Looking at the list of megastars provided by Dr. Baumer I thought more of a band that revolutionized music versus a single person who did it. Looking at my own musical tastes as well as the time period of the 1980s I have decided to write about Metallica. Metallica helped to redefine the genre of thrash metal and throughout the years they have been able to make thrash metal into the mainstream pop music scene. In 1983 Metallica released Kill Em’ All, their first album and it was well received by critics for its interesting take on what they called “speed metal”.  When Metallica released the Black Album, they became a popular music commercial success. Before they released the Black Album, the band experienced some hardships. There was an accident on a tour bus and their bassist Cliff Burton was killed. At the time lead singer James Hetfield was drinking heavily while they were on tour and it was starting to affect their performance. James went into rehab and completed an alcoholic’s anonymous to quit his drinking, he has since been successful and continues to abstain from alcohol. During a concert in Montreal in 1992, pyrotechnic accident on stage caused Hetfield to be set on fire, resulting in the singer being hospitalized and delaying their tour. After Hetfield recovered from his injury he rejoined the band and continued to tour and release more albums.  One of the singles from that album, Enter Sandman, is one of the most widely known metal songs to date. Having 5 single tracks released made Metallica’s 7 minute songs a must to be played on the radio. They have even changed their own musical tastes with the times, having lighter songs featuring acoustic guitar and making music that is more methodical and virtuosic, such as the track One from their And Justice For All album. Michael Jackson became the king of pop and Metallica became the kings of metal, or the four horsemen of metal. Looking at major starts in the 80s we can see the beginnings of their musical development and how not only how their music has changed but how they evolved in an environment with metal music not being the most popular choice among listening audiences during the 1980s-1990. In addition, they have won 9 Grammy awards since 1990 and have since played concerts on all 7 continents in the world. They have had merchandising and commercial success with video games, actions figures, and documentary’s about the bands legacy and what they plan to do in the future. They have been steadily released albums every two years since 2008 and have just released their newest album, Hardwired to Self Destruct. As with a lot of metal music their is wither a cult following or a following of die-hard fans that have hundreds of dollars of Metallica merchandise, myself included. The current members of the band include lead singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarists Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich, and Robert Trujillo and they are continuing to tour today.