Metallica Then: Metallica started in 1981, after Lars Ulrich was offered a spot on an upcoming rock compilation Metal Massacre he put an ad in an L.A. magazine and form the core of the band with guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield. With Cliff Burton on bass the line-up was solid by the first album after going through two guitarists (including Dave Mustaine who would go form Megadeth) and adding Kirk Hammett. Metallica's official debut came with Kill 'Em All in 1983, which included the hard-driving track "No Remorse." Master of Puppets (1986), including the title track and "The Thing That Should Not Be," was Metallica's greatest achievement. The album brought together vivid images with a dense, thunderous sound that many competing bands struggled to duplicate. But shortly after its release, Burton was killed when the group's tour bus crashed in Sweden. Metallica carried on filling the bassist slot with Metallica-fan Jason Newsted. The band's next release, ... And Justice For All (1988), was a concept album that turned off radio and music television; nevertheless, it broke the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart and amassed a devoted following. The band did something unusual by releasing a concept video for the track "One" from the album and saw the single make the US Top 40. Now: Metallica went mainstream in the '90s with 1991's self-titled release. The album saw the band strip down its lengthy compositions in favor of short bursts of song. Metallica went #1 and sold nearly 8 million copies in America alone. After the album's release, Metallica began a tour, spanning almost two years, that ended with them clearly on top of the metal heap in the eyes of fans and the music press. The well-received Load album (1996) was a little too alternative for some of the group's most ardent metal fans. When the band cut its hair and joined the metal-lacking Lollapalooza tour, fans complained loudly, but Load still found its way to the top of the albums charts and went triple platinum in three months. Metallica followed it with an album of leftover material, appropriately titled Re-Load (another #1 album), with a few new songs tacked on. In 1998, the band recorded some new cover songs to go along with some previously released cover tracks for the album Garage Days Re-Revisited. A year later, Metallica released a newly recorded album, S&M, which contained songs played live in San Francisco with Michael Kamen conducting and arranging. A new single, "I Disappear," was released from the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack but was quickly overshadowed by drummer Lars Ulrich's legal action against the software company Napster.