Metallica's The Black Album won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 1992.
The award recognized the album during the ceremony held the year after its 1991 release. It was an important marker of the record's critical and commercial impact as Metallica moved from underground thrash-metal prominence into global mainstream success.
The album's Grammy recognition should not be confused with nominations for individual songs. “Enter Sandman,” for example, was nominated for Best Rock Song at the 34th Grammy Awards but lost to Sting's “The Soul Cages.” The album itself won in the metal-performance category.
By that point, The Black Album had already debuted at number one in the United States and nine other countries. Its combination of heavy riffs, accessible structures, and polished production helped make it one of the defining metal albums of the early 1990s.