...and music history was made

Just about anyone who ever watched MTV in the early 90's remembers Metallica's "Unforgiven," and its accompanying video that an entire generation of head-banging adolescents tried, and failed, to wrap their heads around. Of course, I don't think that was our fault, it still doesn't make any sense whatsoever---what, with the creepy, desicated old man shaking and wearing diapers, and carving weird things in the wall before finally escaping from the prison he walled himself into. I think Megadeth reused the set for "Sweating Bullets" not long after; prison videos were pretty popular with metal groups, I guess.

Anyway, the song still rocks, and retains a unique stigma among Metallica fans. Other than highlighting Metallica's departure from its previous albums, for whatever reason the band just doesn't play it live. I think they forgot the lyrics or something. "And I some-thing Unforgiiivuuuouuuhun, whoah-oh-whoah whoah."

What really sets this song apart from the others is its very unMetalica-like solo, without all the whammy pedalling and high-fretting we were all so used to. Metallica's new sound opened up the heavy metal floodgates to a main stream audience for the first time, and music's been different ever since.

This below clip comes from A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, a "rockumentary" recording Metallica's recording of their black album recording. For anyone who remembers Unforgiven or had a plutonic infatuation with Metallica (or Kirk Hammett, which might not be "plutonic" since it's Kirk Hammett), you'll enjoy this. This is how that solo was born.

In case you don't know, the guy with the long black hair is Metallica's lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett, and at the time, Guitar Player's "Guitarist of the Year"; the other guy is Metallica's producer for that album, Bob Rock. I'm sure you recognize Lars Ulrich, the blonde drummer, from the Metallica-Napster copyright debacle.