{"id":567351,"date":"2026-07-25T09:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567351\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T09:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:35:12","slug":"blackened-by-metallica-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567351\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackened by Metallica: the story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there was one subject that was like catnip to thrashers in the 1980s, it was man-made environmental destruction. Kreator<\/a> had Toxic Trace, Testament<\/a> offered Greenhouse Effect, while Nuclear Assault<\/a> spoiled ecologically minded fans with climate collapse bangers Critical Mass and Inherited Hell.<\/p>\n

Metallica<\/a> made a late contribution with the ecological doom of Blackened<\/a>, the opening track on their 1988 album …And Justice for All<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Opening the album with a theme of apocalyptic annihilation, Hetfield imagines Earth’s destruction in the aftermath of a nuclear winter. If the 1984 film Threads was ever turned into a musical, Blackened would be the showstopper: \u2018Death of Mother Earth, never a rebirth, evolution\u2019s end, never will it mend, never\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The song\u2019s genesis falls squarely at the feet of bassist Jason Newsted, who\u2019d joined the band just weeks after the death of Cliff Burton.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

Blackened (Remastered) – YouTube
\n\"Blackened<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

As bassist in Flotsam and Jetsam, he co-wrote the music on their debut Doomsday for the Deceiver and was the band\u2019s primary lyricist. After recording his parts for The $5.98 E.P. \u2013 Garage Days Re-Revisited<\/a>, he was keen to contribute ideas for their fourth studio album.<\/p>\n

The bassist had a four-track Tascam recorder set up in his Bay Area apartment and kept returning to one particular riff while working on ideas.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe main riff is mine,\u201d Newsted told Guitar World in 2013. \u201cI wrote it on bass, though. I\u2019ve never told this story before, and it warms me a bit. I\u2019d only been in the band for a very short time. I was still in a little one-bedroom rented apartment. And James would come over to the house, like buddies. He\u2019d come over for dinner. We\u2019d hang out and play guitars on the couch. It was pretty fucking dreamy for me. Metallica was my favourite band.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fucking around with this riff and then he started playing along,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe song started forming right at that time. I\u2019m sitting up in my chair, like, ‘Holy shit, dude. This is something!’ That was the first thing we ever constructed together. And him going, \u201cDude, that riff\u2019s good enough to open our fucking album,\u201d really gave me a feeling of victory, because I looked up to him greatly, and still do to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

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\"The\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Blackened Recordings)<\/p>\n

You can hear the song\u2019s progression \u2013 and Newsted\u2019s complex bassline \u2013 through a series of demo tapes included in the 30th-anniversary reissue of …And Justice for All<\/a>. The song would earn Newsted his first of three co-writing credits throughout his 14-year tenure (My Friend of Misery and Where the Wild Things Are would follow).<\/p>\n

On the album itself, Blackened opens with the sound of multi-tracked guitars played backwards which sounds like they\u2019re ominously unraveling. When the song starts properly, it begins quickly and continues apace for its duration.<\/p>\n

You have to really stay on top of all the the starts and stops and tempo changes.<\/p>\n

Lars Ulrich<\/p>\n

Blackened is the seventh fastest in Metallica\u2019s extensive back catalogue, and surprisingly, is a fraction slower than the \u2026And Justice For All closer Dyers Eve. The song averages 190 beats per minute and changes tempo a staggering 19 times. This can pose its own challenges for the band\u2019s timekeeper, especially during a physically punishing two-hour set.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s great when music leaves your head and inhabits your body, but there are some Metallica<\/a> songs where you need to keep thinking,” Ulrich told the BBC. “Like Blackened, for instance, you have to really stay on top of all the starts and stops and tempo changes. ‘Here it comes. Four bars away, I hope I don’t screw this up!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Metallica Blackened Intro – (forwards and reversed) – YouTube
\n\"Metallica<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Blackened debuted at MTK Stadion in Budapest in September 1988 on the Damaged Justice tour and became a regular fixture in the set list, even when their lengthy Justice songs were later condensed into a medley. <\/p>\n

Fast-forward more than three decades, Hetfield looked to this specific track for inspiration during the pandemic. He reimagined Blackened as a surly, apocalyptic cowboy singalong as a way for his bandmates to overcome the challenges of being in quarantine and play music together again, albeit remotely.<\/p>\n

Metallica: Blackened 2020 – YouTube
\n\"Metallica:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

“I kind of got a little annoyed and pissed,\u201d Hetfield told Steffan Chirazi<\/a> for the band’s own So What? fan club magazine. \u201cWhat would be a great thing to reconnect the band again? Why not take a song and just mess around with it? So I got Blackened… I don\u2019t know, there\u2019s just something that clicked for me, and I just said, \u2018Hey, guys, here\u2019s a challenge. I\u2019m going to send you something. You add onto it. You\u2019re musicians.’<\/p>\n

\u201cI had an acoustic mic and my regular vocal mic and just threw it down on a couple different tracks,” he adds. “I said, \u2018Hey, put whatever you feel you want to on this. Let\u2019s have fun with this, don\u2019t study it, don\u2019t over-listen to it, just feel it.\u2019 And Blackened 2020<\/a> is what happened from that, and that was the beginning of the reconnection online with our creative flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost four decades later, Blackened remains a fan favourite and an integral part of the band’s identity, inspiring the name of their record label and American whiskey. It has been performed over 550 times since 1988, including the band\u2019s recent summer show at London Stadium. A masterpiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there was one subject that was like catnip to thrashers in the 1980s, it was man-made environmental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-567351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}