“It actually changed something culturally,” Rock said to Reverb in 2017. 5,000,000 copies of Metallica were sold in the US in that first year alone, the record spending four consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 while the band became a bona fide phenomenon. The band didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Rock during the recording sessions for the Black Album, but nobody could argue with the results when it was released on August 12, 1991. With composer Michael Kamen taking care of the orchestral arrangements, Nothing Else Matters was now a stirring, potent power ballad with immense emotional depth.
With the benefit of hindsight – and YouTube – the early version possessed the song’s characteristic emotional depth and fragility, but also lacked the sense of enormity that would ultimately turn it into a stadium-filling anthem.įor that, they could thank producer Bob Rock, fresh from producing Mötley Crüe’s chart-topping Dr Feelgood, who had a few ideas on how they could expand their sound, suggesting they add an orchestral component to the song for an extra touch of grandiosity. Initial reservations aside, Nothing Else Matters was one of four songs the band demoed for their self-titled fifth record on August 13, 1990.
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