Metallica Salt Lake City tickets

Metallica is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and Danish-born drummer Lars Ulrich. The band relocated to San Francisco early in its career and has been based there ever since. Metallica helped define thrash metal as one of the genre's founding "big four" alongside Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, blending aggressive tempos, intricate song structures, and a raw intensity that reshaped what heavy music could sound like. Their third album, Master of Puppets (1986), is widely regarded as one of the greatest metal records ever made. Their self-titled fifth album, commonly called The Black Album, sold over 16 million copies in the United States alone and became the best-selling album of the Nielsen SoundScan era.

Across eleven studio albums and more than four decades of touring, Metallica has sold over 163 million albums worldwide. Six consecutive studio albums debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, from The Black Album in 1991 through Hardwired... to Self-Destruct in 2016. The band's sound has evolved from the speed and thrash metal of its early work through a more traditional heavy metal approach in the 1990s, and into hard rock territory on Load (1996) and Reload (1997), before returning to thrash-influenced songwriting on Death Magnetic (2008) and 72 Seasons (2023). Their catalog draws on influences ranging from Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden to punk and classical music, producing a body of work that spans aggressive riff-driven compositions and extended progressive arrangements alike.