black album

The nick name for the self-released album released by the metal band Metallica in 1991. Despite the claims of the millions of defenders of this album, it was the turning point of the band where they lost their thrash status and sold out by releasing more mainstream-friendly, simplified and softened songs. Fans claim it still has their "metal edge" but if anything this "edge" is BARELY there. It has many of their famous songs on it and has sold the most copies of all their albums to date. Nevertheless, the quality on the album is actual piss-poor when compared to their lesser selling previous 4 albums, albums that were actually thrash. In summary, Metallica may have still retained some "metal" status on this album but it was a sell-out effort, the reason being up to this point they were known as the Pioneers of Thrash but then got greedy and changed their sound to be more "experimental", or in actuality, to sell more records.