72 Seasons
72 Seasons is the eleventh studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on April 14, 2023, by their own record label Blackened Recordings. 72 Seasons was produced by Greg Fidelman, who produced the band's previous studio album, Hardwired... to Self-Destruct (2016), and is the band's second studio album to be released through Blackened.
This article is about the album. For the title track of the album, see 72 Seasons (song).72 Seasons
The album generally received positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised Hetfield's lyrics and vocal performance but criticized the album's length. In 2024, 72 Seasons received three nominations at the 66th Grammy Awards, winning Best Metal Performance for the title track "72 Seasons".[8]
72 Seasons includes Metallica's longest song to date, "Inamorata", which runs for over 11 minutes.
Background[edit]
In an interview with Australian magazine The Music's official podcast in March 2019, bassist Robert Trujillo said that Metallica had begun jamming on new material for its next studio album. "I'm excited about the next record because I believe it will also be a culmination of the two [previous] records and another journey. There's no shortage of original ideas, that's the beauty of being in this band." He estimated that the album would be released "a lot sooner than the previous two did... this time around I think we'll be able to jump on it a lot quicker and jump in the studio and start working. We've all vowed to get this one going sooner than later."[9]
In an interview with Australian magazine Mixdown the following month, guitarist Kirk Hammett said that the band had tentative plans to enter the studio after the conclusion of its WorldWired Tour in support of Hardwired... to Self-Destruct. He stated, "We're in our third year since Hardwired. Maybe we can get a bit more focus and go into the studio a bit sooner."[10] Having not contributed any writing to Hardwired... to Self-Destruct after accidentally losing his phone containing riff ideas at Copenhagen Airport in 2014,[11][12] Hammett said regarding his ideas for the new album, "I have a ton of material. I've over-compensated, so I'm ready to go anytime."[10]
In April 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, drummer Lars Ulrich said in an interview with Marc Benioff that Metallica could work on its next studio album while in quarantine.[13] Trujillo told The Vinyl Guide in June that the band was "excited about cultivating new ideas" for its new album. "We communicate every week, which is really great, so we have our connection intact [...] what we've started doing is basically just really concentrating on our home studios and being creative from our homes and navigating through ideas and building on new ideas. And that's where we're at right now". He also said that the band was working towards eventually entering a studio to record the album.[14] In November, Ulrich said in an interview with Phoebe Bridgers for Rolling Stone that the band was "three, four weeks into some pretty serious writing"[15][16] and stated that "It's the heaviest thing, the coolest [...] but all kidding aside, if it wasn't because we thought that the best record was still ahead of us, then why keep doing it?"[17][18][19] He followed up in January 2021 by saying that progress on the album had been "glacial",[20][21] while vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield said in March that "It's either touring or writing, so COVID chose for us [...] but, yeah, [we will release] a bunch of songs. We wrote quite a few songs."[22]
Commercial performance[edit]
72 Seasons debuted at number 2 on the US Billboard 200, selling 146,000 copies in the first week with 134,000 coming from pure album sales; this marked the band's twelfth album to chart in the top 10 and the first since ...And Justice for All not to debut at number 1 on the US Billboard 200, thus ending the band's streak of number one albums at six.[51]
The album debuted at number one in 20 different countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
As of October 2023, the album has earned 324,000 equivalent album units in the United States.[52]
Metallica
Production