The single reached number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and achieved platinum certification for more than 1,000,000 copies shipped in the United States, spurring sales of over 30million copies for Metallica and propelling Metallica to worldwide popularity. Acclaimed by critics, the song is featured in all of Metallica's live albums and DVDs released after 1991 and has been played live at award ceremonies and benefit concerts.
Sample of "Enter Sandman" from Metallica's 1991 album Metallica. In this sample, the main riff of the song can be heard in the beginning followed by the verse and the pre-chorus. The whole song evolved from an early version of the main riff, written by guitarist Kirk Hammett.
"Enter Sandman" was the first song Metallica had written for their 1991 eponymous album.[4] Metallica's songwriting at that time was done mainly by rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, after they gathered tapes of song ideas and concepts from the other members of the band, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Jason Newsted. Ulrich's house in Berkeley, California, was used for this purpose.[4] "Enter Sandman" evolved from a guitar riff that Hammett wrote,[4] after being inspired by Soundgarden's 1989 album Louder Than Love.[5] Originally, the riff was two bars in length, but Ulrich suggested the first bar be played three times and the second bar only be repeated every fourth time.[4] The instrumental parts of the song were quickly finished,[6] but Hetfield did not come up with vocal melodies and lyrics for a long time. The song was among the album's last to have lyrics,[4] and the lyrics featured in the song are not the original; Hetfield felt that "Enter Sandman" sounded "catchy and kind of commercial" and so to counterbalance the sound, he wrote lyrics about "destroy[ing] the perfect family; a huge horrible secret in a family" that included references to crib death.[7][8] For the first time in Metallica's history, however, Ulrich and producer Bob Rock told Hetfield that they felt he could write better lyrics.[7] Nevertheless, according to Ulrich, the song was the "foundation, the guide to the whole record" even before it had lyrics.
An instrumental demo was recorded on August 13, 1990. The album Metallica was mostly recorded in Los Angeles at One on One Studios, between October 6, 1990, and June 16, 1991, although Ulrich, Hetfield, and Rock also recorded for a week in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, between April and May 1991. As the first to be produced by Bob Rock, it was recorded differently from previous Metallica albums; Rock suggested that the band members record in the studio while playing together, rather than separately.[9]
"Enter Sandman" had what Hetfield described as a "wall of guitars"— three rhythm guitar tracks of the same riff played by himself to create a "wall of sound".[6] According to engineer Randy Staub, close to 50 takes of the drums were recorded because Ulrich did not record the song in its entirety, but rather recorded each section of the song separately.[10] Because it was difficult to get in one take the "intensity" that the band wanted, numerous takes were selected and edited together.[9] Staub mentioned that the production team spent much time getting the best sound from each part of the room and used several combinations of 40 to 50 microphones in recording the drums and guitars to simulate the sound of a live concert.[10] The bass guitar sound also gained importance with Rock; as Newsted states, Metallica's sound was previously "very guitar-oriented" and that "when he [Rock] came into the picture, bass frequencies also came into the picture."[11] As the first single, "Enter Sandman" was also the first song to be mixed,[9] a task that took roughly ten days because the band and Bob Rock had to create the sound for the entire album while mixing the song.[9]
Composition
The simpler songs in the album Metallica,[4] including "Enter Sandman", are a departure from the band's previous, more musically complex album ...And Justice for All.[12][13] Ulrich described "Enter Sandman" as a "one-riff song", in which all of its sections derive from the main riff credited to Kirk Hammett.[4]
"Enter Sandman" moves at a tempo of 123 beats per minute for the song length of 5:32 which is slightly above the average song length of the album.[14] It begins with a guitar intro using a chorus pedal similar to the main riff; an E minorchord on a guitar using the wah-wah pedal is then introduced, followed by heavy use of tom-tom drums. Distorted guitars then build up to the main riff, which starts 56 seconds into the song and utilizes variations of the E/B♭tritone.[15] P. J. Howorth, in The Wah Wah Book, characterized the main riff as "sinister".[16] The song then follows a common structure, playing two iterations of a verse, a pre-chorus, and a chorus. On the chorus and pre-chorus, the song modulates one whole tone, up to F♯,[16] and after the second chorus, Hammett plays a guitar solo with the main, pre-chorus, and chorus riffs in the background. Hammett makes use of the wah-wah pedal and a wide range of scales, including E minor pentatonic, B minor, F♯ minor, E minor, and the E dorian mode.[16] One of the final licks of the solo was inspired by the Heart song "Magic Man" as used in Ice-T's "Personal".[17] Just a few seconds before the solo ends, the breakdown starts, in which the clean drum intro starts, then the acoustic guitar intro when the last notes of Kirk's solo echo over it into the background, are heard together with Hetfield teaching a child the "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" bedtime prayer and reciting a variation of the lullaby rhyme "Hush Little Baby" where he is heard saying "Hush little baby don't say a word, and never mind that noise you heard. It's just the beasts under your bed, in your closet, in your head".[18] After building again to a chorus, the song starts to fade out while the band plays the same riffs as the buildup intro in reverse order.[14] Lyrically, the song is about "nightmares and all that come with them", according to Chris True of AllMusic.[13] The title is a reference to the sandman, a character from Westernfolklore who makes children sleep.[19]
Release and reception
Initially, the song "Holier Than Thou" was slated to be the opening track and first single from Metallica;[4] according to the documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, producer Bob Rock told Ulrich and Hetfield that the album has "five or six songs that are going to be classics", not only with fans but also on the radio, and that "the first song that should come out is 'Holier Than Thou'".[20] According to Rock, Ulrich was the only band member who felt, even before recording, that "Enter Sandman" was the ideal song to be the first single.[9] Ulrich has said that there was a "big argument"; however, after explaining his point of view to the rest of the band,[4] "Enter Sandman" eventually became the opening track and first single of the album.[21][22]
The single was released on July 29, 1991, two weeks before the release of Metallica.[1] The album debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 in the United States and nine other countries, and sold over 22 million copies worldwide,[21][23] allowing "Enter Sandman" to become, as Chris True describes it, "one of the most recognizable songs of all time in rock".[13] The single peaked at No.16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and at No.5 on the UK Singles Chart. On September 30, 1991, it became Metallica's second single to achieve gold status in the United States, for shipping more than 500,000 copies.[24] In August 2021, the song re-entered the German Singles Chart at No. 1 after a CD single was re-issued whose profit is set to be donated for charity benefitting the German survivors of the 2021 European floods.[25] In addition to the nominations received by the album as a whole, the song was nominated for Best Rock Song at the 34th Grammy Awards in 1992, ultimately losing to "The Soul Cages" by Sting.[26][27] It was also voted Song of the Year in Metal Edge's 1991 Readers Choice Awards.[28]
"Enter Sandman" was met with acclaim by critics. Chris True of AllMusic declared it "one of Metallica's best moments" and a "burst of stadium level metal that, once away from the buildup intro, never lets up".[13] According to him, the song's breakdown "brilliantly utilizes that 'Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep' bedtime prayer in such a way as to add to the scary movie aspect of the song".[13] Steve Huey, in AllMusic's review of Metallica, described it as one of the album's best songs, with "crushing, stripped-down grooves".[29] Robert Palmer of Rolling Stone described "Enter Sandman" as "possibly the first metal lullaby" and wrote that the song "tell[s] the tale" of the album's "detail and dynamic, [...] song structures and impact of individual tracks".[30] Sid Smith from the BBC called the song "psycho-dramatic" and noted that the "terse motifs served notice that things were changing" with Metallica's new album.[31]Blender magazine's Tim Grierson says that the lyrics "juxtapose childhood bedtime rituals and nightmarish imagery" and praises the "thick bottom end and propulsive riff".[8]
"Enter Sandman" has received many accolades. Rolling Stone magazine listed it as the 408th song on their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list [32] and 30th on their March 2023 "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time" list.[33]VH1 placed it 22nd in their list of the "40 Greatest Metal Songs of All Time", 18th in their list of the "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s" and 88th in their 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Songs from the Past 25 Years".[34][35][36]Blender magazine included the song in their "The Greatest Songs Ever!" series of articles and placed it 65th on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born".[8][37]Q magazine listed it 81st in their list of "The 100 Songs That Changed The World" and 55th in their list of "The 1001 Best Songs Ever".[38]Total Guitar magazine readers chose the song's riff as the fifth greatest ever,[39] while Kerrang! places it fourth on their list of the "100 Greatest Singles of All Time".[citation needed] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame includes it in their list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock".[citation needed] It was also featured in Triple J's "Hottest 100 of All Time".[40] In 2009, it was named the 5th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1.[41]
Since the song's release, there have been claims that the main riff was taken from the song "Tapping into the Emotional Void" by Excel. "Tapping into the Emotional Void" was released originally on their 1989 album The Joke's on You. In 2003, it was reported that Excel members were considering legal action against Metallica due to the similarities between the songs.[42] According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Enter Sandman" was the eighth most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 126,000 plays. All of the songs in the top 10 were from the 1990s.[43]
Music video
"Enter Sandman" was the second music video from Metallica and the first from Metallica. It was also the first of six Metallica music videos directed by Wayne Isham.[44] Recorded in Los Angeles, it premiered on July 30, 1991, two weeks before the release of the album.[21] The plot of the music video directly relates to the theme of the song, combining images of a child having nightmares and images of an old man (R. G. Armstrong) with shots of the band playing the song.[45] The child dreams that he is drowning, falling from the top of a building, covered in snakes, being chased by a truck and finally falling from a mountain while escaping the truck. During the part of the song in which the child recites a prayer, he is being watched by the Sandman. Throughout the video, the picture flickers continuously. The music video won Best Hard Rock Video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards and was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Editing.[26] Andrew Blackie of PopMatters has said the video's "narrative suits the sludgy riffs and James Hetfield's twisted lullaby lyric".[45]
The song was also used by NASA mission control CAPCOM B. Alvin Drew to wake up space shuttle astronauts aboard STS-123. The song was selected for Mission Specialist Robert L. Behnken by his fiancé.[51]
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, uncooperative prisoners were exposed to the song for extended periods by American interrogators. According to United States Psychological Operations, the intention was to "break a prisoner's resistance [... by] playing music that was culturally offensive to them".[52] Upon discovering that the song was used for these purposes, drummer Lars Ulrich commented saying "it all seems so bizarre and so strange that Metallica's music, which generally sort of facilitates bringing people together, is used in these bizarre circumstances. It's certainly not something that we in any way advocate or condone".[53]
"Enter Sandman" is used in the polka melody "Polka Your Eyes Out" for "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1992 album Off the Deep End. The song was also sampled by British electronic duo Utah Saints and American rapper Chuck D on their track "Power to the Beats". This was the first time that Metallica had cleared a sample of one of their songs.[55]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Related Research Articles
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References
1 2 "Enter Sandman". Metallica.com. Archived from the original on September 24, 2020. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
↑ Bryan Rolli (May 9, 2023). "The Best Metallica Song From Every Decade". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved May 21, 2023. This era would include plenty of baffling artistic decisions and PR snafus, but there's no denying the primal, hard-rock perfection of the Black Album's lead single.
↑ Metallica (liner notes). Metallica. Blackened Recordings. 2021. 00602577471063.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
↑ "Eurochart Hot 100 Singles"(PDF). Music & Media. Vol.8, no.35. August 31, 1991. p.25. Archived(PDF) from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
↑ Nyman, Jake (2005). Suomi soi 4: Suuri suomalainen listakirja (in Finnish) (1sted.). Helsinki: Tammi. ISBN951-31-2503-3.
↑ "Eurochart Hot 100 Singles 1991"(PDF). Music & Media. Vol.8, no.51–52. December 21, 1991. p.21. Archived(PDF) from the original on December 31, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2022– via World Radio History.
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