Metallica’s divisive ‘Nothing Else Matters’ was an unlikely hit for the famed metal band back in 1992. With its lovelorn vocals and unusual slow tempo for a notoriously thrashy quartet, its power still resonates with fans today, writes Alex Walden.
Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters is a hot topic of discussion within the band’s fanbase. Either they love it or hate it, and it’s completely understandable as to why. One only has to listen to it once and realise it reeks of the essential formula of an early 90s hit; a gentle guitar riff, soft vocals about true love that slowly increase in ferocity until it all comes crashing down with a classic guitar solo from heavy metal frontman James Hetfield’s which, despite being played on his metal focused ESP MX220 nicknamed the “So Fucking What”, hits as smooth and as mellow as any other classic rock song of the time. But what makes it so iconic when compared to Metallica’s other music?
Lyrically tapping into a wider audience
While it can be argued that its much slower pace compared to the bands previous work made it so iconic, any Metallica fan can tell you that this argument is useless once you consider songs such as Fade To Black and segments of To Live is to Die and Orion from their older projects. It can also be argued that it’s a unique experience due to the raw emotion within the lyrics that was unlike anything else they had done before but songs such as Welcome Home (Sanitarium) and One blow that argument out the completely out of the water. So, what is it that makes this song so special?
The image surrounding Metallica’s “thrash heavy days” in the 80s and early 90s are pretty easy to imagine. After all, these were some young guys obsessed with playing fast and hard and knocking down any obstacle that lay in front of them. I can’t say that I wouldn’t understand if you thought the song is probably about anger, battle, death or some other overly masculine topic that would blow a 9-year-old kids mind when they first heard it in their room (yes that kid is me). Yet with Nothing Else Matters we get something far from this. The song comes from a place of vulnerability and exposure, and you can really feel that when James sings about how he misses his girlfriend at the time.
Granted you can make the argument that it’s a rock song about love in the 90s so it was bound to be a hit, but I think it’s far more than just sell-out success. For a thrash metal band to write a slow ballad filled with woozy lyrics such as “Trust I seek and I find in you / Every day for us something new” and “Never opened myself this way / Life is ours, we live it our way / All these words I don’t just say,” it must have been nerve-wracking for the band to release this to their diehard metalhead fanbase who were expecting some heavy riffs and angry lyrics to accompany it, and that is what makes it so special. Not only is it a love song, but it comes from place of vulnerability, it was a risk for the band.
A new side to Metallica
To understand why this song was such a risk you only need to look at their previous work. In the prior years to Metallica’s ‘black album’, these guys had built a name for themselves by making fast paced thrash songs that would bring out that fire within you like no other band. Don’t get me wrong, Metallica weren’t known for their ground-breaking experimentalism, plus they were yet to earn the respect that other genre defining bands such as Iron Maiden and Motorhead had achieved, but they had become a force to be reckoned with. Even the prince of darkness himself Ozzy Osbourne went on the record to talk about how even as his supporting act for his 1986 tour, Metallica were a tough act to beat.
“They really gave me a run for my money, every single night. They were really hard to follow!”
– Ozzy Osbourne
Metallica were becoming the face of aggressive music and their previous album And Justice For All only further solidified their spot. The album is still regarded as one of the heaviest thrash albums even by today’s standards and you can’t blame them to be honest. These guys were already dealing with traumatic childhoods and navigating fame and then you throw in the death of the bands bassist and unofficial mentor Cliff Burton. You can hear in the music how they didn’t know how to express these feelings except through pure anger. Yet they don’t take this approach in Nothing Else Matters. They do away with the “thrash it all away” attitude and instead they tackle their issues head on and expose themselves in a way that wasn’t done before. It’s as if And Justice For All and the Damaged Justice tour drained them of all the anger attached to their trauma that was used to ignore the problem, and with their next project the band were only left with their sadness which they had no choice but to address. This was more than a song; it was a necessary release for them.
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