Ride the Lightning is the second album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on July 27, 1984 by Megaforce Records and re-released by Elektra Records on November 19, 1984. ^[2] Ride the Lightning has sold over 5 million copies in the U.S. and has been certified 5x Platinum by the RIAA.^[3]

Reception

Ride the Lightning retains the speed of Kill 'Em All on songs like "Trapped Under Ice" and "Fight Fire with Fire", but also contains the first of Metallica's longer, more intricate tracks, such as "Fade to Black" and the nearly 9-minute closing instrumental "The Call of Ktulu" [sic]. "Ride the Lightning" is the last Metallica album to credit former founding member, Dave Mustaine.

Ride the Lightning was listed at #3 on a list compiled by metal-rules.com of the Top 100 Metal Albums of All Time and #5 by IGN Music on the Top 25 Metal Albums.^[4]

Q magazine (Summer/01, p.127) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Reaffirms their status as the pre-eminent metal band of the modern era....They broke with the conventions of thrash metal to record the genre's first power ballad in 'Fade to Black'".

Kerrang! (p.50) - "[The album included] melody, maturity and musical intelligence. It was these traits which helped them broaden metal's scope."

Singles

"Fade to Black" was released as a promo in 1984.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was released as a promo single, with two versions of the song, an edited version on side A, and the album version on side B.

The flipside to "Creeping Death" was the original "Garage Days Revisited", featuring "Am I Evil?" and "Blitzkrieg" (Blitzkrieg).

[edit] Certification

Since the beginning of the SoundScan era in 1991, Ride the Lightning has sold 4,334,000 copies.^[6]

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