@Raffy Kent

Whether it’s a weekday morning or Saturday night, get going with this personalised mix of upbeat music. Refreshed every Monday.

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Surveying Metallica's career is like looking at one of those evolution-of-man illustrations: You see how they became what they are. It's not that the band went from dragging their knuckles to walking upright so much as they continually expanded and diversified their sound. From the thrash of Ride the Lightning to the baroque song-suites of … And Justice for All, from the blockbuster ballads of Metallica to the hard-rock revival of Load, they've synthesised their past while pushing into the future. More than just help invent metal, the band grew with it, exploring just about every variable of playing fast and loud.

The line between alternative and mainstream rock was especially blurry in the ’90s. Chalk that up first to Nirvana: the Seattle trio shook commercial rock out of its doldrums and brought underground punk into the spotlight with their gleefully noisy 1991 major-label debut, <I>Nevermind</I>. However, it’s clearer today how much the ’90s modern-rock explosion owed to traditional classic rock. Grunge-associated artists such as Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden took cues from Led Zeppelin’s blues-oriented heft; mischievous punks Green Day loved more melodic British Invasion fare such as The Beatles and The Kinks. In hindsight, it's also no wonder so many veteran bands connected with a younger generation of fans. Seventies rockers Aerosmith and Tom Petty embraced big-budget MTV videos and vibey, laidback folk-rock, respectively, while ’80s-era bands favoured reinvention: Metallica polished their trademark thrash into menacing hard rock on their blockbuster 1991 self-titled album, and both R.E.M. and U2 toyed with new sounds and slippery identities.