Cover of Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica

Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica

Their roots lie in the heavy rock of 70s groups like Deep Purple. The music they played—heavy metal mixed with punk attitude—became its own genre: thrash. Their bassist died and they survived to became the biggest-selling band in the world. As grunge threatened to overtake them, they reinvented themselves. Then their singer went into rehab and they almost fell apart. They are Metallica, the most influential heavy metal band of the last thirty years.

Read more

As Led Zeppelin was for hard rock and the Sex Pistols were for punk, Metallica became the band that defined the look and sound of 1980s heavy metal. Inventors of thrash metal—Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth followed—it was always Metallica who led the way, who pushed to another level, who became the last of the superstar rockers.

Metallica is the fifth-largest selling artist of all time, with 100 million records sold worldwide. Their music has extended its reach beyond rock and metal, and into the pop mainstream, as they went from speed metal to MTV with their hit single "Enter Sandman." Until now there hasn't been a critical, authoritative, in-depth portrait of the band. Mick Wall's thoroughly researched, insightful work is enriched by his interviews with band members, record company execs, roadies, and fellow musicians. He tells the story of how a tennis-playing, music-loving Danish immigrant named Lars Ulrich created a band with singer James Hetfield and made his dreams a reality. "Enter Night" follows the band through tragedy and triumph, from the bus crash that killed their bassist Cliff Burton in 1986 to the 2004 documentary "Some Kind of Monster," and on to their current status as the leaders of the Big Four festival that played to a million fans in Britain and Europe and continues in the U.S. in 2011.

"Enter Night" delves into the various incarnations of the band, and the personalities of all key members, past and present—especially Ulrich and Hetfield—to produce the definitive word on the biggest metal band on the planet.

Setting
USA
Audience
adult
Length
long · 486 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl Shares music, biography, nonfiction
  2. Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir Shares music, biography, nonfiction
  3. Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga Shares music, biography, nonfiction
  4. Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix Shares music, biography, nonfiction

“People who read Enter Night: A Biography of Metallica tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful
  2. Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath
  3. No Regrets: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir
  4. Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock

“If you want more of the same (biography about music), start with these.”

  1. Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison
  2. Love, Janis
  3. Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed
  4. Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa

“If it was the music that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Petty: The Biography
  2. White Line Fever: The Autobiography
  3. Blind But Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson
  4. Pulsating to the Backbeat: Behind the Ramones

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal
  2. Alice in Chains: The Untold Story
  3. To Live Is To Die: The life and death of Metallica's Cliff Burton
  4. Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge