Studio Album · No. 4
...And Justice for All Songwriting Credits by Metallica
Produced by Flemming Rasmussen, Metallica · Engineered by Steve Thompson (mixing), Michael Barbiero (mixing), Bob Ludwig (mastering)
Holds writing credit on 9 of 9 tracks
Authorship Breakdown 9 / 9 documented
Scored across the 9 tracks with documented writers, by whether Metallica carries a lyricist or composer credit.
Share of the 9 tracks where a band member is credited, by role.
By the Numbers
Awards & Recognition 2
...And Justice for All was produced by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Flemming Rasmussen, with Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero mixing and Bob Ludwig mastering. Infamously, bassist Jason Newsted's bass guitar was largely mixed out of the album, a deliberate hazing choice by the senior members following Newsted's 1986 joining to replace the deceased Cliff Burton. "One" was Metallica's first music video and became a radio breakthrough. The album received the first-ever Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance in 1989 but lost to Jethro Tull's Crest of a Knave, widely mocked as one of the most notorious Grammy snubs in history. "One" won Best Metal Performance at the 32nd Grammy Awards in 1990. US sales total 9.7 million copies.
...And Justice for All is the fourth studio album by Metallica, released in September 1988 on Elektra Records and produced by Flemming Rasmussen, the first album recorded with Jason Newsted, who had joined the band following Cliff Burton's death, and the last album of Metallica's thrash-progressive phase before the deliberate commercial simplification of the Black Album. The album is best known for its extreme production, in which Newsted's bass guitar is almost entirely absent from the final mix, an outcome attributed variously to engineering choices, studio politics involving the surviving core members' grief over Burton, and the physical mixing board limitations of the era. Hetfield and Ulrich co-wrote all tracks; the nine-minute opener 'Blackened' and the title track at over nine minutes represent the most compositionally complex material in the Metallica catalog, with time signature changes, multiple thematic sections, and orchestral structural logic applied to electric guitar arrangements. 'One,' the album's sole single, was accompanied by the band's first music video, incorporating footage from the 1971 film Dalton Trumbo, and reached number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's first chart entry on the singles chart. ...And Justice for All earned Metallica their first Grammy nomination (losing to Jethro Tull in a decision widely mocked within the metal community) and is considered the definitive document of thrash metal's progressive aspirations.