Metallica is known for its heavy, fast, and intricate songs. However, my favorite out of all of their songs is quite the opposite of their status quo. It’s their popular power ballad, “Fade to Black”. Coming from their second album “Ride the Lightning” this song takes the spot as their very first ballad. Because of the sadness and hopelessness played behind each note, this song is easily the favorite Metal song of all time for San Luis Obispo High School students.
Deriving from a sense of deep rooted emotion in the band, it draws a lot of similarities not in song substance, but in the way it is formatted, to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. It consists of changes between acoustic folk guitar, slow heavy metal, and emotional guitar solos. The song grips you by starting off with a very clean and progressing guitar solo, set to the background of a rhythmic acoustic guitar.
“That guitar solo is easily the best solo that I’ve ever heard. The entire one minute intro is probably better than ninety percent of other artists’ entire musical careers,” said Junior Evan Clausen.
This song derives from a deep rooted state of depression within the band. Their gear had just been stolen, including the amp that was the lead singer James Hetfield’s favorite amp, more importantly the amp his mom who died when he was a teen bought him. The words were taken from the last confession of a suicide victim.
“Everytime I listen to it when I feel sad, it just makes me feel so much more sad which is kind of counterproductive humorously,” said Junior Maggie Zuniga.
Some were taken back a little bit when the song came out in 1984, thinking it was selling out compared to the angsty, fast, and intricate playing style and sound of their first album, “Kill ‘em All!”
However, every band must take a break from their original style of music every now and then to be real with their fans and to themselves.
James Hetfield himself was worried how the Metal fan base would react to this song, but the majority of them agree with SLOHS students that it is really a great addition to their collection of music.
