What is Metallica’s self-titled 1991 album, commonly known as?

Metallica’s self-titled 1991 album is commonly known as The Black Album.

The official title is simply Metallica, but the record’s nearly all-black cover made the nickname immediately natural. The cover also contains a subtle coiled snake and a darkly printed band logo, details that are easy to miss at a glance.

The nickname distinguishes the album from other self-titled records while emphasizing its stark visual design. It is not an official alternate title printed as the album’s main name, so reference books and catalogues generally list it as Metallica, sometimes adding “The Black Album” in parentheses.

The same nickname can cause confusion because several unrelated albums by other artists are also called The Black Album. In Metallica discussions, however, the phrase almost always means the 1991 fifth studio album, the band’s best-selling release and its breakthrough to a broad mainstream audience.