Artist Reference File
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biography:
    Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles 
    by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been b
    ased in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrument
    als and aggressive musicianship made them one of the founding "big four" bands o
    f thrash metal, alongside Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. Metallica's current line
    up comprises founding members and primary songwriters Hetfield and Ulrich, longt
    ime lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo. Guitarist Dave Must
    aine, who formed Megadeth after being fired from Metallica, and bassists Ron McG
    ovney, Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted are former members of the band. 
Metallica
     first found commercial success with the release of its third album, Master of P
    uppets (1986), which is cited as one of the heaviest metal albums and the band's
     best work. The band's next album, ...And Justice for All (1988), gave Metallica
     its first Grammy Award nomination. Its fifth album, Metallica (1991), was a tur
    ning point for the band that saw them transition from their thrash roots; it app
    ealed to a more mainstream audience, achieving substantial commercial success an
    d selling more than 16 million copies in the United States to date, making it th
    e best-selling album of the SoundScan era. After experimenting with different ge
    nres and directions in subsequent releases, Metallica returned to its thrash met
    al roots with its ninth album, Death Magnetic (2008), which drew similar praise 
    to that of the band's earlier albums. The band's eleventh and most recent album,
     72 Seasons, was released in 2023. 
In 2000, Metallica led the case against the 
    peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster, in which the band and several other a
    rtists filed lawsuits against the service for sharing their copyright-protected 
    material without consent, eventually reaching a settlement. Metallica was the su
    bject of the acclaimed 2004 documentary film Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, wh
    ich documented the troubled production of the band's eighth album, St. Anger (20
    03), and the internal struggles within the band at the time. In 2009, Metallica 
    was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band co-wrote the screenpl
    ay for and starred alongside Dane DeHaan in the 2013 concert film Metallica: Thr
    ough the Never, in which the band performed live against a fictional thriller st
    oryline. 
Metallica has released eleven studio albums, four live albums (includi
    ng two performances with the San Francisco Symphony), twelve video albums, one c
    over album, two extended plays, 37 singles and 39 music videos. The band has won
     ten Grammy Awards from 26 nominations and had six consecutive studio albums – f
    rom Metallica through Hardwired... to Self-Destruct (2016) – debut at number one
     on the Billboard 200. Metallica ranks as one of the most commercially successfu
    l bands of all time, having sold more than 125 million albums worldwide as of 20
    18. Metallica has been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by maga
    zines such as Rolling Stone, which ranked the band in 61st place on its list of 
    100 greatest artists of all time. As of 2017, Metallica is the third-best-sellin
    g music artist since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, selling 58 
    million albums in the United States.
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