Hard Rock Music History

Hard rock is a form of rock & roll that finds its roots in the early 1960s garage rock and draws from jazz, blues, rock and roll, and other influences like folk in the case of famed hard rock artist Led Zeppelin who's main writer and composer Jimmy Page was a famous studio musician and expert guitar player who was interested in Celtic and folk influences. These diverse influence can be clearly heard in one of the most influential albums of this style Led Zeppelin 4. Hard rock music 70'sBudgie, AC/DC, The Stooges, MC5, Prong, Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple are also classic examples of early hard rock.

Jimi Hendrix, one of hard rocks founding fathers may arguably be the most influential guitarist and musician of the era and possible all time. His album Electric Ladyland elevated the genre to what many consider to be itsHard rock music highest levels. The music hinted at the future of rock and over 30 years later it is still one of the most influential guitar albums of all times.

This genre achieved its highest popularity between 1969 and 1985 but is still alive and well in other genres in which it has been absorbed. Hard rock was a important departure from the simple blues format used by most of the early rock and roll groups. Hard Rock is a style of music that has been a springboard for many other genres including heavy metal, alternative, grunge, rock, nu metal, college rock, post rock, emo, and many other genres which have incorporated the themes and musical influences of the genre.

Songs in this genre often use pop hooks and melodies with heavy chords and pentatonic scales and can range from short radio friendly songs to long raucous songs which cover most of an album side. Jazz, Blues, and rock & roll combine within the genre and bands typically play loud and anthem driven rock although there is much variation in the genre. Punk rock, Gothic rock, heavy metal, Industrial music, funk, and fusion are all variations of music drawn from the same roots showing how differently music can be interpreted and reinvented.

Stuck In a Moment by U2, Lyrics and mp3's

Here is m favorite U2 song, check this lyrics and enjoy the mp3's


stuck in a moment.mp3 download

"Stuck In A Moment"
by-U2

I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard

I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company

I never thought you were a fool
But darling look at you
You gotta stand up straight
Carry your own weight
These tears are going nowhere baby

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it

Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

I will not forsake
The colors that you bring
The nights you filled with fireworks
They left you with nothing

I am still enchanted
By the light you brought to me
I listen through your ears
Through your eyes I can see

And you are such a fool
To worry like you do
I know it's tough
And you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now
My, oh my

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

Oh love, look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

I was unconscious, half asleep
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep

I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if our way should falter
Along the stony pass

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass

U2 History

Based on wikipedia.org, here is a million copies sold album history.
U2


Background information
Origin Dublin, Ireland
Genre(s) Rock
Post-punk
Alternative rock
Years active 1976 — present
Label(s) Interscope (1997-present)
Island (1979-1997)
Website www.u2.com
Members
Bono
The Edge
Adam Clayton
Larry Mullen Jr.

U2 are a rock band from Dublin, Ireland. The band consists of Bono (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), The Edge (lead guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals), Adam Clayton (bass guitar), and Larry Mullen Jr. (drums and percussion). U2 have been one of the most popular acts in the world since the mid-1980s. The band has sold more than 170 million albums worldwide, and has won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other rock band.

U2 formed in 1976 when the members were teenagers with limited musical proficiency. By the mid-1980s, however, the band had become a top international act, noted for its anthemic sound, Bono's impassioned vocals, and The Edge's textural guitar playing. Their success as a live act was greater than their success as a record-selling act until their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, brought them mega-stardom. Their 1991 album Achtung Baby and the accompanying Zoo TV Tour were part of a significant reinvention for the band; it was a response to their own sense of musical stagnation, the dance and alternative rock revolutions, and criticism of their image. This experimentation continued for the rest of the 1990s.

In the early years of the 21st century, U2 have pursued a more traditional sound while maintaining influences from their previous musical explorations. They continue to enjoy high levels of commercial and critical success. The band are active in human rights, international development, and social justice causes, such as Amnesty International, Make Poverty History, the ONE Campaign, Live Aid, Live 8, Bono's DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa) campaign, and Music Rising.

U2 formed in Dublin, Ireland on 25 September 1976.Larry Mullen Jr, then fourteen, posted a notice on his secondary school notice board (Mount Temple Comprehensive School) seeking musicians for a new band. Seven teenage boys attended the initial practice in Mullen's kitchen. Known for about a day as "The Larry Mullen Adventure," the group featured Mullen on drums, Adam Clayton on bass guitar, Paul Hewson (Bono) on lead vocals, Dave Evans (The Edge) and his brother Dick Evans on guitar, as well as Ivan McCormick and Peter Martin, two other friends of Mullen. Soon after, the group settled on the name "Feedback", because it was one of the few technical terms they knew. Martin did not return after the first practice, and McCormick left the group within a few weeks.

We couldn't believe it. I was completely shocked. We weren't of an age to go out partying as such but I don't think anyone slept that night....Really, it was just a great affirmation to win that competition, even though I've no idea how good we were or what the competition was really like. But to win at that point was incredibly important for morale and everyone's belief in the whole project.

— The Edge on winning the CBS competition

In March 1977, the band changed its name to "The Hype". Dick Evans, who was older and by this time at college, was becoming the odd man out as the rest of the band was leaning towards the idea of a four-piece ensemble; he was 'phased out' in March 1978. During a farewell concert in the Presbyterian Church Hall in Howth, which featured The Hype playing covers, Dick ceremoniously walked offstage. The remaining four band members completed the concert playing original material as "U2". The origin of the name "U2" is unclear; on a list of six names provided by the Dublin punk rock guru Steve Averill, "U2" was chosen for its ambiguity and open-ended interpretations, and because it was the name that the members of the band disagreed with the least.

On Saint Patrick's Day in 1978, U2 won a talent show in Limerick, Ireland. The prize consisted of £500 and funding to record a demo, which was an important milestone and affirmation for the fledgling band. The band recorded its first demo tape at Keystone Studios, in Harcourt Street, Dublin, in April 1978. In May, Paul McGuinness, who had earlier been introduced to the band by Hot Press journalist Bill Graham, agreed to be U2's manager. U2's first release, an Ireland-only EP entitled Three, was released in September 1979, and was the band's first Irish chart success. In December 1979, U2 performed in London for their first shows outside Ireland, although they failed to get much attention from audiences or critics. In February 1980, their second single "Another Day" was released on the CBS label, but again only for the Irish market.

Boy, October, and War (1980 – 1983)

Island Records signed U2 in March 1980, and "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" became the band's first internationally released single that May. The band's debut album, the Steve Lillywhite-produced Boy, followed in October, and was praised as one of the better debuts in rock history. Although Bono's lyrics were unfocused and seemingly improvised, common themes appeared that described the hopes and frustrations of adolescence, such as fear over sex, identity confusion, death, and uncontrollable mood swings. The album included the band's first UK hit single, "I Will Follow". Boy's release was followed by U2's first tour of continental Europe and the United States. Despite being unpolished, these early live performances demonstrated U2's potential, as critics noted that Bono was a "charismatic" and "passionate" showman. The band's second album, October, was released in 1981 and contained overtly spiritual themes; Bono, The Edge, and Mullen had joined a Christian group in Dublin called the 'Shalom Fellowship', which led them to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle.

Resolving the doubts of the October period, U2 released War in 1983. A record where the band "turned pacifism itself into a crusade," War's sincerity and "rugged" guitar was intentionally at odds with the "cooler" synth-pop of the time. The album included "Sunday Bloody Sunday," where Bono had lyrically tried to contrast the events of Bloody Sunday with Easter Sunday. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the song showed the band was capable of deep and meaningful songwriting. War was U2's first album to feature the photography of Anton Corbijn, who remains U2's principal photographer and has had a major influence on their vision and public image. U2's first commercial success, War debuted at #1 in the United Kingdom, and its first single, "New Year's Day", was the band's first overseas hit.

On the subsequent War Tour, the band performed to sold-out concerts in mainland Europe and the U.S. The image of Bono waving a white flag during performances of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" became a familiar sight. U2 recorded the Under a Blood Red Sky live album on this tour and a live video was released, both of which received extensive play on the radio and MTV, helping expand the band's audience. Their generally unfavourable record deal with Island Records was coming to an end, and in 1984 U2 signed an unusually lucrative extension. Forgoing a larger initial payment, they instead negotiated the return of their copyrights (such that they owned the rights to their own songs), an increase in their royalty rate, and a general improvement in terms.

The Unforgettable Fire and Live Aid (1984 – 1985)

We knew the world was ready to receive the heirs to The Who. All we had to do was to keep doing what we were doing and we would become the biggest band since Led Zeppelin, without a doubt. But something just didn't feel right. We felt we had more dimension than just the next big anything, we had something unique to offer. The innovation was what would suffer if we went down the standard rock route. We were looking for another feeling.

The Unforgettable Fire was released in 1984. Ambient and abstract, it was at the time the band’s most marked change in direction.[38] The band feared that following the overt rock of the War album and tour, they were in danger of becoming another "shrill", "sloganeering arena-rock band". Thus, rather than become another formula band, experimentation was sought; as Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty." The Edge admired the ambient and 'weird works' of Brian Eno, who, along with his engineer Daniel Lanois, eventually agreed to produce the record.

The Unforgettable Fire has a rich and orchestrated sound. Under Lanois' direction, Larry's drumming became looser, funkier, and more subtle and Adam's bass became more subliminal; the rhythm section no longer intruded, but flowed in support of the songs. Complementing the sonic atmospherics, the album's lyrics are open to many interpretations, providing what the band called a "very visual feel". Bono's recent immersion in fiction, philosophy, and poetry made him realise that his songwriting mission — about which he had always been reluctant — was a poetic one. Due to a tight recording schedule, however, Bono felt songs like "Bad" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" were incomplete "sketches". "Pride (In the Name of Love)", about Martin Luther King, was the album's first single and became the band's biggest hit at that point, being their first to enter the U.S. top 40.
Music sample:
"The Unforgettable Fire" (1984)

Much of the Unforgettable Fire Tour moved into indoor arenas as U2 began to win their long battle to build their audience. Translating the complex textures of the new studio-recorded tracks, such as "The Unforgettable Fire" and "Bad", to live performance was problematic. One solution was programmed sequencers, which the band had previously been reluctant to use, but are now used in the majority of the band's performances. Songs criticised as being "unfinished", "fuzzy", and "unfocused" on the album made more sense on stage.


U2 participated in the Live Aid concert for Ethiopian famine relief at Wembley Stadium in July 1985. U2's performance was considered one of the show's most memorable and was a turning point in the band's career. During the song "Bad", Bono leapt down off the stage to embrace and dance with a fan, showing a television audience of millions the personal connection that Bono could make with audiences. In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine called U2 the "Band of the 80s," saying that "for a growing number of rock-and-roll fans, U2 have become the band that matters most, maybe even the only band that matters."

The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum (1986 – 1989)

Friendships with Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and Keith Richards encouraged the band to look back to the roots of rock music and focused Bono on his skills as a song and lyric writer.[53] Realising "that U2 had no tradition, we were from outer space", the band explored American blues, country, and gospel music. The band wanted to build on The Unforgettable Fire's atmospherics, but instead of its out-of-focus tracks, they sought a harder-hitting sound within the strict discipline of conventional song structures.

U2 interrupted their 1986 album sessions to serve as a headline act on Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope Tour; but rather than be a distraction, the tour added extra intensity and power to their new music. In his 1986 travels to San Salvador and Nicaragua, Bono saw the distress of peasants bullied in internal conflicts subject to American political intervention; this first-hand experience later became a central influence on the album. The album juxtaposes antipathy towards America against the band's deep fascination with the country, its open spaces, freedom, and what it stands for. The band wanted music with a sense of location, a 'cinematic' quality; the album's music and lyrics draw on imagery created by American writers whose works the band had been reading.

The wild beauty, cultural richness, spiritual vacancy and ferocious violence of America are explored to compelling effect in virtually every aspect of The Joshua Tree — in the title and the cover art, the blues and country borrowings evident in the music...Indeed, Bono says that "dismantling the mythology of America" is an important part of The Joshua Tree's artistic objective.

The Joshua Tree—so named as a "tribute" to, rather than a "metaphor" for, America—was released in March 1987. It became the fastest-selling album in British chart history, and was number one for nine weeks in the United States. It won U2 their first two Grammy Awards. The album's first two singles, the 'rock & roll bolero "With or Without You" and the rhythmic gospel "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", quickly went to #1 in the U.S. U2 became the fourth rock band to be featured on the cover of Time magazine, which declared U2 "Rock's Hottest Ticket". The album brought U2 to a new level of mega-stardom and is cited by Rolling Stone as one of rock's greatest. The Joshua Tree Tour, the first during which the band consistently played in stadiums, sold out arenas and stadiums around the world.

The documentary Rattle and Hum featured footage recorded from The Joshua Tree Tour, and the accompanying double album of the same name included nine studio tracks and six live U2 performances. Released in record stores and cinemas in October 1988, the album and film were intended as a tribute to American music. The film included tracks recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis and tracks performed with Bob Dylan and B.B. King. Despite a positive reception from fans, Rattle and Hum received mixed-to-negative reviews from both film and music critics. The band did not tour in support of the album except for the brief Lovetown Tour, which primarily consisted of shows in Australia. With a sense of musical stagnation, Bono announced at an end-of-decade concert that the weary U2 had come to the end of an era and had to "...go away and just dream it all up again".

Achtung Baby, Zoo TV, and Zooropa (1990 – 1993)

Buzzwords on this record were trashy, throwaway, dark, sexy, and industrial (all good) and earnest, polite, sweet, righteous, rockist and linear (all bad). It was good if a song took you on a journey or made you think your hifi was broken, bad if it reminded you of recording studios or U2...Berlin became a conceptual backdrop for the record. The Berlin of the Thirties — decadent, sexual and dark — resonating against the Berlin of the Nineties — reborn, chaotic and optimistic...

In November 1991, U2 released Achtung Baby. Hurt by criticism of Rattle and Hum, the band made a calculated change in musical and thematic direction, their most audacious since The Unforgettable Fire. Sonically, Achtung Baby incorporated dance, industrial, and alternative music influences of the time; the band referred to the album as the sound of "four men chopping down the Joshua Tree". Thematically, it was a more inward-looking and personal record; it was darker, yet at times more flippant, than the band's previous work. Commercially and critically, it has been one of the band's most successful albums and a crucial part of the band's early 1990s reinvention. Like The Joshua Tree, it is cited by Rolling Stone as one of rock's greatest.

The band initially worked on Achtung Baby in East Berlin, seeking inspiration and renewal on the eve of German reunification. Daniel Lanois produced the album with assistance from Brian Eno. In the Berlin sessions, conflict arose within the band over the quality of material and musical direction. While Adam and Larry preferred a sound similar to U2's previous work, Bono and The Edge were inspired by alternative and European dance music and advocated a change. Weeks of slow progress, arguments, and tension subsided when the band rallied around a chord progression The Edge had written, creating the song "One".

The Zoo TV Tour of 1992-1993 was a multimedia event, and showcased an extravagant but intentionally bewildering array of hundreds of video screens, upside-down flying Trabant cars, mock transmission towers, satellite TV links, subliminal text messages, and Bono's over-the-top stage characters such as "The Fly", "Mirror-Ball Man", and "(Mister) MacPhisto". The extravagant shows were intentionally in contrast to the austere staging of previous U2 tours, and mocked the excesses of rock and roll by appearing to embrace these very excesses. The shows were, in part, U2's way to represent the pervasive nature of cable television and its blurring of news, entertainment, and home shopping. Prank phone calls were made to President Bush, the United Nations, and others. Live satellite uplinks to war-torn Sarajevo caused controversy.

Quickly recorded and released during a break in the Zoo TV tour in mid-1993, the Zooropa album continued many of the themes from Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV tour. Initially intended as an EP, the band expanded Zooropa into a full-length LP album. It was an even greater departure from the style of their earlier recordings, incorporating techno influences and other electronic effects. Most of the songs were played at least once during the 1993 leg of the tour, which extended through Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan; half the album's tracks became fixtures in the set.

Passengers, Pop, and Popmart (1995 – 1998)

It's not enough to write a great lyric; it’s not enough to have a good idea or a great hook, lots of things have to come together and then you have to have the ability to discipline and screen. We should give this album to a re-mixer, go back to what was originally intended, so that 'Mofo' is on top of the stickiest groove with a proper plastic attack, 'Do You Feel Loved' is done as a liquid base line hook that carries the intimacies whispered on top of it, 'If God Will Send His Angels' should be diamonds and pearls.

Bono on Pop

In 1995, U2 released an experimental album called Original Soundtracks 1. Brian Eno, producer of three previous U2 albums, contributed as a full partner, including writing and performing. For this reason, and due to the record's highly experimental nature, the band chose to release it under the moniker "Passengers" to distinguish it from U2's conventional albums. It was commercially unnoticed by U2 standards and it received generally poor reviews. However, the single "Miss Sarajevo" featuring Luciano Pavarotti, and which Bono cites as one his favourite U2 songs, was a hit.

On 1997's Pop, U2 continued experimenting; tape loops, programming, rhythm sequencing, and sampling provided much of the album with heavy, funky dance rhythms. Released in March, the album debuted at #1 in 35 countries, and drew mainly positive reviews; Rolling Stone stated that U2 had "defied the odds and made some of the greatest music of their lives." Others, particularly American fans, felt that the album was a major disappointment, and it was commercially disappointing by U2 standards.[citation needed] The band was hurried into completing the album in time for the impending pre-booked tour, and Bono admitted that the album "didn't communicate the way it was intended to".

The subsequent tour, Popmart, commenced in April 1997, and continued the Zoo TV theme of decadence. The set included a 100-foot tall golden yellow arch, a 150-foot long video screen, and a 40-foot tall mirrorball lemon. Like Zoo TV, it featured advertising influences and was intended to send a sarcastic message to those accusing U2 of commercialism. U2's "big shtick" failed, however, to satisfy many who were seemingly confused by the band's new kitsch image and elaborate sets. The late delivery of Pop meant rehearsal time was severely reduced, and performances in early shows suffered. A highlight of the tour was a concert in Sarajevo where U2 were the first major group to perform following the Bosnian war. Larry Mullen Jr. described the concert as "an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life, and if I had to spend 20 years in the band just to play that show, and have done that, I think it would have been worthwhile."

"Reapplying for the best band in the world" (2000-present)

All That You Can't Leave Behind is easy to relate to, full of solid songs that appeal to a wide audience with its clear notions of family, friendship, love, death, and re-birth. More Lanois than Eno on first impression, the sounds on this album come from a band that has digested the music it started to consume while making Rattle and Hum. This time they are neither imitating or paying tribute. This time it's soul music, not music about soul.

Caroline van oosten de Boer

Following the comparatively poor reception of Pop, U2 declared on a number of occasions that they were "re-applying for...The best band in the world".[94] Since 2000, the band has pursued a more traditional sound while maintaining influences from their previous musical explorations.[95] All That You Can't Leave Behind was released in October 2000 and reunited the band with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. The album was considered by many of those not won over by the band's 1990s experimentation as a return to grace;[96] Rolling Stone called it U2's "third masterpiece" alongside The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.[97] The album debuted at #1 in 22 countries[98] and its world-wide hit single, "Beautiful Day" earned three Grammy Awards. The album's other singles, "Walk On", "Elevation", and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" also won Grammy Awards.

For the Elevation Tour, U2 performed in a scaled-down setting, returning to arenas after nearly a decade of stadium productions. A heart-shaped stage and ramp permitted greater proximity to the audience. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the new album gained added resonance. In October, U2 performed a series of sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City.[citation needed] In later interviews, Bono and the Edge would call these New York City shows among their most memorable and emotional performances.[citation needed] In early 2002, U2 performed during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI.

The band's next studio album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, was released on 22 November 2004. Sonically, the band was looking for harder-hitting rock than All That You Can't Leave Behind. Thematically, Bono states that "A lot of the songs are paeans to naiveté, a rejection of knowingness." The first single "Vertigo" was featured on a widely-aired television commercial for the Apple iPod in conjunction with the release of a special edition U2 iPod and an iTunes U2 box set. The album debuted at #1 in 32 countries; first week sales in the US doubled that of All That You Can't Leave Behind and set a record for the band. Claiming it as a contender as one of U2's three best albums, Bono said, "There are no weak songs. But as an album, the whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts, and it fucking annoys me." Using a similar setup and stage design as the previous tour, the Vertigo Tour featured a setlist that varied more across dates than any U2 tour since the Lovetown Tour, and included songs not played since the early 1980s. Much like the Elevation Tour, the Vertigo Tour was a large commercial success. The album and its singles won Grammy Awards in all eight categories they were nominated in. In 2005, Bruce Springsteen inducted U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Progressive Rock History

Progressive rock is a very general and intertwined genre of music which got its start in the late 60s, and continues to this day. Progressive rock is often lumped together with other similar genres like art rock, symphonic rock, and progressive heavy metal. The artists try to take the roots of rock and apply them to a Progressive rock musicmore classically influenced structure. The music is often very elaborate and generally requires very exceptional musicians with a great deal of talent. It is not unusual for prog rock pieces to be very lengthy in some cases they are over an hour in length. Echoes by Pink Floyd is an early example of this phenomenon and the tradition continues to this day in other pieces like Garden of Dreams by the Flower Kings to name just one.

It is also not unusual for the songs to be subdivided in to sub-pieces, a normal device in classical composing. The lyrics are complex and carefully constructed, coving an almost limitless subject matter including but not limited to social and political commentary. Another staple of the genre is albums incorporating a theme or set of themes like Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis, and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd or more recentlyProgressive rock music, King Crimson, Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Dream Theater, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Marillion, Spock's Beard, Flower Kings, Symphony X Snow by Spock's Beard. Some of the unusual devices used in this style of music are unusual vocal phrasing, use of classical or electronic instruments, layered vocal harmonies, unusual or multiple time signatures, liberal use of techniques from other genres, unusual scales and tunings, incredibly complex instrumental moments or solos, and multiple tempos. Rush released their pivotal Fly By Night album the band changed its approach to create music some argue is the cornerstone for the movement. They continued to push the envelope of music on albums like Hemispheres and A Farewell to Kings defining and redefining the genre as they went. Bands like King Crimson, Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Dream Theater, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Marillion, Spock's Beard, Flower Kings, and Symphony X are also all classic examples of progressive rock.

First appearing in the 60s it gained its greatest critical acclaim when it surpassed the popularity of traditional rock in the mid 70's. With the advent of punk rock in the late 70s, the genre began to wane in popularity but it still has a very dedicated and Progressive rock bandsloyal following up to present day. In the early 80s a new generation of bands sometimes called neo-progressive, for example Marillion and others, began to regain some of the popularity enjoyed by their predecessors. Also some of the original prog rock bands began to garner more mainstream success simplifying their music to reach a wider audience. Genesis and Yes both had big hits which retained the elements of progressive rock while remaining accessible enough to become a part of the pop movement. In the 90s progressive metal began to show up and the genre changed returning to the less commercial roots of the movement incorporating long and un-commercial songs which made no excuses for their progressive roots. Groups like Radiohead, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Sigur Ros are new bands which have roots in progressive rock and fused with elements of punk rock creating a very interesting mixture.

Korn History

Drummer David Silveria, guitarist Munky (a.k.a. James Shaffer) and bassist Fieldy (Reginald Arvizu) were involved with Rick Morrill-fronted hair band L.A.P.D. (Love And Peace Dude). It was later changed to stand for Laughing As People Die in order to be taken more seriously as a band. During the mid-80s, Fieldy and Head (Brian Welch) were also members of glam rock outfit Rag Tyme. 'Head' took his nickname, an unwanted one, not from any sexual connotation, but from the large size of his head, 'Munky' a reference to primate like feet whilst 'Fieldy' was an abbreviation of 'Garfield', in honour of the bassist's prominent cheeks. Bizarrely, Arvizu had also temped for a Keith Galloway-fronted band named Pretty Boy Floyd, although not the familiar glam outfit of the same title. L.A.P.D. undertook gigs around southern California and contracted a label deal with independent label Triple-X Records, resulting in a 12" single and an album entitled 'Who's Laughing Now', both released in 1992. When L.A.P.D. folded, due to time honoured musical differences, Morrill forged Supermodel with erstwhile Sexart personnel.

During 1993 Davis got together with Human Waste Project for their first demo tape dueting with vocalist Aimee Echo on a strictly non-saccharine cover version of 'This Town' by The Go-Go's. This recording was to be unearthed on a subsequent Korn bootleg. (Such was the fascination between fans of both bands that during late 1997 the acts convened once more in the recording studio to lay down a further take on the song interbred for use as a Korn single B side).

Munky, Head, Fieldy and Silveria had meantime assembled Creep. Whilst on the lookout for a singer Silveria was headhunted for Mike Muir's Infectious Grooves, but opted to remain with his colleagues. Whilst on the hunt for a singer the quartet spotted Davis performing with Sexart at John Bryan's Bar. Auditions in Huntington Beach secured the band's new frontman. Before long, Davis had re-christened the group Korn, developing the logo with the infantile reversed 'R'. The band released their debut album, Korn, through Epic/Immortal Records in October, 1994. Korn is arguably the album most responsible for the rise of nu metal and has been a vital influence to legions of other bands of the genre including Limp Bizkit, Coal Chamber, Adema, and Slipknot, earning Korn the frequent nickname 'godfather of nu-metal.'

The band followed up their debut album with their second album, Life Is Peachy, in October, 1996. The album was more successful than their first, debuting at No.3 on The Billboard 200. It spawned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance in the song "No Place to Hide." The album's release featured the first live internet broadcast by the band, and thus Korn became the first music artist to appear live on the internet to promote their new LP. Korn performed songs from the new album and took calls from internet fans watching at home. The event was hosted by longtime Korn friend, Adam Carolla, known best for his hosting of Loveline. The online performance was one of the first of its kind and helped launch Korn's internet presence which soon became a predominant part of their marketing and availability to fans.

In late 1997 the band formed their own label, Elementree Records. The first band they signed was Orgy (featuring former members of Davis' old band Sexart), who became successful with their debut album "Candyass," which was certified platinum. Over the next few years they signed such acts as Videodrone, rapper Marz, and Deadsy.

Prior to the release of the band's 3rd album, Korn was featured once a week on their internet TV show, KornTV, which showed behind the scenes of the making of the record as well as special guests such as porn star Ron Jeremy, Limp Bizkit, 311 and many more. It also gave fans the chance to call in and ask the band questions. Korn was already ahead of the game by utilizing the internet to reach their fans. August 1998 saw Korn at their peak as they released their third album, Follow the Leader. It is generally recognized as their breakthrough album, and the album that ultimately ushered nu metal into the mainstream. It featured a number of guest vocalists such as Ice Cube, Tre Hardson from the Pharcyde and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. Korn launched a whirlwind political campaign-style tour (from August 17, 1998 in Los Angeles through September 1 in Phoenix) to promote the release of Follow the Leader. It took the group all over North America to spread the news of their "Family Values" platform to hordes of fans at special "fan conferences" that were organized at every stop along the tour route. Korn chartered a jet, which took them to record stores in such cities as Riverside (CA), San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Toronto, Atlanta, and Dallas. They talked to fans at every stop, answered questions during the special "fan conferences" and signed autographs. Jim Rose hosted the entire "Kampaign" tour. Celebrities at various stops included Ice Cube and Todd McFarlane. The album was a success, reaching No.1 on the U.S. and Canadian charts and spawning the singles "Got the Life" and "Freak On A Leash." Follow The Leader debuted at the #1 slot in Canada, New Zealand and Australia; #4 in Finland; #5 in France, the UK and Norway; #8 in Japan; #10 in Holland; #12 in Germany; and it registered the highest debut on the Pan European "Music & Media" chart (at #6). The animated segments in the video for "Freak On A Leash" were directed by Todd McFarlane (creator of the Spawn comic book and a former artist for Spider-Man comics), who also drew the cover for the album. The live action in the video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, used innovative techniques which featured 'the magic bullet' that the camera followed through various scenes as well as a performance of the band in a Twilight Zone like room. "Freak on a Leash" won a Grammy for Best Video (Short Form), earned 9 Mtv Awards nominations, for: Video of the Year, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Viewer's Choice. Eventually it won 2, for: Best Rock Video, and Best Editing. Follow the Leader is the band's most commercially successful album, being certified 5x Platinum by the RIAA and having sold almost 10 million copies worldwide.

The same year Follow the Leader was released, Korn started their own annual heavy metal tour called the Family Values Tour. That year they headlined the tour along with Incubus, Orgy, Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube and Rammstein. It was highly successful tour, there was a live CD and DVD from Family Values Tour'98 which earned gold and platinum status, respectively. In 1999, Limp Bizkit headlined, along with Primus, Staind, Korn, The Crystal Method, and Filter. Korn were not featured on the bill and instead only made surprise appearances at a few of the tour's stops to perform their first single off of their next album, "Falling Away From Me." The tour took a break in 2000 due to heavy competition.

In 1999 Korn performed at Woodstock '99 on 23th July in front of 250,000 fans. The band cites its performance as one of its most memorable moments.

The band's next album, Issues, was released in November 1999. The album debuted at #1 on The Billboard 200 and was certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA, following up the success of Follow the Leader. It featured a broader range of styles and vocals compared to previous albums. To celebrate the album's release, the band performed the record in its entirety in front of a live audience at New York's historic Apollo Theater and broadcast the concert simultaneously across many radio stations. This performance made Korn only the second white musical group to ever perform at The Apollo after the legendary Buddy Holly in the late 1950's. This special event featured the NYPD marching drum and bagpipe band as well as a group of back-up singers to enhance the more melodic choruses and backing vocals Jonathan Davis used on the album. Earlier that year, Korn had appeared on an episode of South Park, titled Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery, in which the first single from Issues, "Falling Away From Me" was premiered. In the episode, the band helped the boys solve a Scooby-Doo style mystery. Korn released two more singles off of Issues, "Make Me Bad" and "Somebody Someone", both of which fared well on US charts. Videos were also shot for all three singles, with longtime friend Fred Durst directing the dark "Falling Away From Me", and Udo Kier and Brigitte Nielsen starring in a concept video for "Make Me Bad." The video for "Somebody Someone" was a simple performance.

In 2000 Jonathan Davis commissioned famous Swiss, surreal artist - H.R. Giger to create a special mic stand. The idea was suggested to him by one of his friends who knew that Jonathan was a fan of his artwork. H.R. Giger is an artist for whom music is really important, and he must like it, before he will work with the band. He listened to the Korn CDs the band sent him, and on the same day agreed to do the project. He started doing some sketches of plantlike snakes and vertebrae mixed with technical elements. In the meanwhile Giger's agent went to the U.S. to tape some Korn shows, in order to analyze the way Jonathan performs. Jonathan called him from his dressing room and told him that he had complete freedom to design the microphone stand as he wanted and his only concern was that it had be totally functional and as movable as possible. He also wanted it be biomechanical and very erotic. The band visited his museum and met him in July of 2000 when they were touring in Europe. The bio-mechanical mic-stand was finished in 2001. It was introduced to fans one year later during Korn's Untouchables Tour.

In June 2002, after two and a half years of hard work and a long creative process, Korn re-emerged into the media spotlight with their 5th album, Untouchables. The release of of this album was preceded by the show at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on 10th June 2002, one day prior to the album's release, broadcasted digitally through the theaters in U.S. As befits the trend-setting rock pioneers, Korn recorded Untouchables in a way that no rock artist has done before. By utilizing the new Euphonix R1 Digital Hard Disk Recorder with a 96k, 24-bit sampling rate - which is twice the highest rate that’s normally used for recording - Korn and producer Michael Beinhorn were able to create a rich sonic panorama which accentuates clarity as well as harmonics that are perceived rather than heard as musical sounds. The album had a very dark and gothic feel while featuring synths, strings and various effects the band had never used in an album before. The overall feel was drastically different from previous efforts particularly tracks like "Alone I Break," "Hating," and the haunting "Hollow Life," which singer Jonathan Davis claims is his favorite Korn song to this day. While the album received critical praise from fans, Untouchables had disappointing sales. The band has blamed Internet piracy for the drop in sales - as an unmixed version of the album had leaked a whole five months prior to its official release date (from Munky's computer).

The album's first single "Here to Stay" earned a Grammy for Best Metal Performance. Untouchables has since been certified Platinum by the RIAA. The first 2 videos from Untouchables were directed by the Hughes Brothers (best known for their films, Menace II Society and From Hell). The first video, "Here To Stay," has the band playing inside a TV on a static background along with controversial news stories and world issues being presented. The video was nominated to Mtv Video Music Award for Best Rock Video and won MuchMusic Video Award for Best International Video (Group). The second video, "Thoughtless," was a nod back to Jonathan's childhood as the character in the video is picked on and constantly beaten. The character ultimately gains revenge in a rather grotesque but deserving way. The third video for Untouchables, "Alone I Break," was directed by Sean Dack who won the honor of directing Korn's video through an MTV contest. The video kept with the darkness of Korn, showing Jonathan Davis killing off the members of the band after a supposed mistake made by Munky when they were performing. The band later admitted the video would have been more fun to do if the director was actually a Korn fan.

Prior to their next album, Korn released the single "Did My Time," which was featured on the soundtrack to the Angelina Jolie film, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life in early 2003. Angelina Jolie appeared in the video for "Did My Time," however due to scheduling conflicts the band's performance was shot at a different time and location than Angelina Jolie's. The single Did My Time was also used on the next album.

Korn's sixth album, Take a Look in the Mirror was released in November 2003. Korn produced this record themselves and cited it as a look back upon their career by returning back to a more stripped down and raw sound. The album featured the singles "Right Now," "Everything I've Known," and "Y'all Want A Single." The first two singles were animated videos while the third single, "Y'all Want A Single," was a performance video, which featured Korn and a large group of fans destroying a record store. The album peaked at No. 9 on The Billboard 200. Although the album provided what the fans were supposedly looking for, it was considered a disappointment by many who thought the first album could never be duplicated. The album also features the remastered track "Alive," which is the song Davis sang back in 1994 while first trying out for the band.

In 2004, Korn released their greatest hits album, Greatest Hits, Volume 1. It featured two cover songs and a compilation of the band's hits from the past 10 years. The first single was a cover of the song "Word Up!", which was originally made popular by the group Cameo. The album also featured a medley of all three parts of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." The song has become a concert staple ever since.
On 22 February 2005, Brian "Head" Welch announced that he had "...chosen the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior, and would be dedicating his musical pursuits to that end", and was formally leaving Korn. Initial speculations that this was a hoax or practical joke were proven wrong; he has turned highly spiritual, even being baptized in the Jordan River and speaking openly about his faith and conversion, especially on his website. Welch has also stated that his reason for leaving the band had to do with his daughter reciting obscene Korn lyrics and the fact that he was fighting an addiction to crystal meth. This was to be the band's first, and so far only, line up change in their history.
Upon completing their record deal with Sony Records Korn has since partnered with EMI and signed to Virgin Records. EMI has paid Korn $25 million upfront in exchange for a share in the profits of their next two LPs, including tours and merchandising. In exchange, EMI received a 30 percent stake in the band's licensing, ticket sales and other revenue sources.

The band's first release for Virgin Records, "See You On The Other Side" was released on December 6th 2005, and debuted on #3 on the Billboard 200, representing the band's 7th Top 10 debut. The first single off the album, "Twisted Transistor" was accompanied by a comic video directed by Dave Meyers in which famous rappers, including Xzibit, Lil' Jon, Snoop Dogg, and David Banner actually played Korn. It has received massive video play in TV music stations throughout whole world. The single itself peaked on #3 on Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, and it's among 2006’s Top 5 Active Rock songs so far in 2006. The second (and current) single, "Coming Undone" also entered Top 10 on Mainstream Rock Chart, and the video directed by Little X also received considerable video play. The album has sold over 1.7 million copies worldwide up to date, and went platinum in the U.S. on 13th March. Even after a couple of months, it still remains at a safe spot on Billboard 200 chart, and it's very likely that it will be certified double-platinum later this year, signaling the success and acceptance of their evolution, as well as a sales lift from 1.1 million copies sold of Take a Look in the Mirror.

On 13 January 2006, Korn threw a giant party at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announcing the See You on the Other Side World Tour. Guests at the party included Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose and actress Jessica Biel. The first leg of tour, with 10 Years and Mudvayne, began on 24 February 2006 in their hometown Bakersfield and ended on 4th April in Toronto. It was highly successful leg of tour, and Korn earned approx. $7 million gross for it, and reached #15 spot on Pollstar's Top 20 Concert Grosses.

The Australian part of the SYOTOS tour consisted of Korn , 10 Years, Hatebreed, and Disturbed. The bands peformed in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on the 24th, 27th and 29th of April 2006 respectively, and were received well in all three cities. This marked the first time Korn visited Australia since their Take A Look In The Mirror tour in February of 2004.

Support acts for headlining shows past this point have not been confirmed, however, Korn are slated to perform at various European rock festivals over the summer of 2006, many of which feature such legendary bands as Guns N' Roses and Metallica.

On March 13 2006, Korn released their second single from their album See You On The Other Side entitled "Coming Undone."

Korn have also recently announced the resurrection of their "Family Values Tour", which will kick off on July 27 in Virginia Beach, VA. The Family Values Tour will feature Korn, Deftones, Stone Sour, Flyleaf, Dir en grey (when confronted about the news that this band may be there, Jonathan called them "this crazy Japanese band that are just out of their minds"), Bury Your Dead, and other yet-to-be announced bands. This is also the first Family Values Tour that will have a second stage and is in outdoor-pavilions. Tickets for lawn seating will be $9.99.

Korn recently teamed up with crunk rap group Dem Franchize Boyz to record a mash-up of their latest hits Coming Undone and Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It, which occurred due to both the groups being signed to Virgin Records. During the session, Jonathan Davis stated that he believed that crunk and heavy metal were in the same vein. "They are both energy. It just works," the singer said.

In 2006, Korn's most popular song Freak On A Leash appeared on a countdown of Vh1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs Of All Time at #23. They also charted on a user-based interactive list of the 100 Greatest Videos Of All Time in the UK at number 10 with the same song.

They are the pioneer of Nu Metal stream music. Here is Korn!!
Have you ever heard this name??
I think all the nu metal fans must be know about them
Here is their story..

On May 6 Korn won a MTV Asia Video Music Award in the "Favourite Video" category with their first single off of See You on the Other Side, "Twisted Transistor", beating Green Day, Kanye West, My Chemical Romance, and Franz Ferdinand. The band also performed "Twisted Transistor" live in front of 5,000 people. Jonathan Davis also presented an award for favourite artist from China, Vicky Zhao

On June 12th, 2006, Jonathan Davis was diagnosed with Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a blood defect that hospitalized him for the weekend and prevented him performing at the renowned Download Festival in the British Isles and has lead to Korn canceling the rest of their European bill. It was originally unknown to the public what his ailment was, but the singer revealed in a letter to fans that he was 'dangerously low on blood platelets and at a high risk of death from a hemorrhage if the problem was not treated.'. His illness is not expected to affect the upcoming Family Values Tour.

Psychedelic Rock History

Psychedelic rock evolved in the 60s as an offshoot of the rock and roll movement combining elements of Psychedelic rockrock, reggae, and other diverse elements. Involving the use of mind altering drugs like cannabis, mescaline, psilocybin, and especially LSD, psychedelic rock broke with traditional rock and laid the roots forPsychedelic rock, rock and roll, psychedelic metal, experimental rock, psychedelic metal and experimental rock genres.

In the USA bands like the Vanilla Fudge, Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane lead the way for later bands like 13th Floor Elevators, Bubble Puppy, and Third Bardo to name a few. A few years later The Who and The Beatles picked up on the psychedelic movement with tunes like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to name a few but were not technically classified as psychedelic rock. Cream and Pink Floyd embraced psychedelic music fully becoming two of the first truly psychedelic band.

More recently band Kula Shaker released an album influenced by Indian music and psychedelic rock called peasants pigs and astronauts. English band Anomie are part of a new genre of garage psychedelia which is becoming popular. Ambient and trance music owes a great debt to this genre as does psychedelic metal of bands like Masters of Reality, Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age.

The Cure History session 2

To all extents and purposes, The Cure were dissolved. Smith went camping in Wales, Tolhurst went to Spain and France and, on his return, announced he'd given up drumming in favour of learning keyboards. Parry panicked. Worried that all their work thus far was about to end in shambles, he convinced Smith it would be a smart idea to record a blatant pop single, something to lay the ghost of "Pornography", to alleviate the pressure of status the band had acquired and to confuse the f*** out of the fans who were beginning to blindly worship him. "Let's Go To Bed"/"Just One Kiss" was a deliberately trite act of musical vandalism and Smith immediately hayed it so much he tried unsuccessfully to get it released under the pseudynym Recur. Parry resisted, pointing out that anonymity would destroy the whole point of the exercise and Smith agreed on the proviso that, if it wasn't a hit, Parry would release him from his contract. Disowning it in a series of interviews, Smith was depressed that "Let's Go To Bed" betrayed the trust of the fans and, although the single stiffed and Parry reneged on his promise, the video by rookie Tim Pope was a classic of psychedelic humour, lampooning Tears For Fears and cementing a partnership that was to add another dimension to The Cure.

In November, The Banshees asked Smith to rejoin them, replacing John McGeoch who was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Sensing relief in relinquishing leadership, Smith agreed. Parry threatened to sue, Smith threatened to break his legs and, while Tolhurst produced And Also The Trees, Smith toured the Far East with The Banshees. Back in Britain in February 1983, Smith was approached by Nicholas Dixon, a young choreographer with the Royal Ballet, to write the music for "Les Enfants Terrible". Hesitant to commit himself, he tried out a Cure song, "Siamese Twins", on BBC2's "Riverside" with Tolhurst on drums, Severin on bass, and The Venomettes on strings. The dance sequence didn't really work and Smith shelved the project indefinitely.

Between March and May, Siouxsie and Budgie were busy recording as The Creatures so Severin and Smith took the opportunity to collaborate as The Glove, a manic psychedelic pastiche named after the murder mitten in The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine". Smith was reluctant to sing so Zoo dancer Jeanette Landray was drafted in to front what he referred to as "cultivated madness" and "a mental assault course". While they were ingesting all manner of chemicals and watching film after film on video, trying to recapture the after-images in the studio, The Cure, who didn't actually exist, were offered a spot on "The Oxford Roadshow". Smith swiftly rounded up Tolhurst, Andy Anderson from Brilliant on drums and Derek Thompson from SPK on bass and the makeshift band played "100 Years" and "Figurehead" from "Pornography", Smith so enthralled by singing again that he decided to resume recording as The Cure.

He plumped for another single, "The Walk", which was to be a hard track and, to that end, he recruited Steve Nye, who'd been responsible for Japan's exquisite "Tin Drum", as producer. For a while now, Smith had been writing down his dreams and they inspired his lyrics while Tim Pope's video was a masterpiece of disorientation. "I like Robert's lyrics because they're a spider's web", Pope said at the time. "They're made up of clues, they never present things in an obvious way. It's perfect for film-making because every phrase has a corresponding emphasis."

When "The Walk" was released in July, it happened to coincide with New Order's "Blue Monday", to which it bore an uncanny resemblance, but that didn't impede it from going Top 20, as much of a shock as a surprise to Smith who was simultaneously recording with The Banshees, appearing on "Riverside" with The Glove and assembling a Cure line-up to play The Elephant Fayre, a festival in St Germains, Cornwall. Phil Thornalley, who's been roped into play bass on "Top Of The Pops", agreed to stay, as did Andy Anderson, and, after two chaotic warm-ups in Bournemouth and Bath, The Cure headlined with a nostalgic set before undertaking a short American tour, arriving in France to record "Lovecats" in The Studio Des Dames, in Paris. Heavily inspired by Walt Disney's "Aristocats", the spiked cocktail swing was mixed at Genetic by a young engineer called Dave Allen and Pope's video, a threateningly out-of- control party in a house in Hampstead, was another gem. The story goes that Smith pretended he wanted to buy the property, conned the keys out of an estate agent, and the promo was made overnight, Tolhurst startling a passing rasta at some God forsaken hour of the morning, parading up and down the street in a cat suit.

In August, The Glove's first single, "Like An Animal", was released, inspired by an American newspaper story about a woman who became obsessed with dropping things on people's heads from a tower block window. September found Smith in Italy with The Banshees, making a video for their Mansonised version of The Beatles' "Dear Prudence" which became their biggest hit ever, reaching Number Three in the charts. They were in Israel when The Glove album, "Blue Sunshine", was released, named after the B-movie about a batch of acid that caused homicidal madness in those who'd taken it exactly a decade after their initial trips. A second Glove single, "Punish Me With Kisses", was released as The Banshees played The Royal Albert Hall, the shows filmed and finally released as a double album and video, both entitled "Nocturne".

In December "Japanese Whispers", a compilation of the three Cure fantasy singles - "Let's Go To Bed", "The Walk" and "Lovecats" plus their B-sides - was released and Smith took the opportunity to explain his attitude to the amount of hate mail he'd recently been receiving from long-time Cure fans who felt betrayed by the band's new-found success: "I really detest them," he said. "It's like we're their pet band and how dare I tamper with our mysterious image. I never asked for blind devotion. I resent it because they're trying to shrink me into a one-facetted person who's only allowed to produce one style of music." The Cure could be anything Smith wanted them to be now and, the more normal they were, the weirder it seemed.

Without knowing whether he was coming or going, Smith appeared on the Christmas "Top Of The Pops" with both The Banshees and The Cure and, by Spring 1984, he was attempting to make two albums simultaneously - The Banshees' "Hyaena", which was dragging on interminably and turning out less than he'd have liked, and "The Top", which, despite the patience of Dave Allen who'd been recruited to produce, was frustrating Smith because he simply didn't have the time to see his ideas through to fruition. Porl Thompson was asked to rejoin The Cure after adding some sax to the album which appeared to revel in Smith's identity crisis. "Trying to account for 'The Top' is like trying to account for somebody's dreams," I wrote at the time. "You add up all the reactions and reasons and there's still something missing."

With this inspired madness fresh on the market, Smith helped Tim Pope release a criminally neglected single called "I Want To Be A Tree" then travelled to Australia with The Banshees where the strain of overwork was beginning to take its toll. The creepy "Alice In Wonderland" - like "Caterpillar"/"Happy The Man" single was released in March, The Cure appearing cross-legged and wasted on "Top Of The Pops" while The Banshees' "Swimming Horses" and "Dazzle" singles were commercial failures by comparison - the cause of some tension as Smith joined Siouxsie for a European tour, taking time off to appear with The Cure on "The Oxford Roadshow" with Norman Fisher of The Umbrella on bass.

During April and May, The Cure took to the road with Phil Thornalley back on bass and the shows in Oxford and Hammersmith were recorded on the Manor Mobile. As the tour reached Europe, Smith was giving the most eccentric interviews anyone had read in eons, claiming he had a lamb on tour with him and other such inspired lies. With Andy Anderson freaking out more and more regularly and another Banshees tour on the horizon, Smith decided he couldn't cope and sent a doctor's certificate to Severin proving he was incapable of continuing to participate in both bands. He then took a holiday in Wales and the Lake District, breaking only to perform with The Cure on the "Rock Around The Clock" extravaganza at Glasgow Barrowlands.

While he was resting under medical orders, Smith took the time to review piles of old Cure tapes and, when the live "Concert" LP was released in October, the B-side of the cassette featured "Curiosity - Cure Anomalies 1977-84", his choice of past live cuts.

The band then took off to tour the far East and Andy Anderson finally flipped out in Japan, attacking other members of the tour party. Smith sacked him and The Cure arrived in America with an itinerary of gigs and no drummer. Phil Thornalley called Vince Ely, the original Psychedelic Furs drummer, and he filled in for 11 dates, learning the songs in soundcheck. But he had commitments to record advertising jingles so Thornalley contacted Boris Williams who he'd met working with Kim Wilde and The Thompson Twins.

The shows went well, Williams learning the set quickly and appreciating the incestuous humour within the band so, when they returned to Britain, he decided to take up Smith's offer to join permanently. Thornalley refused a similar offer though, preferring to pursue a solo career which left the way open for Smith to engineer a meeting with Gallup and heal old wounds.

Gallup had formed a band called Cry which mutated into Fools Dance and released a mini-LP called "Priesthole" but he'd been unhappy away from The Cure and jumped at the chance to rejoin as the band began recording the warped but accessible "The Head On The Door" LP with Dave Allen producing. Fuelled on booze, with drugs barred from the sessions, the recording went well although Tolhurst was beginning to get conspicuously too out of it for his own good and contributed little.

The first single released by this line-up, "In Between Days"/"The Exploding Boy" (a reference to Smith's penchant for putting on weight), was widely regarded as their finest for years and entered the Top 20 accompanied by a stunning Pope video which utilised a camera swinging drunkenly on a trapeze and, for some reason still unexplained to this day, a gaggle of fluorescent socks. "In Between Days" was about those times when you wake up and criminally waste the whole day but The Cure weren't having many of these as they toured Europe, conquering the rioting crowd in Athens who'd already stoned Boy George and releasing "The Head On The Door" in August to general acclaim. Smith considered it a compilation album of sorts, its atmosphere less dark and manic than "The Top". Luxuriating in lies, he gave the press many explanations for the title, the most likely of which was that it involved a childhood dream and a vague fear of decapitation and each song was given a characteristically flamboyant explanation in interviews.

Touring Britain under the unofficial title of Team Cure, decked out in American football jerseys offstage, The Cure climaxed with their first appearance at Wembley Arena as "Close To Me"/"A Man Inside My Mouth" continued their chart success, Rent Party's tipsy brass brilliantly complimented by Pope's video which managed to capture the spirit of Claustrophobia, hydrophobia and vertigo by taking place entirely inside a wardrobe perched perilously on the edge of a cliff.

The Cure returned to America in October, playing Radio City in New York and getting lost in a lift on the way to the encore while, back home, The Face published a front cover story in which Smith claimed to be an alcoholic. On November 19, they played Camden Palace in aid of MENCAP, part of the set broadcast live on BBC's "Whistle Test" and, with their contract with Polydor (Fiction are affiliated) about to expire, Smith decided it would be best to assemble a compilation album of Cure singles before some other bright spark within the company tried it and cocked it up.

"Standing On A Beach" was released in May 1986, accompanied by a video compilation, "Staring At The Sea", the titles two lines from "Killing An Arab", The Cure's first single. When it was released in America, the whole ludicrous racist issue was raised again and the album went to the shops with a disclaimer on the cover.

Smith remixed and partly re-recorded "Boys Don't Cry" and this time the single was the chart success he felt it always should have been, entering the Top 20 as the band headlined the Royal Albert Hall in one of a series of Soundwaves concerts in aid of Greenpeace.

Filmed by "Whistle Test" aboard the Orient Express on route to a gig in Verona that was cancelled by the city's fire chief, The Cure played a handful of European dates before headlining The Glastonbury CND Festival in June and setting off for America where the band made the papers because a fan stabbed himself repeatedly at their first gig in Los Angeles. Meanwhile MTV were broadcasting hourly bulletins on Smith's hair, which he'd brutally hacked from a spidery tangle into a crew cut. "I was tired of seeing so many people who looked like me," he said.

In August, The Cure toured Spain and France, their gig at the 8,000 capacity Roman amphitheatre in Orange, Provence, filmed by Tim Pope, his first full length feature. While he worked on editing the movie, the band retired to Miraval, a studio in a vineyard in Southern France, where they recorded a song a day, Smith experimenting with different vocal techniques and drinking so much wine it's reported the band got through 150 bottles in the first five days. Only Tolhurst capitulated under the influence of excess grape, returning home early but not before The Cure had appeared on "Champs Elysees", a French television programme, miming to "Boys Don't Cry" in make-up and frocks - a gesture to confuse all the French fans who'd turned up to the shows wearing gothic black.

In December the band decided to stay with Polydor and signed again via Fiction. Smith then travelled to Compass Point in the Bahamas with Dave Allen to mix the tracks, finishing in Brussels in January 1987 and moving on to Ireland, avoiding the UK for tax purposes. The rest joined him for rehearsals as the brassy, jaunty, gender-confused "Why Can't I Be You?"/ "A Japanese Dream" was released, accompanied by a daft Pope video of the band dressed in various weird costumes, dancing!

In March, The Cure toured South America for the first time. There were riots at the gigs in Buenos Aires and, on their return from Brazil, "Why Can't I Be You?" was in the chart, "The Cure In Orange" opened in selected cinemas in the UK to mixed reviews - many considered its unflinching, warts 'n' all emphasis on the gig boring - and the band performed their current single and "Catch" on the last ever episode of "The Tube" (they also performed "Hot Hot Hot" on the elongated Sunday version).

In April, "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" was released, an audaciously rich double album that spanned everything from out-and-out sitar, psychedelia to madcap funk, all slung together in a sleeve that featured Smith's blood red lipstick lips in such close-up, they resembled two butchered maggots under a microscope. "It's a remarkable mess," was the studied opinion of the press while Smith considered its diversity a product of plundering each phase of the band's illustrious past. No one could deny it - The Cure were out there on their own. They'd achieved mass popularity on Smith's own terms and it looked as if it would literally go anywhere from here.

In May, they played at The Golden Rose Of Montreux Rock Festival, just to take the piss out of Spandau Ballet and, in June, the inebriated love song, "Catch"/"Breathe" was released, charting well as the band headed for America, recruiting an old friend of Williams, ex-Psychedelic Furs' keyboards player Roger O'Donnell, to flesh out the live sound.

The lengthy tour took The Cure through Europe as "Just Like Heaven"/"Snow In Summer" was taken from "Kiss Me" as another successful single, and the band wound up at Wembley Arena in December, their autobiography, "10 Imaginary Years" published by Zomba in time for the Christmas market.

NINETEEN eighty eight was a time for recuperation and rethinking. The hilariously funky "Hot Hot Hot" was taken off "Kiss Me" and given a radical remix by Francois Kevorkian, released with "Hey You" and another version of "Hot" as a 12-inch single in February. In April, Strange Fruit released a Cure Peel session from 1978 comprising of "Killing An Arab", "Fire in Cairo", "10.15" and "Boys Don't Cry".

In August, Smith was in church, getting married to his sweetheart since schooldays, Mary Poole, and on TV, featured in the BBC series "That Was Then, This Is Now", recounting his personal view of the history of the band. In December, all the members reconvened with O'Donnell now officially on board and the rudiments of a new album were recorded, Dave Allen rescuing Smith's lyrics from a fire in one of the bedrooms attached to the studio. by the time it was finished in spring '89, it was evident, in the words of John Wilde, that the album made "a move back into the real world of loneliness, isolation, uncertainty, regret, failing love, faithlessness and the memory of bliss". Smith was examining his spiritual malaise again but this time there was a monumental aspect to the music, something uplifting that made a mockery of those who considered it a return to the querulous "Faith" or the savage "Pornography". It was also evident that Tolhurst's contribution to the band was too negligible to abide and, as he increasingly became the butt of band jokes, Smith sacked his founding partner before "Lullaby"/"Babble" was released in April. Complimented by a macabre video in which Smith was swallowed by a giant spider, the creepy-crawly phobic single went into the Top 10 and The Cure appeared on "Top Of The Pops", all close-ups banned because the director considered Smith's lipstick and heavy black eyeshadow too sinister for the kids! The "Disintegration" album was released in May to mostly confused reviews and The Prayer tour took the band across Europe and behind the Iron Curtain for the first time, climaxing with three nights at Wembley Arena, the third of which goes down as their finest night in living memory, the band playing for three and three quarter hours against an impressively desolate industrial backdrop strafed with strobes and lights courtesy of the crew who'd provided the visuals for Prince's recent Wembley extravaganza. The Cure then left on the QE2 (they won't fly anymore) to tour America's baseball stadiums, the "Lovesong"/"2 Late" single mounting the charts.

There are many rumours as to what happens next. Smith has said he won't tour again. Whether he means he won't tour with this line-up or he won't tour period is uncertain. He has also said that "Disintegration" feels like the last Cure LP, but he's said that before and many sceptics surmise he'll say it again. There have also been mentions of a solo LP - but, again, details are sketchy. This is the way Smith likes it and the way we like him - leaving the options open, waiting for the time when the next move will be a necessity so that, whatever it is, it'll feel and be right. No other band has achieved what The Cure has achieved in recent years - mass popularity solely on their own terms, without the slightest compromise. They are an inspiration to us all. As Smith insisted on closing "10 Imaginary Years", so this account must finish: NOT THE END.

The Cure History session 1

The Cure is a band who doesn't show more skills, and very simple. But their song has a very high level of complexity. Maybe you just hear a simple song here, but actually it's very hard to imagine how can they makes their great song!! Here is their life story...

They almost blew it before they began. In April 1977, a group of recent school leavers from the Crawley area saw an advert in Melody Maker - Hansa Records, Germany's largest independent label, were seeking new bands. "Wanna Be A Recording Star?" it said. Easy Cure did. In one form or another they'd already been Obelisk, a way out of religious education at Notre Dame Middle School, and Malice, a punkier thing at St. Wilfrid's Middle School. But Easy Cure were writing their own songs so guitarist Robert Smith gathered novice drummer Laurence Tolhurst, Michael Dempsey, a remarkably eloquent young bass player, Porl Thompson, a local superstar guitarist, and singer Peter O'Toole, a Bowie worshipper, into his parents dinning room. There they made a rough tape for Hansa.

Within a month they'd auditioned in London and signed for one thousand pounds which they immediately spent on equipment, enabling them to play their ram- shackle pop at local venues like The Rocket in Crawley, where the band began to pick up a vociferous following despite O'Toole quitting to join a kibbutz. Smith took over on vocals.

During October and November they made two trips to London's SAV studios to record their first demos, but Hansa hated them and pressurised the band to tackle some cover versions. Smith refused and Easy Cure were dropped in March the next year with nothing released. It seems Hansa couldn't stand the song the band wanted as their first single, a spiky precis of Camus' existentialist novel, "The Outsider". The song was called "Killing An Arab".

So the band were back in the ranks of the unemployed - broke, down-hearted but not defeated. Thompson left, at odds with Smith's more minimal style, and they continued as a trio, Dempsey working as a porter in a mental hospital while Tolhurst took a job in a chemical lab. Smith did nothing but dream of not working and, on a whim he changed the name of the band to The Cure because it sounded less hippy. In a matter of months, they managed to scrounge 50 quid off a friend to record four original tracks - "Boys Don't Cry", "Fire In Cairo", "It's Not You" and "10.15" - in Chestnut Studios in Sussex and they sent a tape to all the major record companies.

By July they'd been rejected by everyone except Chris Parry, an A&R man at Polydor who'd signed and produced The Jam and who'd been instrumental in signing Siouxsie And The Banshees. He was looking for bands to form his own Fiction label and heard something naggingly awkwardly commercial in The Cure's early efforts.

He met the band, liked their attitude, despite their dogged lack of dress sense, and signed them, putting them into Morgan Studios in September and sending them out on what he called "toughening up" gigs where they began to accrue a wider following despite being heaved off a Gen X tour after Tolhurst caught Billy Idol in flagrante with a young lady in the bogs. By December they were in the papers - NME called them, "an abrasive light metal trio" and "a triumph of impulse and spontaneity" while the Parry produced "Killing An Arab"/"10.15" was released on Small Wonder, an independent label chosen when it was evident that Polydor, through whom Fiction were licensed were too inflexible to market any Cure product before Christmas. The band were in effect, sublet for 15,000 copies which, if they sold, would make enough to finance a further 15,000 on Fiction.

In an almost unprecedented display of good taste, the music papers unanimously made it single of the week, praising its "Moorish flavoured guitar pattern" and salivating over Smith's fashionably bleak outlook - "I'm alive, I'm dead...". Sounds were the first to grant them a front cover in January 1979 noting their "direction through indirection" and the band gained further notoriety in February when the National Front turned up at a gig at The Nashville and caused a ruck, convinced "Killing An Arab" was a racist anthem. The Cure have been talking that one down in interviews ever since.

The single was featured on "20 Of A Different Kind", a cash-in Polydor compilation album of Post-Punk greats including 999, The Jam and The Skids (The Banshees, wisely, refused to donate "Hong Kong Garden") and a month's residency of Sunday night gigs at The Marquee preceded the release, in April, of "Three Imaginary Boys", The Cure's debut LP, it immediately caused controversy because there were no song titles, just symbols, and its cover featured nothing but a fridge, a hoover and a lampshade. The critics just didn't know what to make of it, NME's Paul Morley lambasting the band for what he considered half-cocked pretentiousness. "Here was a band without an image but with strong music," says Chris Parry, "so I thought, 'Let's make it completely without an image, completely dispassionate. Let's pick the three most mundane things we can possibly find'."

The Cure, who had no say in the cover, hated it, just as they loathed the album which they thought Parry and engineer Mike Hedges had made too varied and poppy, completely at odds with the darker intent behind their skeletal version of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" and the spirit of boredom which found Smith reading a special offer for a cake icing and food decorating set off the back of a sugar packet for the lyrics to "So What".

While Melody Maker praised the album and claimed "The Eighties Start Here", the band toyed with the idea of releasing "Grinding Halt" as the next single but radio reaction to the white labels was negative so they settled for playing it on a Peel session and changing the words to parody Paul Morley's prose style.

In June, "Boys Don't Cry"/"Plastic Passion" was released as The Cure's second single but, despite ecstatic reviews - Record Mirror called it "John Lennon at 12 or 13" - its rousing romanticism failed to make the expected impact on the charts and Smith took time out to start a small label called Dance Fools Dance. His first release was "Yeah Yeah Yeah" by The Obtainers, two 11 year olds who banged pots and pans, with a band called The Magspies on the B-side featuring one of his mates, Simon Gallup, on bass. Gallup had been in Lockjaw and had played a lot of the same early venues as The Cure, releasing one wretched single on Raw Records: "Radio Call Sign"/"The Young Ones". When Smith decided to record Frank Bell, a local postman, he called Gallup in for the bass parts and "Cult Hero" was born.

In August, The Cure played the Reading Festival and Smith met Steve Severin of The Banshees at a Throbbing Gristle concert at the YMCA. The pair got on and The Cure were invited to support The Banshees on a national tour in September. Hours before the Aberdeen date, John McKay and Kenny Morris quit The Banshees, claiming their ideals had been betrayed, and The Cure were forced to play an elongated set, Sioux and Severin joining them at the end for an impromptu "Lord's Prayer".

The tour was interrupted as The Banshees sought replacements. Budgie joined on drums from The Slits but they couldn't find a suitable guitarist and Smith was asked to join. He agreed so long as The Cure remained the support band and they resumed on September 18 at Leicester De Montford Hall with Smith playing both sets.

Naturally, resentment at Smith's new superstar status began to course rifts within The Cure, Dempsey and Smith drawing further and further apart and, after the release of "Jumping Someone Else's Train" (a rampant anti-fashion tirade aimed at the nouveau mods) /"I'm Cold" (with Sioux on backing vocals), Dempsey left for Fiction labelmates The Associates, to be replaced immediately by Gallup who, crucially, shared Smith's passion for curries.

In order that he didn't feel too out of place, Magspies' keyboard player and part-time hairdresser, Matthieu Hartley, was also asked to join and the new fourpiece Cure made a chaotic debut at Liverpool's Eric's in November, playing until the end of the year with The Associates and The Passions on the Future Pastimes Tour.

The Cure spent early 1980 recording their second LP, "Seventeen Seconds", with Mike Hedges producing. Inspired by Bowie's "Low" and Nick Drake, Smith was after a morose, atmospheric, hollow album to suit the lyrics he'd written while on tour with The Banshees. As Cult Hero, The Cure supported The Passions at The Marquee in March, playing a Top 10 from 1973 which they'd taped off Jimmy Saville's Sunday radio show and, in April, Smith added backing vocals to The Associates' album and took part in a benefit gig at The Rainbow for Hugh Cornwell, The Stranglers' guitarist who'd been jailed for possession of illicit substances.

"A Forest"/"Another Journey By Train" was released from the album sessions and, although Julie Burchill accused them of, "trying to stretch a sketchy living out of moaning more meaningfully than man has ever moaned before", the moody dream-like single was a hit and The Cure appeared on "Top Of The Pops"; a disastrous debut during which the DJ forgot who they were. Smith sported a huge bandage on his thumb after getting drunk and smashing it under a hubcap trying to mend a puncture on a brief American tour they'd recently undertaken. The single immediately crashed back down the charts.

"Seventeen Seconds" was released in the spring, the band's photos blurred unrecognisably on the cover, the songs all sad or angry because, says Smith, "We were all realising that we were no longer young". Touring Europe, they were arrested in Holland, attacked in Germany and tear-gassed in France and, by the time the band reached New Zealand, they were jaded, Smith and Hartley particularly on edge with one another. "At the beginning," says Smith, "we were supposed to be a democracy but it was often me who took the decisions."

"I realised the group was heading towards suicidal, sombre music," says Hartley, "the sort of thing that didn't interest me at all."

The differences exploded into a furniture-wrecking fight in a hotel which made the Antipodean press and, when the band returned from 24 gruelling club dates down under, Hartley quit.

"From here on," says Parry, "it just got more and more intense. It was bad - no one was gonna get inside that triangle. That was Robert being as incestuous and tight and mean-spirited as I've ever seen him."

Hartley was right about the direction in which Smith was taking The Cure. "I used to think about death a lot," Smith says of that time. "I used to think how easy it was to consider it something abstract until it turns up on your doorstep."

He took to visiting churches, watching the congregation praying for eternity, by turns pitying and envying their blind belief in an afterlife. "All of a sudden, I realised I had no faith at all and I was scared," he says, and his confusion, along with the fact that Tolhurst's mother was terminally ill, determined that the album the band began to record in February was fraught with difficulties.

"Most of the songs are songs to hang yourself by," said producer Mike Hedges, while Parry considers it, "Superb, the most streamlined and stylish of albums".

"We laid down the tracks in a completely disinterested way, as if someone else was doing it," explains Smith, who was influenced by the hypnotic repetition of Benedictine chants and Indian mantras. "But, whenever I started to sing, the atmosphere went black."

In March the wistful "Primary"/"Descent" single was released in a cover by Porl Thompson's newly formed graphic design company, Parched Art, and The Cure appeared on "Top Of The Pops" with their instruments dressed in costumes as a comment on the idiocy of miming.

The "Faith" album came out in another Parched Art sleeve which much to the record company's disgust, featured a hazy photo of Bolton Abbey, a childhood haunt of Smith's. Almost universally lambastered by the critics - Record Mirror called it "Hollow, shallow, pretentious, self-important and bereft of any real heart and soul; hackneyed doom-mongering that should have died with Joy Division" - the album achieved exactly what Smith desired - a feeling of defeated inertia - and it was with no little horror that it gradually dawned on the band what a strain it would be to tour this melancholy.

"The songs had a downward spiral effect on us," says Smith. "The more we played them, the more despondent and desolate we became. Most of the time I left the stage crying."

The critics likened the Faith Tour to a religious ceremony and the sombre atmosphere was enhanced by using a minimalist film by Gallup's brother Ric instead of a support band. "Carnage Visors" - an antonym for rose- coloured spectacles - featured a drunken Cure soundtrack which was made available on the B-side of the cassette version of "Faith". Audiences were further baffled when the band took to touring Holland in a circus tent to try to break from the depressing gig circuit.

On June 24, during a gig in Sittard, Tolhurst learned that his mother had died. The band flew back to England and the tape of the show was played at her funeral. Deciding work was the best remedy for his grief, Tolhurst insisted the band continue touring and the consecutive American dates are widely regarded as The Cure's worst ever, the band succumbing to a numbing drug intake that found Smith arriving to play in Australia without a clue where he was.

The crowds were largely hostile to the "Faith" material, gigs often disintegrating into fights between the band and the audience, and it was with some relief that The Cure returned to Britain and recorded the schizophrenic "Charlotte Sometimes"/"Splintered In Her Head" single, again with Hedges producing. It didn't do well but it gave the band their first experience of video, Mike Mansfield - who'd been responsible for Adam And The Ants' mini-pantos - fashioning an hilariously inappropriate ghost story from Smith's psychological chiller.

In late November, The Cure toured Britain again before retiring to The Windmill in Surrey to demo an album that Smith was determined would be called "Pornography", an ugly, angry, aggressive swipe at moral hypocrisy. Many of the lyrics were conceived on chemical vacations in the company of Steve Severin and early in 1982, Smith decided to dissolve the partnership with Hedges and plumped for Phil Thornalley to produce the LP at RAK studios.

The recording was even more tempestuous than the "Faith" sessions, Smith incapable of explaining his ideas, excluding the group from his schemes, growing impatient with their good-natured larking about (they built a mountain of beer cans in the studio) as he dug deep to drag the essence of horror from inside himself. More often than not out of his head but still fighting for control, he was reaching for dangerous extremes, sleeping rough on the floor of the Fiction offices, pushing himself further and further.

"I couldn't remember what I'd done or where I'd been," he says, "I really lost touch with what was real for a couple of months."

When the album was released, Parry thought it "a mess" and the press recoiled with phrases such as "Ian Curtis, by comparison, was a bundle of laughs", "Phil Spector in hell" and "An icy, tuneless road". And if the Faith Tour was tricky, the Fourteen Explicit Moments Tour which began in April was a nightmare, the atmosphere so heavy that even Smith and Gallup, previously the best of friends, were at each other's throats.

"It was like a rerun of the worst movies you've ever seen," says Smith. "We were more like a rugby tour than a Cure tour."

Tempers finally snapped in Strasbourg on May 27 when Gallup thumped Smith in a club and, although they resumed after three days cooling off and the doomy "Hanging Garden"/"Killing An Arab (Live)" single was released, when the tour was over, Gallup was out.

Surf Rock History

Surf music is a combination of rock and roll and rockabilly music combined with the surfer lifestyle and ethic of the Southern California Coast and fused into a new genre of music. It is a style charged by a hard rock influenced instrumental sounds, particularly the guitar, and rockabilly grooves.

Dick Dale and The Surfaris were one of the early proponents of the style and their particular brand of surf rock featured fast tempos combined with highly charged electric guitars and unusual percussion which would be very influential upon the future of rock musicians particularly the hard rock and heavy metal genres.

Other bands like the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean would further inflame the surf revolution by slowing the tempos and adding harmony vocals to create the definitive California Sound which would sweep the world of pop music and influence a large group of future musicians including unlikely genres like grunge.

Metallica History session 2

Commercial success (1986-2000)

Bassist auditions

Among the auditionees was Les Claypool (of the band Primus), a childhood friend of Hammett's. The band liked Claypool but felt his style was "too funky". Hetfield later explained that Claypool was literally "too good" and "out there" for Metallica. Ultimately Claypool was not offered the job, and Jason Newsted, formerly of Arizona's Flotsam and Jetsam was asked to join. Newsted officially joined Metallica on October 28, 1986 three weeks after Burton's funeral.[citation needed] The band finished their tour in the early months of 1987. Following the tour, the band recorded The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited in July 1987 as a way to test a new studio they had constructed and to trial the talents of Newsted.

...And Justice for All

...And Justice for All, the first studio album since Burton's death, was released in 1988. The album was a massive commercial success, reaching number 6 on The Billboard 200, their first album to reach the top 10.

On the album very little of Newsted's bass is audible. According to Newsted and the other band members, this is a result of the internal hazing and bullying toward Newsted for being the newest member and replacement for Cliff Burton. Ulrich has also stated his opinion that the lack of perceived bass resulted from Newsted exclusively mirroring Hetfield's rhythm tracks. There were other complaints with the production, such as Lars Ulrich's drums clicking more than thudding and the thin sound of the guitars.

The Damaged Justice tour followed to promote the new album. Fans again appreciated fast and furious tunes, as well as lengthy songs, such as on "...And Justice for All" (9:45) and "To Live Is to Die" (9:48). In fact, all the songs are over 5 minutes, with 7 of 9 songs over 6 minutes long.

Despite criticism, in 1989, Metallica received its first Grammy nomination for the album. The nomination was for the newly created Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrument categories. However, the award was given to Jethro Tull for the album Crest of a Knave. The result generated much controversy[citation needed], as Metallica was widely expected to take home the award and was standing off-stage waiting to receive it after performing the song "One" for the telecast. Jethro Tull (who was considered by most to not even be a Hard Rock/Metal group) had not even bothered to attend the ceremony, assuming that their chance of winning would be a long-shot. Lars Ulrich even referred to the snub in accepting a Grammy for "Enter Sandman" three years later, stating, "We gotta thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year".

Following Metallica's release of ...And Justice for All, they embraced the mainstream music world with their debut music video for the song "One". The band performed the song in an abandoned warehouse, and was then extensively "remixed" with footage of the film version of Johnny Got His Gun. Rather than organize an ongoing licensing deal, Metallica simply bought the rights to the film outright. This is why the film has not had a subsequent DVD pressing apart from a release in the UK. The end result featured a coherent but shortened "mini-movie" version of "Johnny Got His Gun" with an intricate level of synchronization between the song and the film's dialogue, creating a singular narrative between the two.

The "remix" video was submitted to MTV, with the alternate "performance only" version held back in the event that MTV would ban the remix version. MTV accepted the remix version despite its length (the video ran for nearly ten minutes). The video would be viewers' first exposure to Metallica and was voted #25 in the fall of 1999 when MTV aired its last "Top 100 Videos of All Time" countdown. The video was also prominently featured during MTV's 25th Anniversary edition of "ADD Video," which showcased the top videos to air on MTV in the last 25 years.

Also, later on in 2005 Metallica would release "The Videos". This DVD collection included all music videos by Metallica from 1989 through 2005, but it featured "Two Of One". This was the original "One" video and the "Jammin' Version", which was the video of the band performing in a warehouse.

Metallica (The Black Album)

On 14 August 1991, Metallica released their self-titled album, Metallica (popularly known as The Black Album by fans), which included songs such as "Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters", "Sad But True," "The Unforgiven," "Holier Than Thou," and "Wherever I May Roam." The record was co-produced with Bob Rock, whose resume included work with hard rock acts The Cult, Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe. The album featured a black cover that had a very pale image of a snake in one of the corners, with the band's name in the opposite corner. The album art evoked humorous comparisons to fictional band Spinal Tap,[citation needed] who in the spoof rockumentary This is Spinal Tap put out an album with an all black cover.

The majority of the making of the Metallica album and the following tour was documented in A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. The recording sessions were a long and arduous process, lasting over a year due to infighting among the band's members and endless arguments with Rock about the album's direction, scope, and sound. The cost of recording the album was over $1 million (as stated on Behind the Music: Metallica). However, despite the battle to finish the album, it quickly became the band's most successful release, charting at number one on the Billboard charts.

The album's first single was "Enter Sandman", which showed off the new album's slowed-down style of music compared to Metallica's previous work. The Black Album is currently tied for the 26th spot of highest selling album of all time in America.

Due to the album's new style of sound, more charges of selling out would be aimed at Metallica throughout the 1990s,[citation needed] to which the band often joked that they did indeed sell out - each and every date of the tour (as stated on Behind the Music: Metallica). In 1992 during a hugely financially successful co-headlining GNR-Metallica Stadium Tour with Guns N' Roses, Hetfield suffered severe second and third degree burns to his left arm due to pyrotechnics during the opening of "Fade to Black" in the Olympic Stadium (Montreal), leaving him unable to play guitar for a portion of the tour. Former Metallica roadie and Metal Church guitarist John Marshall filled in for the rest of the tour on guitar while Hetfield continued to sing.

Load, ReLoad, Garage Inc., S&M
This section does not cite any references or sources.

After almost three years of touring to support The Black Album, including a headlining performance at Woodstock 1994, Metallica went straight back into the studio to write and record their sixth studio album Load. They took a break in the summer of 1995 and played 3 outdoor shows which included Metallica organizing and headlining Donington Park UK supported by Slayer, Skid Row, Slash's Snakepit, Therapy? and Corrosion of Conformity. The Short Tour was entitled 'Escape from The studio Tour 1995'. On December 13 of that year, they recorded their rehearsal for Lemmy's 50th birthday party; four Motörhead covers, which were later released (titled "Motörhead–ache") as part of the Hero of the Day singles collection. The band spent around a year writing and recording new songs, resulting in 1996's Load. During early production, Load was intended to be a double album. Ultimately, it was decided that it would be best to release half of the songs first, continue to work on the remaining songs, and release them the following year. This resulted in the follow-up album, ReLoad.

By 1996, with the release of Load, all band members had cut their hair (although Hammett eventually grew it back), which was ridiculed by fans,[citation needed] including band friends Alice in Chains, whose edition of MTV's Unplugged featured, on Mike Inez's bass, the words "friends don't let friends get Friends haircuts"

These albums represented a significant musical change for Metallica. The band's breakneck metal tempos and layered guitar compositions had largely been replaced by bluesy guitar tones and slide guitar. Several songs include the use of new instruments including the use of the hurdy-gurdy and violin in "Low Man's Lyric". The changes on Load and ReLoad had been anticipated by earlier experiments (especially on The Black Album).

Sales of these albums were lower than sales of the previous three albums. Hetfield noted later in the documentary film Some Kind of Monster that the songs on these two albums were initially thought by the band to be of only average quality, and polished and reworked repeatedly until judged to be releasable. Hetfield also felt, however, that Metallica's changed image worked to the songs detriment, saying that " 'Bleeding Me', is, I think, some of my better lyrics of all time, and what are people talking about? Lars' fuzzy jacket."

In December 1997, Metallica performed on NBC's Saturday Night Live to promote ReLoad. They performed "Fuel" and "The Memory Remains" with Marianne Faithful.

In 1998, Metallica compiled a double CD called Garage Inc.. The first CD contained newly recorded covers ranging from Killing Joke, The Misfits, Thin Lizzy, Mercyful Fate, and Black Sabbath to more unexpected choices like Nick Cave and Bob Seger (the band's cover of Seger's "Turn the Page" garnered extensive radio airplay). The second CD gathered together previously released covers, including the original The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited, which had become a scarce collector's item. The CD also included B-side covers going as far back as 1984. Their cover of Queen's Stone Cold Crazy won a Grammy for Best Heavy Metal Performance.

On March 7, 1999, Metallica was inducted into the San Francisco Walk of Fame. The mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, proclaimed the day "Official Metallica Day" in San Francisco. A month later, on April 21-22, 1999, Metallica recorded two performances with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, then conducted by Michael Kamen. Kamen, who had previously worked with Bob Rock on "Nothing Else Matters", had approached the band eight years prior, just after The Black Album was released with the idea of pairing Metallica's music with a symphony orchestra. Kamen and his staff composed additional orchestral material for a number of Metallica songs and the concerts featured broad selection of songs dating as far back as Ride the Lightning. Metallica also wrote two brand new Kamen-scored songs for the event, "No Leaf Clover" and "−Human". The audio recording and concert footage were released later that year as the album/concert film S&M, in November 1999, on CD, VHS, VCD, and DVD.

Backlash (2000-2001)

In 2000, Metallica discovered that a demo of their song "I Disappear" was being distributed via the Napster P2P file-sharing network. Not only was the song unfinished, it was supposed to be released in combination with the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack.

They soon discovered that in addition to the demo, their entire catalogue was freely available. The band initiated legal action against Napster, demanding that 300,000 Napster users found to be trading Metallica songs be banned from the network. Legal actions were also filed against Yale University, University of Southern California, and Indiana University for not blocking Napster from their campuses. In 2001, Metallica and Napster agreed to an out-of-court settlement which led to Napster user accounts being locked out (the band did not take legal action against any individuals for copyright infringement).[citation needed] This led to Lars Ulrich providing a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding copyright infringement on July 11, 2000.

The lawsuit created a public relations nightmare. Throughout the controversy, websites hosted cartoon parodies of band members, portraying them as selfish rock stars who were out of touch with their fans. The most popular of these[citation needed] was a cartoon parody entitled Napster Bad!, by Camp Chaos, which spawned an entire series. Critics mocked Ulrich by spelling his name as "Lar$".[citation needed] In retaliation to the controversy, Ulrich appeared during the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, in a skit with that year's host Marlon Wayans, that blasted the idea of using Napster to share music. Marlon played a college student sitting in his dorm room, listening to Metallica's "I Disappear". Ulrich, playing himself, walked in and asked for an explanation. Upon receiving Wayans' excuse that using Napster was just "sharing", Lars retorted that Marlon's idea of sharing was simply borrowing things that were not yours without asking. He called in the Metallica road crew, who proceeded to confiscate all Wayans' belongings, leaving him almost nude in an empty room. Napster creator Shawn Fanning responded later in the ceremony by presenting an award wearing a Metallica shirt, saying "I borrowed this shirt from a friend. Maybe, if I like it, I'll buy one of my own".

Public ridicule was widespread as Metallica had gotten their start via underground trading of bootleg recordings of their performances. Metallica's defense was that Napster was allowing free access to their back catalogue and not live bootleg recordings, which the band had always encouraged. In 2007, years after the controversy, Metallica was still subject to ridicule for its actions, even being named #17 on Blender magazine's list of "biggest wusses in rock" for its "anti-Napster crusade".

As plans were being made to go into the recording studio in 2001, Newsted left the band, due to as he put it, "the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love". Subsequent interviews with Newsted and the remaining members revealed that Newsted's desire to release a CD and tour with his Echobrain side project - and Hetfield's intense resistance to such an idea - was the primary cause of Newsted's departure. Additionally, a Playboy interview revealed that the "hazing" that Newsted received since joining the band had not lessened over time. Finally, Newsted had never shared the songwriting partner status that Burton had enjoyed (in 15 years with the group, Newsted only received co-writing credit on three songs: "Blackened" from ...And Justice for All, "My Friend of Misery" from Metallica and "Where The Wild Things Are" from ReLoad). The 2004 documentary, Some Kind of Monster provided more insight into the reasons for Newsted's departure. In the film he says he felt his former bandmates' decision to hire a therapist to help solve their problems was "really fucking lame, and weak".

Resurgence (2001-present)

St. Anger era

In July, 2001, Hetfield entered rehab due to "alcoholism and other addictions". For nearly a year, Metallica ceased to function in any meaningful way. Ulrich and Hammett, for the first time, seriously considered the possibility that Metallica might be finished. Hetfield eventually returned to the band following his rehab hiatus and was required to work only four hours a day and spend the rest of his time with his family. Metallica continued slowly as a three-piece throughout the writing and recording of their next album. Longtime producer Bob Rock handled bass duties for the sessions. The making of the album was documented for the movie, "Some Kind of Monster". The film also exposed to fans that Metallica had sought the guidance of a therapist, Phil Towle, to deal with a vast amount of the band's inner turmoil.

Following the album's recording, Metallica held auditions for Newsted's permanent replacement in early 2003. Among the auditioning bassists were Pepper Keenan, Jeordie White, Scott Reeder, Eric Avery, Danny Lohner, and Chris Wyse. Robert Trujillo formerly of Suicidal Tendencies, and Ozzy Osbourne's band, was eventually chosen as the new bassist. Trujillo's resume also included Infectious Grooves as well as a stint with Black Label Society on their Boozed, Broozed, and Broken-Boned DVD. As Metallica moved on, Jason Newsted also found a new musical home joining Canadian thrash metal legends Voivod in 2002. In an interesting turn of events, Newsted also became Trujillo's replacement in Ozzy's band during the 2003 Ozzfest tour (which included Voivod as part of the touring bill).

While preparing for the Download Festival in England, Ulrich was rushed to hospital with a mysterious illness, and was unable to perform.[17] Hetfield searched for volunteers at the last minute to replace Ulrich; Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo and Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison volunteered, with Lombardo performing the songs "Battery" and "The Four Horsemen".

In June 2003, Metallica's eighth full-length recording, St. Anger, debuted at number one on the album charts. The intentionally raw and unpolished album drew harsh criticism from fans. The record's under-produced sound, Hetfield's "flexible" sense of pitch, Ulrich's steely sounding snare, and the absence of any guitar solos received particular criticism. Despite this, the album won the best metal performance at the 2004 Grammys.

The song "St. Anger" was used as the official theme song for WWE's SummerSlam 2003.

Having toured extensively for two years in support of St. Anger on the Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003 in festivals featuring Mudvayne, Deftones, Linkin Park, and Limp Bizkit and then the lengthy Madly in Anger with the World tour with Godsmack (in which nearly every performance was professionally recorded and sold on livemetallica.com) Metallica took a break from performing and spent most of 2005 with friends and family; however for two historic shows on November 13, 2005 and November 15, 2005, the band opened for the Rolling Stones at AT&T park in San Francisco.

Ninth studio album

On February 16, 2006, Metallica announced on their official website that after their 15+ year relationship, longtime producer Bob Rock was stepping down and would not be producing Metallica's next studio album. Rock had produced every Metallica album since 1991. Metallica is currently working on a studio album with producer Rick Rubin[18] who has produced albums for other prominent rock and metal bands such as Slayer, System of a Down, Slipknot, Beastie Boys, Audioslave, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine and Linkin Park. Metallica and Rubin go back a long way, in the eighties as Danzig friends and fans, James Hetfield doing backing vocals on the self-titled Danzig album (1988), also produced by Rubin.

Metallica debuted an untitled song nicknamed "The New Song" in Berlin, Germany on June 6, 2006 on the European leg of the Escape from the Studio '06 mini tour. On August 12, 2006, Metallica debuted another song in Tokyo, Japan on the Asian leg of the tour, nicknamed "The Other New Song". They have also supported the Summer Sonic tour in Tokyo and Osaka, along with Linkin Park. The band had previously unveiled new songs throughout the years prior to their release.

It was during this time on tour that the band finally bowed to fan pressure and decided to make each of their albums available from the iTunes Store - though strictly in the U.S. and Canada until issues with their European label are resolved - allowing individual tracks to be legally downloaded for the first time. Exclusive tracks from the Seattle '89 shows were added to the band's first four albums.

On October 13, 2006 Metallica announced that they would release a DVD containing all their videos from 1989 to 2004. The DVD, The Videos 1989-2004, was released on December 4, 2006 worldwide and on December 5 in North America.[19] The Videos 1989-2004 eventually became available on the iTunes Store.

Metallica also released a cover of "The Ecstasy of Gold", a song by Ennio Morricone in an album entitled We All Love Ennio Morricone released on February 20, 2007, in which other artists honor the composer. The Ecstasy of Gold has been the opener of Metallica live shows for over 20 years - but it has always been the original instrumentation and arrangement, played from a recording. This new version features the band itself performing it, giving a new guitar-based interpretation to the song.

On February 9, 2007 Metallica confirmed that pre-production on the new studio album had been completed, and recording of the new album would begin on March 12, 2007. The band also announced that a summer tour, later named "Sick of the Studio '07", was in the early planning stages. Eleven dates of this tour have been announced so far.

On June 15th, 2007 Metallica returned to HQ after a short break to begin rehearsing for their "Sick of the Studio '07" tour. The winners from the METALLICA: THE VIDEOS 1989-2004 DVD radio and online contests were treated to the HQ VIP treatment with a BBQ, a few autographs, and an intimate performance from the band in the jam room.

Metallica's 2007 tour began in Lisbon, Portugal at the 13th edition of mega-rock festival Super Bock Super Rock in which they played the song "...And Justice for All" for the first time in eighteen years. Metallica played to a crowd of more than 50,000 fans. The tour will run through July 2007. On July 3rd, 2007, Metallica performed at Τerra Vibe as part of the 11th Rockwave festival in Athens, Greece. On July 7th, 2007, Metallica performed at Wembley Stadium as part of Live Earth. At "Live Earth" Metallica played the songs "Sad But True", "Nothing Else Matters" and "Enter Sandman". BBC, who were broadcasting the event from the UK, were flooded with complaints after they missed the beginning of "Sad But True" and then cut off before "Enter Sandman" during the set, to a pre-recorded Crowded House performance from the Sydney show. "Enter Sandman" was highlighted on NBC's "Live Earth" presentation. They performed at Wembley Stadium the following day, as part of their tour "Sick of the Studio '07", with support from Mastodon, Machine Head and HIM. On the 10th of July they performed at Valle Hovin Stadion in Oslo, Norway in front of 40.000 people. Stockholm, Sweden on the 12th of July, Aarhus, Denmark on the 13th, Helsinki, Finland on the 15th and finally on the 18th they did a show in Moscow, Russia in front of 62,000 people.

On Metallica's "livemetallica.com" download site, the show in Denmark only has the latter part of the concert due to a massive power failure, so as a result, the show is available for free.

At E3 2007, Harmonix announced the song "Enter Sandman" will be featured on the video game Rock Band due out November 2007[25]. A month later, it was revealed that the song "One" will be featured on the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock video game, due out in October 2007[26].

In the July issue of Q, a music magazine in the U.K., Metallica was featured on the cover and it included the band members telling their whole story on the band's 26-year relationship.

Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum said in an recent interview, "Lars [Ulrich, Metallica drummer] is a good friend of mine. He played me the demos from San Francisco, and I turned and looked at him and I said, "Master that shit and put it out." It's ridiculous. The demos were sick. Eight-minute songs, all these tempo changes, crazy fast. "It's like, 'Dude, don't get slower when you get older, but don't get faster!? How are you gonna play this live?' And then me and Lars were out partying all night, and he had to go in the studio the next day and do this stupid like nine- or ten-minute song, and I was laughing at him — because he played me the demo of it, and it was [sings really fast drum part], so fast.