... And Justice for All

This article covers the album. For the single of the same name from this album, see ... And Justice for All (song) .

... And Justice for All
Metallica studio album
Publication (s)	September 7, 1988
admission	January to May 1988
Label (s)	Elektra Records , Vertigo
Format (s)	CD , LP
Genre (s)	Thrash metal , progressive metal
Title (number)	9
running time	65:10
occupation	Vocals , guitar : James Hetfield Lead guitar: Kirk Hammett Bass : Jason Newsted Drums : Lars Ulrich
production	Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen
Studio (s)	One on One Studios, Los Angeles (USA)
chronology Garage Days Re-Revisited (1987) ... And Justice for All Metallica (1991)
Single releases August 28, 1988 Harvester of Sorrow October 30, 1988 Eye of the Beholder January 10, 1989 One

... And Justice for All ( English for "... And Justice for All") is the fourth studio album of American Metal - band Metallica . It was released on September 7, 1988 via Elektra Records and was the first studio album with bassist Jason Newsted , who replaced Cliff Burton , who had been killed in an accident two years earlier . ... And Justice for All sold over eight million copies in the United States alone and was certified eight times platinum . This makes ... And Justice for All the second most successful album in the band's history. The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental .

The album title comes from the last four words of the United States' oath of allegiance (" Pledge of Allegiance ") and is to be understood as a cynical metaphor for the injustices of the world, which is the main lyrical theme of the album. Musically the album for one often described as cold and dry sound is known in which Newsteds bass playing so far into the background mixed was that it is hardly noticeable.

Emergence

Burton's death and the search for a successor

In the fall of 1986 Metallica toured together with the band Anthrax as part of Damage, -Inc. -Tour of Europe. On September 27, 1986, the tour group was on the way from Stockholm to Copenhagen . The Metallica bus skidded on an icy road near Ljungby and overturned. Burton was thrown from his bunk outside before the bus crashed on him and Burton was killed in an accident. After a short period of mourning, the remaining musicians decided to continue the band.

“The last thing Cliff [Burton] would have wanted was for us to stop. He would have been the first to kick our asses and make us finally wake up. "

- James Hetfield 1990

James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich put together a list of 40 potential successors. The candidates included Joey Vera from Armored Saint , Kirk Hammett's school friend Les Claypool from Primus or Twiggy Ramirez from Marilyn Manson , and Greg Christian from the band Testament . Vera declined the offer, however. At the suggestion of Brian Slagel , the owner of Metal Blade Records , Metallica invited Jason Newsted. Newsted had released the highly acclaimed album Doomsday for the Deceiver in the spring of 1986 with his band Flotsam and Jetsam and was also a big fan of Metallica.

On October 28, 1986, Newsted appeared to audition in the Metallica rehearsal room . In the previous two days he had rehearsed the entire repertoire of the band. After Newsted plugged in and tuned his instrument, Hetfield asked him which song he wanted to play. Newsted replied simply, "Which one you want; I know them all! ”.

After another rehearsal and drinking session, the band decided on Newsted as their new bass player. On October 31, 1986, Newsted made his last appearance with Flotsam and Jetsam before playing his first concert with Metallica eight days later. In the summer of 1987, Metallica released the EP Garage Days Re-Revisited, the first release on which Newsted can be heard.

Songwriting and producer search

In terms of songwriting , the band wanted to break new ground in contrast to the previous three albums and compose the songs for the new album together as a band. From October 1987 the musicians met in the rehearsal room and began working. The new way of working soon turned out to be not very productive.

"We tried it for three days, but it always ended with us playing cover versions and getting drunk."

- Lars Ulrich

Ulrich and Hetfield sat down together as in earlier times and developed the new songs from the riffs that the musicians had collected on cassettes over the past two years . While the songwriting for the previous album Master of Puppets took four months, the songs for ... And Justice for All were created within two months.

The album, like the two previous albums, was to be produced by Flemming Rasmussen . Since Rasmussen was busy with another production at the planned start of the recording in January 1988 and could not be bought out of his obligations, Metallica looked for alternatives. Hetfield wanted to work with Geddy Lee , the singer / bassist for the band Rush , but Lee canceled due to scheduling issues. Ultimately, Hetfield and Ulrich chose producer Mike Clink , who made a name for himself in 1987 with the production of the Guns-n'-Roses debut album Appetite for Destruction .

Recordings

On January 28, 1988, recording began in the one-on-one studio in Los Angeles . The collaboration between the band and producer Clink proved difficult. After Jason Newsted's bass and drum tracks were recorded for the songs Harvester of Sorrow and The Shortest Straw , the musicians found that the desired sound could not be found.

Ulrich then called Rasmussen several times and described the problems. Rasmussen finally put pressure on his production in order to be able to complete the recordings as quickly as possible. Two weeks after Ulrich's last call, Rasmussen flew to Los Angeles. The day before Rasmussen's arrival, the band had fired Clink. Both parties are silent about the reasons for the separation. Rasmussen suspected that the different musical backgrounds between the producer and the band were the reason for the failure.

Due to the change of producer, the band came under time pressure. Metallica were invited by the band Van Halen for their Monsters of Rock stadium tour, in which Metallica would play after the bands Kingdom Come and Dokken and before the Scorpions and Van Halen. The recordings were finally completed on May 1, 1988.

Music and production

… And Justice for All is the musically most complex Metallica album to date. For some fans and critics, the album is the high point and at the same time the end of Metallica's development in its Thrash Metal phase. As on the previous album Master of Puppets , the modular structure of the songs continues on … And Justice for All . The songs are all relatively long and contain (especially in the middle parts) complex riffs and structures.

The production of the album led to some discussions after its release: Although a very clean sound was achieved here, the extensive lack of bass frequencies was criticized very much. The lower frequencies on this album mostly come - the exception is To Live Is to Die - not from the bass, but were generated by the drums, especially the bass drum , and the guitars. The bass guitar, on the other hand, is barely audible. This fact is often explained by the fact that on the one hand bassist Jason Newsted was not present during the mixing, and on the other hand was not accepted as a full member within the band at that time. Jason Newsted himself explained the extensive lack of bass in the mix, however, with the fact that he based his playing too heavily on James Hetfield's rhythm guitar.

In the past, Metallica have featured in their fan magazine SoWhat! said that they would have liked to reshuffle the album afterwards if that had been possible. In the music game Rock Band , the bass was remixed for the game and also offered as a downloadable track.

publication

On September 6, 1988, the album was released by Elektra Records. The Japanese version of the album contains the song The Prince , a cover version of a song by the band Diamond Head , as a bonus track . Three singles were released from the album. The song Harvester of Sorrow was first released as a single in the UK on August 19, 1988 . The B-sides of the single included The Prince and a cover version of the song Breadfan by the Welsh band Budgie . On October 30, 1988, the single Eye of the Beholder was released in North America . This single contains the song Breadfan as the B-side . The third single, One, was released on January 10, 1989.

Songs

Track list
Blackened - 6:40 ( Hetfield , Ulrich , Newsted ) ... And Justice for All - 9:44 (Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett ) Eye of the Beholder - 6:25 (Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett) One - 7:24 (Hetfield, Ulrich) The Shortest Straw - 6:35 (Hetfield, Ulrich) Harvester of Sorrow - 5:42 (Hetfield, Ulrich) The Frayed Ends of Sanity - 7:40 (Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett) To Live Is to Die - 9:48 (Hetfield, Ulrich, Burton ) Dyers Eve - 5:12 (Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett)

The opening song Blackened is about the end of the world caused by a nuclear war . The song begins with a fade- in for which several guitar tracks were recorded and superimposed. During the fade-in, the recordings can be heard played backwards, before the song continues playing forwards after a break .

The theme song deals with the issue of corruption in the judiciary , where money is more important than the truth. This thesis is visualized by the album cover, on which banknotes fly out of the scales of Justitia . The text written by James Hetfield states that Justitia was raped . The inspiration for the song comes from the 1979 film of the same name with Al Pacino. With a length of 9:44 minutes, it is the fifth longest song in the band's history.

Eye of the Beholder is based on a riff played in staccato and is set in the middle tempo. In terms of text, it speaks out against legal restrictions on freedom of expression . The song was inspired by the censorship proceedings against the album Frankenchrist by the American hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys . This album included the poster Landscape #XX , also known as "Penis Landscape" by the Swiss artist HR Giger . The picture shows several erect penises which in vaginas penetrate.

The song One is an anti-war song and an adaptation of the novel Johnny Goes to War by Dalton Trumbo from 1939. The protagonist of the novel loses his eyesight , hearing , speech, arms and legs as a soldier during a battle through a land mine . He wishes to die, but cannot express this because of the locked-in syndrome . Metallica shot their first music video for One . The band bought the rights to the film so that they could use excerpts for their video.

In The Shortest Straw is about people, because of their views on a blacklist set, discriminated against are and pushed out of the company. An example of this is the McCarthy era , when members and alleged sympathizers of the US Communist Party were persecuted between 1947 and 1956 .

Harvester of Sorrow tells the story of a man who leads a completely normal life with his wife and children. One day the man goes nuts and kills everyone around him. Harvester of Sorrow is one of the slowest songs in the band's history.

Memorial stone to Cliff Burton

The intro of the song "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" was taken from the film The Wizard of Oz . The song deals with the psychological effects of insanity , schizophrenia , paranoia and dementia .

The band dedicated the instrumental "To Live Is to Die" to their former bassist Cliff Burton, who had previously died in an accident with their tour bus. The musicians put the song together from various riffs that Burton had written over the years. The song contains a short poem spoken by James Hetfield , which Burton read to the band once.

The album is concluded with the song Dyers Eve . For the first time, Hetfield wrote a text relating to his own life. This is about the restrictions that his parents, as followers of Christian Science, had imposed on him.

reception

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

... And Justice for All   DE 3 09/19/1988 (27 weeks)   AT 12 11/01/1988 (4 weeks)   CH 7th 09/18/1988 (8 weeks)   UK 4th 09/17/1988 (7 weeks)   US 6th 09/24/1988 (122 weeks)

Singles

Harvester of Sorrow   UK 20th 09/03/1988 (3 weeks) One   DE 31 05/02/1994 (15 weeks)   CH 22nd 05/08/1994 (11 weeks)   UK 13 04/22/1989 (9 weeks)   US 35 02/18/1989 (15 weeks)

Chart placements

… And Justice for All became Metallica's most successful album to date and reached positions in the top ten of the album charts for the first time immediately after the album was released. The album debuted at number four in the British, fifth in the German and sixth on the US album charts . The album reached further placements in the top ten in Sweden (fifth place), Switzerland (seventh place) as well as in Finland and Norway (eighth place each). The album reached twelfth place in Austria .

The songs Harvester of Sorrow and One were released as singles. Harvester of Sorrow was only released in Great Britain and reached number 20 on the local singles charts . The second single, One , was released in early 1989 and peaked at number 13 in the UK and number 35 in the US . The single reached the highest chart positions in Germany (31st place) and Switzerland (22nd place) in 1994.

Awards

For over eight million units sold in the US … And Justice for All was awarded eight times platinum there. Since the company Nielsen SoundScan began on May 25, 1991 with the exact calculation of the music albums sold in the USA, 5,330,000 units had been sold by December 20, 2009. In Canada , the album went triple platinum for 300,000 units sold. In Germany, the album received double platinum for one million copies sold, so … And Justice for All is one of the best-selling music albums since 1975 .

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Australia (ARIA)	platinum	140,000
Argentina (CAPIF)	platinum	60,000
Germany (BVMI)	2 × platinum	1,000,000
Finland (IFPI)	platinum	99,891
Canada (MC)	3 × platinum	300,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)	gold	7,500
Norway (IFPI)	gold	25,000
Switzerland (IFPI)	platinum	50,000
United States (RIAA)	8 × platinum	8,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	gold	300,000
All in all	1 × gold 18 × platinum	9,982,391

Main article: Metallica / Music Sales Awards

country	gold	platinum	2 × platinum	3 × platinum	8 × platinum
United States awarded by RIAA	October 31, 1988	October 31, 1988	-	April 1, 1992	June 9, 2003
Canada awarded by CRIA	-	17th November 1988	-	January 27, 1994	-
Germany awarded by BVMI	1992	-	May 24, 2019	-	-

Grammy nomination

At the 1989 Grammy Awards , Metallica was nominated for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental . Metallica played the song One at the gala at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles . After the performance, the band only went briefly behind the stage and waited for the award ceremony in the Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental category to take place immediately after their performance . Metallica were considered big favorites.

The award was given by the singers Lita Ford and Alice Cooper . As soon as Ford pulled the slip of paper with the winner out of the envelope, she laughed and announced the British progressive rock band Jethro Tull as the winner for the album Crest of a Knave . The audience reacted to the jury's decision with loud boos.

Metallica took the decision with humor and provided a partial edition of the album with a sticker that read "Grammy Award Losers". The American magazine Entertainment Weekly declared Jethro Tull's Grammy win as the biggest surprise in the history of the Grammy Awards. When Metallica won a Grammy for their album of the same name in 1992, Lars Ulrich thanked Jethro Tull in his acceptance speech for “not releasing an album that year”.

Live performances

Appearance during the Damaged Justice tour

At live concerts on the Damaged Justice tour that followed, Metallica sometimes had difficulties implementing the songs due to the high complexity of the songs. For this reason, most of the songs disappeared from the live repertoire in the following years and were largely only considered in the context of a jam on the following tours . One and Harvester of Sorrow have become an integral part of many concerts.

In response to great demand from fans, Dyers Eve was played live for the first time on the 2003/2004 Madly-in-Anger-With-the-World Tour. In general, more songs by … And Justice for All found their way into the program on this tour . The instrumental piece To Live Is to Die was played in full for the first time on December 7, 2011 in four concerts to mark the band's 30th anniversary. So far, only a few fragments have been used as guitar / bass solos.

The problems of the live implementation were later mentioned by the band as a reason for the simplification of the song structures on the following albums.

The stage setup on the Damaged Justice tour that followed the album consisted of the oversized Justitia known from the album cover, which broke apart at the end of the song … And Justice for All (Metallica keep the head of this statue in their private studio to this day). A 1989 concert on this tour, recorded in Seattle , was released in full as part of Box Live Shit: Binge & Purge .

literature

• Joel McIver: Justice for All: The Truth About Metallica . Bosworth Music GmbH, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86543-368-8 .
• Mick Wall, Malcolm Dome: Metallica - story and songs compact . Bosworth Music GmbH, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86543-273-5 .

Web links

• Official website (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} ... And Justice For All | Metallica.com. In: metallica.com. Retrieved May 6, 2020 . 
2. ↑ cf. Wall / Dome, page 49
3. ↑ cf. McIver, page 208 ff.
4. ↑ cf. McIver, page 225.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Michael Rensen: Thrash, Trauer & Triumphs. In: Rock Hard , April 2007 edition.
6. ↑ cf. McIver, pp. 226/227.
7. ↑ cf. McIver, page 229.
8. ↑ ^{a b} cf. McIver, page 243.
9. ↑ cf. McIver, page 244
10. ↑ ^{a b} Metallica timeline 1988. ( Memento from September 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: metallica.com (English).
11. ↑ Blackened. In: encycmet.com (English).
12. ↑ ... And Justice for All. ( Memento of April 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: encycmet.com (English).
13. ↑ cf. Wall / Dome, page 54.
14. ^ One. In: encycmet.com (English).
15. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Wall / Dome, page 56.
16. ^ The Frayed Ends of Sanity. ( Memento from April 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: 4horsemensite.com (English).
17. ↑ To Live Is to Die. ( Memento from April 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: 4horsemensite.com (English).
18. ↑ cf. McIver, page 250.
19. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
20. ↑ Metallica's 'Black' LP Is Top-Selling Album of Soundscan Era. ( Memento of December 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: blabbermouth.net (English).
21. ^ RIAA database: Ride the Lightning. In: riaa.com (English).
22. ^ Search Certification Database. In: cria.ca (English).
23. ↑ Gold / platinum database. In: musikindustrie.de .
24. ↑ Grammy's 10 Biggest Upsets. In: ew.com (English).