Sunshocked

Has Metallica has squandered any cultural relevancy it has had over the past twenty-five years? I make the case, using Google search results.

Let me be the first to say that this post is just chart porn and contains no real science.

Hypothesis

Metallica has become less relevant over the last twenty-five years, which will be evidenced through declining search engine ranking for their song titles.

Methodology

Metallica has opinions about the Internet. They famously spoke out against Napster back in 2000. In 2006, they begrudgingly joined iTunes. They once leaked new songs to bloggers but sent cease & desist letters when they were reviewed. It is fitting that the Internet, in all its raw democratic ability, should serve as their jury.

Each song on each album will be scored from 0 to 10, with 10 signifying a #1 result from a Google search referencing the band and a 0 signifying an absence of the band’s name from the first page of search results. The song’s album will then receive a composite score as an average of the song scores.

Results

“Kill ‘Em All” – Metallica, 1983

Yes, they make the first page for “whiplash”. Upsetting lots of lawyers.

“Ride the Lightning” – Metallica, 1984

“Master of Puppets” – Metallica, 1986

“…And Justice for All” – Metallica, 1988

“Metallica” – Metallica, 1991

“Load” – Metallica, 1996

I’m shocked they made the first page for “2 x 4″.

“Reload” – Metallica, 1997

Seriously, first page for “fuel”?

“St. Anger” – Metallica, 2003

The Harrison Ford movie just barely wins for “Frantic”.

“Death Magnetic” – Metallica, 2008

The final single, “My Apocalypse” is the only result that links explicitly to Metallica.com.

Analysis

First, it should be noted that Metallica took a few albums to get started. Here are the Billboard peaks for each album in the year it was released. Their first #1 record was the eponymous “black album”, no doubt propelled by their single “Enter Sandman”, and they have been able to reach that position for each new release since.

Rising throughout the 1980s, the search engine visibilty of Metallica’s song titles did indeed wane in the late 90s. Although it has recovered again with the notoriety of Metallica’s 2004 documentary “Some Kind of Monster” and the release of their latest album, “Death Magnetic”.

In fact, if we remove the albums “Load”, “Reload”, and “St. Anger” from the data, we see the trendline of the band’s early rise closely predicts the relevance of “Death Magnetic”. While many reviews claim that “Death Magnetic” is a return to form for the band, recapturing the glory of pre-”Metallica” albums, we now have the unassailable scientific evidence.

Think I’ll go torrent that now.