"Ride the Lightning" by Metallica

The band's defining album turns 40.

Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!

Today, contributor Evan McCrea helps us celebrate the 40th anniversary of Metallica’s genre-changing sophomore LP.

Genre: Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal

Label: Megaforce

Release Date: July 27, 1984

Vibe: 🤘🤘 

When I was asked to pay tribute to this album, I was overcome with excitement. Having my first encounter with this record at 14 years old, I was deep in the throes of adolescent awkwardness. Like any angsty teen, I was, for the first time, learning the harsh ways of the world and learning to cope with the inescapable truth that the world is not all puppy dogs and rainbows. The impact Ride the Lightning had on me at that time was significant. I learned that perspective is a product of your environment, and sometimes, harnessing your negative energy can help create something wonderful and brilliant. 

And I would like to start this one by addressing the elephant in the room. Let’s hope I can do it justice. 

When the subject of Metallica’s first four albums comes up, the praise for 1986’s Master of Puppets is deserved. As an avid fan, it’s hard not to go down that road and benchmark every subsequent album off its sheer mind-melting ferocity. To this day, Master remains an example of a perfect metal album in style, sound, and lyrical depth, demonstrating the precision musicianship of the creative force behind it. But that perfection wasn’t created overnight. While I would be remiss to deny its influence and legacy (21 platinum records in 9 different countries since its release), none of the global success would have been possible without its predecessor, Ride the Lightning.  

And the reason all comes down to discipline. Ride the Lightning was arguably their most significant achievement because it introduced a more mature version of Metallica to the world. Not only had the band’s material become more complex, but they also learned how to record in a studio environment instead of the “push mikes up to the amps and play” approach they had used with their debut, Kill ‘Em All. It must be noted here that Kill ‘Em All was comprised of multiple songs that had been recycled from each member’s previous bands, and there was virtually no input from bassist Cliff Burton. When taken down to its bare bones, it wasn’t what we now consider a Metallica album.

Furthermore, if we look at the success of the glorious Master of Puppets record, legend has it that the record was recorded to impress fans and critics. Master of Puppets had a purpose, whereas Ride the Lightning did not.  

When Metallica started composing Ride the Lightning, they became fully immersed in the leadership of bassist Cliff Burton, using his classical music training to learn the basics of music theory and lyrical depth. This renewed approach helped them one-up themselves, fusing acoustic guitars and harmonies with prog-rock-inspired tempo changes and deeper, literature-inspired lyrics (like For Whom the Bell Tolls, inspired by the poem of the same name by Ernest Hemmingway, Creeping Death, inspired by biblical Plagues of Egypt while its title track tacked the unfairness of the American justice system). Even the album’s title, Ride the Lightning, came from the long-winded, uncomfortable slogging of Stephen King’s The Stand. And thus, the building blocks of that signature Metallica sound were born. 

And as a side note, while I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Stand, it was far too long and, in certain places, hard to focus on. For a story that could have been told in 800 pages, Mr. King stretched it for another 400, putting his readers in the uncomfortable position of wanting to find out what happened but just wanting the thing to bloody end! And don’t get me started on that fiasco of a TV movie starring Ed Harris and Bonnie Bedelia. Good God. Let us pretend that didn’t happen.  

Besides genuinely expanding their mindset, Ride the Lightning’s roots were seeded deeper, becoming a testament to their environment. Their 1983 “tour” saw the band’s gear get stolen from a van parked outside a club in Boston (which subsequently saw them borrow amps, guitars, and a drum kit from fellow band Anthrax) and the band clearing little to no money at all: they ate one meal a day and slept on fan’s couches for the duration of the tour. Megaforce Records was virtually bankrupt at the time, too, which put recording a second album in peril from the start. If it hadn’t been for their European distributors, Music for Nations, Metallica, as we know them today, may never have been.  

With a modest budget of $20,000, the band flew to Copenhagen, Denmark, to begin studio work on their second record with producer Flemming Rasmussen (who was hand-picked by Lars Ulrich for his work on Rainbow’s 1981 record Difficult to Cure) at Sweet Silence Studios. Though he had never heard of them, Rasmussen felt they had great potential.  

This decision was valuable for Ulrich, who had no knowledge of rhythm theory. Under the guidance of Rasmussen and drum tech Fleming Larsen, he learned the concepts of timing and beat duration, a skill that would end his tendency to speed up or slow down songs.  

The final product took 29 days (about 4 weeks) to record and only ran $10,000 over budget. It would go on to attract the attention of Elektra Records, which signed the band in September 1984 and re-released Ride the Lightning in November of that same year. 

If Metallica is credited with creating the Thrash Metal genre with Kill ‘Em All, then Ride the Lightning expanded the genre’s potential, opening the doors for more musical complexity, speed, and emotionally deep lyrics for years to come. 

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈