The mid-90s remains the most controversial period of Metallica’s career. The musical shift the San Francisco band took with the Load and Reload albums upset certain sections of their fanbase, though not as much as the fact that the band now sported a brand new look that involved short hair and make-up.
With hindsight, Metallica were simply trying to shake off the clichés of heavy metal – something apparent when they recruited controversial artist Andres Serrano to create the covers for Load and Reload. The former featured an image titled Blood And Semen III, which featured cow’s blood mixed with semen, while the latter’s cover was the self-explanatory Piss And Blood. Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett were big fans of the artist’s work, though James Hetfield was reputedly less impressed.
