“It’s no secret that onstage, I’m a different person,” James Hetfield said in a 2023 interview. “More shooting from the hip, more embracing the unknown up there. I wish I could do that better in regular life.”
That isn’t to say Hetfield and his Metallica bandmates are always perfect when performing. With decades of touring under their belts, there’s bound to be hiccups here and there.
“We are a live band. You’re gonna see some fricking horrendous mistakes, and it’s going to be unique,” Hetfield continued. “Because there’s nothing really humble about being up in front of 80,000 people, throwing shapes, people singing your lyrics, it’s fricking…it’s an experience that I can’t explain.”
Using data from setlist.fm, we’ve compiled a list of the most and least-played song live from every one of Metallica’s studio albums. There are, of course, some songs the band has never played live, though that could change as Metallica continues their touring career. But so far, here’s how the numbers stack up…
Album: Kill ‘Em All (1983)
Most-played: “Seek & Destroy”
Least-played: “Metal Militia”
Metallica first started playing “Seek & Destroy” in July of 1982, a whole year before it appeared on their debut album, Kill ‘Em All. It basically hasn’t left their set lists since, racking up 1,610 performances over the course of approximately 40 years and multiple tours. Actually, all of the songs from this album have been played live at one point or another — even the least-played among them, “Metal Militia,” has close to 100 plays to its name.
Album: Ride the Lightning (1984)
Most-played: “Creeping Death”
Least-played: “Escape”
Ride the Lightning is another album that has enjoyed the benefits of having every song played live. “Creeping Death” takes the No. 1 slot with 1,637 plays — it’s another staple of Metallica’s live sets. “Musically it was one of those songs that came quickly, and then became its own thing just as quickly,” Lars Ulrich said to Metal Hammer in 2022. Meanwhile, “Escape” has been played exactly once at the Orion Music and More Festival in 2012 where the band played Ride the Lightning from start to finish.
Album: Master of Puppets (1986)
Most-played: “Master of Puppets”
Least-played: “Mastertarium”
The title track to 1986’s Master of Puppets is not only the most-played song from the album, but in all of Metallica’s live career. “Master of Puppets is my favorite album, because we culminated as a band on Master of Puppets. Really!” Kirk Hammett told Revolver in 2017. “Everyone was kind of settled into their roles; everyone was playing well. We knew what we were striving for, we knew what we could do, we knew each other’s playing well, we knew our strengths.” At the bottom end is “Mastertarium” with a total of 29 plays, most of which took place in 2000.
Album: …And Justice for All (1988)
Most-played: “One”
Least-played: “To Live Is to Die”
Props to Metallica for once again playing every song live from …And Justice for All. At the lower end of the spectrum is a track from side four, “To Live Is to Die,” which was played one time at the Fillmore in San Fransisco in 2011. Speaking of that number, the song “One” is the most-played from the album with 1,599 plays. Two of those performances happened at the Grammys, in 1989 and 2014.
Album: Metallica (1991)
Most-played: “Enter Sandman”
Least-played: Tie Between “The Struggle Within” and “Don’t Tread on Me”
Out of all of Metallica’s albums, their 1991 self-titled release is the one that, collectively, is their most-played live. At the top of the list is “Enter Sandman,” the album’s lead-off track and the first song the band wrote for it. “It was about two or three o’clock in the morning. I had just been listening to Louder Than Love, the Soundgarden album,” Hammett recalled in 2017. “I heard that album, I was inspired; I picked up my guitar and out came that riff.” On the lower end is a tie between “The Struggle Within” and “Don’t Tread on Me,” both of which have been played 20 times.
Album: Load (1996)
Most-played: “King Nothing”
Least-played: “Mama Said”
The following four songs from Load have never been played live: “The House Jack Built,” “Cure,” “Thorn Within” and “Ronnie.” With exactly one performance to its name, “Mama Said” is the next least-played — that happened in London in November 1996, the same city and month where Metallica shot a music video for it. “King Nothing,” on the other hand, has racked up a respectable 380 performances starting in 1996, the year Load was released, and stretching up to 2024.
Album: Reload (1997)
Most-played: “Fuel”
Least-played: “Fixxxer”
A year after Load came its younger sibling, 1997’s Reload, notable for its collaboration with Marianne Faithfull on a song called “The Memory Remains.” “Fuel” has become the album’s most-played track with 557 performances, a song that also has the distinction of being Grammy-nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance. (It ultimately lost to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page‘s “Most High.”)
Album: Garage Inc. (1998)
Most-played: “Last Caress” by Misfits
Least-played: “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
In 1998, Metallica switched gears so to speak and released an album of covers titled Garage Inc. Of the 11 songs recorded for it, only six of them have been played live. Of those, Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s “Tuesday’s Gone” is the least-played at five performances. (It should be noted that Metallica got Gary Rossington himself to play on the studio version of the cover.) At the top of the list is Misfits’ “Last Caress” with 830 performances.
Album: St. Anger (2003)
Most-played: “Frantic”
Least-played: “Sweet Amber”
Metallica worked with producer Bob Rock for over a decade, but 2003’s St. Anger saw them working with him for the last time. On this album, Rock himself played bass as Jason Newsted had left the band in 2001. Not counting the four songs from this album Metallica has never played live — “Invisible Kid,” “My World,” “Shoot Me Again” and “Purify” — “Sweet Amber” shakes out as the least-played with just one singular performance in 2004. Meanwhile, “Frantic” got played an awful lot in the years 2003 and 2004, and then disappeared from set lists for a little over 10 years before finally reappearing in 2019 on their WorldWired Tour.
Album: Death Magnetic (2008)
Most-played: “The Day That Never Comes”
Least-played: “Suicide & Redemption”
In 2008, a new producer for Metallica entered the picture in the form of Rick Rubin. All 10 tracks from Death Magnetic have been played live, even the instrumental “Suicide & Redemption,” which appeared on a 2009 set list in Denmark and again at the Fillmore in San Fransisco in 2011. It is the album’s nearly eight-minute lead single, “The Day That Never Comes,” that holds the title of most-played. “It’s a story about human beings who don’t know each other, in a particularly tense situation,” Ulrich once explained to MTV. “It’s really about forgiveness and redemption and understanding what goes on in people’s minds.”
Album: Hardwired…to Self-Destruct (2016)
Most-played: “Moth Into Flame”
Least-played: “Man UNkind”
“ManUNkind,” the least-played track from Hardwired… to Self‐Destruct has only been performed twice, which isn’t much, but it’s still more than the zero performances “Am I Savage?” and “Murder One” have gotten. “Moth Into Flame” has collected a little over 200 plays, one of the most notable being at the 2017 Grammys with Lady Gaga, which you can watch below. “The song was somewhat inspired by the Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy,” Hetfield explained to Guitar World (via ultimate-guitar.com) in 2016. “When I watched it, it really made me sad that a talented person like that fell for the fame part of it. But, to some degree, I see that mentality reflected in everyday life — people obsessively taking selfies and sending them to friends for validation.”
Album: 72 Seasons (2023)
Most-played: “Lux Æterna”
Least-played: “Sleepwalk My Life Away”
In fairness, 72 Seasons has only been in the world for roughly two years, so its forgivable that not every single song from it has been played live yet. Still, it’s been getting good representation in the band’s recent set lists. The least-played is “Sleepwalk My Life Away” (five performances), while the most played is “Lux Æterna” (36). “Every note we play is a statement that appears on this record,” Trujillo said in an interview not long before 72 Seasons was released. “It’s coming from the heart and soul of who we are as individuals and where we were in this whole process, the growth of these songs, and everything. To me, every note that’s played is important on this record, and I believe people are going to feel that.”
Metallica Albums Ranked
There are moments of indecision when compiling this list. After all, we really could have had – for the first time ever – a three-way tie for first.
Gallery Credit: UCR Staff