The Favorite Albums of Metallica in the Late '90s Explains A LOT

The members of Metallica told a magazine what their favorite albums were back in 1998 and their selections explain a lot.

A fan shared a photo of a magazine clipping on the Metallica Reddit page that lists all of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Jason Newsted's favorite albums back in 1998. They had just released their covers album Garage Inc. that year, which featured tracks that were originally recorded by Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mercyful Fate and some others.

The individual who shared the photo didn't specify which publication the list was printed in, but the section was titled "The Miseducation of Metallica" because one of the members' choices was The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Because of the diversity of artists covered on Garage Inc., it's not entirely surprising that the members were listening to a wide variety of musicians around the time. It also may explain why Load and Reload were so different than their earlier releases.

We compiled a short gallery of images below to list each of the members' 10 favorite albums that they mentioned in the magazine, and the year that they came out. Nu-metal was on the rise at the time, but it doesn't seem that they were too keen on much that was new, as many of their selections were already a few years (and even decades) old.

A couple of the rockers had a few of the same picks, but for the most part, they each had a pretty distinct set of musical preferences. It would be interesting to see how their picks from back then compare to their favorites today!