S&M (album)


S&M is a live album by American thrash metal band Metallica, with The San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Kamen. It was recorded on April 21–22, 1999 at The Berkeley Community Theatre. This is the final Metallica album to feature Jason Newsted as Metallica's bassist.

Album information

S&M contains performances of Metallica songs with additional symphonic accompaniment, which was composed by Michael Kamen, who also conducted the orchestra during the concert. The idea to combine heavy metal with an epic classical approach, as James Hetfield has stated repeatedly, was an idea of Cliff Burton. Burton’s love of classical music, especially of Johann Sebastian Bach, can be traced back to many instrumental parts and melodic characteristics in Metallica’s songwriting including songs from Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets. Kamen, who arranged and conducted the orchestral background tracks for "Nothing Else Matters", met the band at the 1992 Grammy award show for the first time, and after hearing the "Elevator version" of the song, suggested the band to perform with a whole orchestra; the band, however, didn't take him up on the offer until 7 years later. Lars Ulrich's favourite band Deep Purple, who he colourfully inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, is noted for having kicked off this kind of approach 30 years before, in Concerto for Group and Orchestra.
In addition to songs from previous albums spanning Ride the Lightning through Reload, there are two new compositions: "No Leaf Clover" and "−Human". "The Ecstasy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone, Metallica's entrance music, was played live by the orchestra. "No Leaf Clover" has since been performed by Metallica in concert, using a recording of the orchestral prelude.
Changes were made to the lyrics of some songs, most notably the removal of the second verse and chorus of "The Thing That Should Not Be" and playing the third verse in its place.
The "S" in the stylized "S&M" on the album cover is a backwards treble clef, while the "M" is taken from Metallica's logo.
The drum kit Ulrich used on the album currently resides in a Guitar Center in San Francisco.

Critical reception

Commercial performance

S&M sold 300,000 units in the first week of release, and went on to sell a total of 2.5 million copies. As of 2003, the album had been certified 5× platinum. As of August 2013 the album had sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.

20th anniversary

After Kamen's death in 2003, Metallica hadn't revisited the S&M concept in any further performances or recording work. However, the band announced on March 18, 2019 that they would hold a concert with the San Francisco Symphony at the Chase Center on September 6 of that year to commemorate the 20th anniversary with a single-night concert, headed by Michael Tilson Thomas as music director. They later added a second concert on September 8.
The shows included many songs from the original S&M performances, as well as renditions of songs that had been released since then. In August, it was announced that a film of the concerts would receive a limited worldwide theatrical release. The concert was given a limited release and has grossed over 5.5 million dollars. In August 2020, the band would release the two 20th anniversary performances as an album, video, and box set entitled S&M2.

Track listing

Video release

Metallica also filmed and released the concert in DVD and VHS with direction by Wayne Isham. The VHS set has only the concert video, while the double DVD set has 5.1 sound, 41 minute documentary about the concert, and two "No Leaf Clover" music videos: "Slice & Dice" version and the "Maestro Edit". The DVD also contains four songs with multi-angles where each band member can be viewed individually: "Of Wolf and Man", "Fuel", "Sad But True", and "Enter Sandman".

Personnel

Metallica
Video production
San Francisco Symphony
Technical personnel

Album

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Chart Position
German Albums Chart89
Chart Position
German Albums Chart8

Singles

Certifications

Video