along with a top ten album behind them (a big thing for that underground type of metal), the group set out to record their eponymous fifth studio album, which was released in 1991. Metallica would become one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, in some part to their first single, "Enter Sandman". Written by lead singer James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich over a riff from lead guitarist Kirk Hammett that has become one of the most recognizable and iconic, the song was actually pretty dark, recalling horror movies involving children, and using kids' rhymes and stories to show a true monster hiding under the bed. The break at the end of the chorus when Hetfield sings "Take my hand we're off to Never-Neverland" still gives me chills...
"Enter Sandman" became Metallica's second top-40 pop hit in October of 1991, spending four months in the top-40. The track also climbed to #10 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio format chart. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Finland, and reached the top ten in Norway (#2), Poland (#4), the UK (#5), New Zealand (#8), Germany (#9), Australia (#10), and the Netherlands (#10). The record also made the top 20 in Switzerland (#11), Sweden (#14), Canada (#17), and Italy (#20). In 1992, the Metallica album won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, and "Enter Sandman" was nominated for Best Rock Song, losing out to Sting's "The Soul Cages". The video won an MTV moonman at the Video Awards Show for best Rock/Metal video.
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Here's the band performing the song live in concert in Russia in 1991...
And again that same year at the MTV Video Music Awards...
In 1999, the band teamed up with composer/conductor Michael Kamen and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for their live S&M album, and of course included their signature song...
Fast forward to a concert in 2009 in Mexico...
And lastly, Metallica from the Los Angeles Palladium in 2017...
Up tomorrow: Southern rock band is overhearing talking.
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