Metallica/YMMV

"James: Jason, impress the fuck out of us, man. Jason: *stops playing entirely* James: *Beat Panel* I'm impressed."
 * Award Snub:
 * Arguably the biggest ever, at least in music. Metallica was the largest reason that the Grammys created the "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental" award in 1989, and then they lost to Jethro Tull (the members of whom hadn't even shown up to the ceremony since they weren't expected to win). The look on Lars' face (as the band stood offstage literally just after they had played a blistering performance of "One") was priceless. Alice Cooper and Lita Ford, who presented the award, said "Jethro Tull?" in the form of a question when they read the name off the winner card, and booing could be heard from the crowd. The resulting backlash and criticism against the Academy resulted in the category being split into two separate ones; "Best Hard Rock Performance" and "Best Heavy Metal Performance", the latter of which Metallica won for the next three years afterward and holds the record for most won.
 * When they finally won for an album in 1992 (they had won for individual songs in the two previous years), Lars Ulrich jokingly thanked Jethro Tull for "not putting out an album this year" (referring to how Paul Simon jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that year, after winning Album of the Year in 1976).
 * Awesome Music: Their entire S&M concert, and their concerts in general. See their page
 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment: Metallica's bizarre collaboration album with Lou Reed.
 * Broken Base:
 * Several. Some fans only like their first three albums claiming the band died with Cliff and disliking the more progressive metal sound for "And Justice For All". Some only listen to their first 4 albums, calling sellout on anything post-Black Album. Some fans include The Black Album as canon but dislike their their change in style for the albums after that. Some like "Load" and "Re-load" but dislike "St. Anger". Some listen to anything they put out. Some of any of the aforementioned consider "Death Magnetic" to be a nice recovery and more like their pre-Black Album work, and some have blacklisted it due to poor audio quality
 * There are even fans who insist that Metallica was at its best when Dave Mustaine was lead guitarist, despite the fact that Dave was only in the band for a year and never played on any of their albums. Obviously there aren't a lot of these people because they would have had to have seen the band live when Metallica was still an unknown band playing heavy metal clubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but they do exist.
 * This one applies more to Dave's guitar riffs than to Dave himself. Although Dave didn't actually play on any of the albums, his riffs were used on their first two, and he has writing credits on them. Hence, the claims that the band started going downhill after "Master of Puppets".
 * Contested Sequel: Legitimately every album, with the possible exceptions of Re Load to Load (because they're basically a double album released separately) and Lulu to everything, because everyone hates it. Even their first album]] is one
 * Covered Up: "Turn the Page" (Bob Seger), "Whiskey in the Jar" (Thin Lizzy) and, arguably, "Astronomy" (Blue Oyster Cult).
 * Dork Age:
 * St. Anger.
 * The Nineties.
 * Ear Worm:
 * Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tock.
 * EEEEEXIIIIIIT LIIIIIGHT! EEEEEEENTEEEEEEEERRR NIIIIIIIIGHT!
 * MASTER OF PUPPETS I'M PULLING YOUR STRINGS! TWISTING YOUR MIND AND SMASHING YOUR DREAMS!
 * SEARCHING... SEEK AND DESTROY!
 * BOW DOWN TO THE PHANTOM LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRD!
 * TIME MARCHES ON ON ON ...FOR WHOM THE BELL TOOOOLLLLLLS!
 * Ending Fatigue: By the band's own admission, this was one of the reasons for the style change with The Black Album. Kirk made a comment about the songs being "too fucking long" and his claim that one of the band members swore that they'd never play "...And Justice For All" (the song) again after a grueling concert (he also mentioned "seeing the front row start to yawn by the 8th minute").
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Cliff.
 * Epic Riff: The bread-and-butter of some of their most popular songs. "Enter Sandman" also loaned itself to the greatest pro wrestling entrance ever caught on film.
 * Even Better Sequel: Kill 'Em All is an influential classic, yet Metallica managed to top it thrice in a row (Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice For All).
 * Face of the Band: James and Lars.
 * Fandom Heresy: Cliff is the best bassist. There is no other opinion allowed. The end.
 * Fan Dumb: Especially when you bring up the subject of Megadeth.
 * Fanon Discontinuity:
 * Which album(s) depends on who you ask, but St. Anger is perhaps the most universally ignored. Even the band themselves acknowledge this, as they rarely play any of the St. Anger songs during their live sets, and Ulrich mocked the album in this clip.
 * Lulu seems to be going this way, and a lot faster too.
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment:
 * At one point in the 80's, during an interview Cliff Burton was asked who in the band would probably die first. Burton guessed it would be him.
 * A related, if rather creepy one: according to the Other Wiki, Cliff won a game of drawing cards to determine which bunk he would get...by drawing the ace of spades. It is known as the death card in fortune telling, popular myth and folklore.
 * Another one by Cliff during the band's last performance. After they performed "Blitzkrieg" (which they did on a whim), he shouts "See ya!" Fortunately, at least, this isn't the last thing he's ever recorded saying. Shortly afterward, he shouts "YEAH!" Which might not make it that much better in anyway, but it's something.
 * Funny Moments: From the Live Shit: Binge and Purge performance of "Seek and Destroy"

"I just went along with the make-up and all of this crazy, stupid shit that they felt they needed to do."
 * It's Popular, Now It Sucks:
 * To a certain extent, the band has had to deal with this after each new album due to their Unpleasable Fanbase, and usually goes hand in hand with something new on each album. Hetfield in particular is known to find it amusing. However, The Black Album is by far the most prominent example. It provided them with a lot of success, making them the biggest heavy metal band in the world after it's release but also gave them a lot of hatred and sell out accusations from their original fan-base.
 * It's also worth noting that the band itself believed this trope originally, claiming they would never do a music video nor change their style to become more successful, stating that doing so would be selling out, yet later loosened up about them and did both.
 * Magnum Opus: Lars says that he considers "....And Justice For All" to be this. Fans generally claim that "Ride the Lightning" or "Master of Puppets" is more worthy of the title.
 * Memetic Mutation: When singing, Hetfield has a tendency to end words with -AHH! tacked on to them, like THIS-AHH!! This tendency sometimes gets made fun of, but it's usually in good fun. There's also the issue of Frantic from St Anger. Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...you get the point. More recently, "Split apart" from "My Apocalypse" from Death Magnetic and "I am the table" from their much-ballyhooed collaboration with Lou Reed have been smaller examples.
 * Memetic Villain: Dave Mustaine. On any videos of concert mishaps, expect Dave to be blamed (jokingly, of course).
 * Mis Blamed:
 * Hetfield's gone on record blaming Lars and Kirk for the Load image change:


 * Jason Newsted is frequently blamed for the Lighter and Softer nineties albums, with cries of "Cliff would have never allowed this to happen," being frequent among old-school fans. This is despite all evidence pointing to Jason being the most hardcore metalhead in the band and the fact that James, Lars, and Kirk all credit Cliff as the one who expanded their musical tastes beyond simplistic thrash metal. Not to mention the fact that Jason had one writing credit between the "Load" and "Reload" albums, and only one on the self-titled album.
 * This is all true about Jason, but Kirk did say something to the effect that "St. Anger" was in a sense Jason's vision for where the band would go, but he was the "sacrificial lamb" for that to happen. Presumably, though, he wanted it without the outlandishly terrible sound.
 * The people who dislike "Lulu" tend to blame Metallica despite the fact that they had practically nothing to do with the writing process.
 * Lou Reed was quite possibly being a troll with this album. Remember, he may have been able to craft masterpieces with Velvet Underground, but this is the same man who brought us Metal Machine Music.
 * Moment of Awesome:
 * Their live shows live on this.
 * One specific moment occurred during the recent "Big Four" tour with fellow thrash pioneers Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, with all four bands performing a portion of Diamond Head's classic "Am I Evil?" on the same stage, in unison. To see these four bands actually performing in the same show together had to be something special, and a crowning moment for all involved.
 * Actually, it was only Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax playing "Am I Evil?" because the guys from Slayer were backstage editing their concert footage for the satellite broadcast.
 * The entire album Master of Puppets is another Crowning Moment of Awesome. There's a reason why so many web sites and metal magazines have ranked it as the greatest metal album of all time; it's pure, distilled awesome from start to finish.
 * Nightmare Fuel: The videos for "One" and "All Nightmare Long".
 * Painful Rhyme: Hetfield has really got to stop it with the couplets ending in "brain" and "insane". As of Death Magnetic, he's still doing it.
 * Ruined FOREVER: Metallica released an album without Cliff Burton? Metallica is Ruined FOREVER! They released an album that was closer to old-school heavy metal instead of thrash metal? Ruined FOREVER! Death Magnetic isn't a bland copy of Master of Puppets? Ruined FOREVER!
 * The Scrappy:
 * Lars Ulrich after the Napster debacle.
 * Producer Bob Rock, whom many of the fans blamed the band's 90s decline on.
 * Among their albums, "St. Anger" definitely holds the title, but it looks like it will be competing with "Lulu", which has been getting this reaction from just about everyone.
 * Replacement Scrappy: Jason Newsted.
 * Alas, Poor Scrappy: Jason again after he left. In keeping with the band's Unpleasable Fanbase, after spending 14 years as the Replacement Scrappy, he left, only for some of those fans to suddenly decide he really was very talented and how terrible it was that the other members mistreated him like they did.
 * Rescued From the Scrappy Heap: If you can get past the horrible mastering, many fans consider Death Magnetic to be a return to classic Metallica following the widely-disliked albums Load, Re-Load, and St.Anger.
 * Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Averted mostly, they show up in the top 5 of any list of the best heavy metal bands, but occasionally people forget just how heavy they were when they came out. This song was the face of mainstream heavy metal in 1982/3. This is Metallica's first song.
 * Tear Jerker: "Low Man's Lyric."
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: In addition to each new album leading to them being accused of selling out they also get accused of this after each one. Though The Black Album is the most prominent example, even their pre-Black Album works get this; "Ride the Lightning" for having a ballad, "Master of Puppets" for being slightly less thrash sounding than the previous two albums, and "And Justice For All" for having a more progressive metal sound. In addition to making them commercially successful, "Metallica", aka, "The Black Album" also marked a big change in their musical style to a more general heavy metal sound. "Load" and Re-Load" continued that change to an alternative rock sound, and "St. Anger" to nu metal.