What album inspired the black-cover joke associated with Metallica’s The Black Album?

Spinal Tap’s fictional album Smell the Glove inspired the black-cover joke associated with Metallica’s The Black Album.

Metallica’s cover uses a nearly black field with a dark Metallica logo and a coiled snake derived from the Gadsden flag. The understated design made the packaging resemble the famously minimal cover of Smell the Glove, an imaginary album from the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.

The band acknowledged the resemblance in its documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. Members of Spinal Tap appear in the film and discuss the cover with Metallica, turning the visual similarity into an in-joke.

Metallica also identified Status Quo’s real album Hello! as an original inspiration for the black-cover idea. Smell the Glove is the more specific answer to the joke connected with the album’s packaging, while Hello! belongs to the broader design backstory.