...And Justice for All is the fourth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on September 7, 1988, by Elektra Records. It was Metallica's first full-length studio album to feature bassist Jason Newsted following the death of Cliff Burton in 1986. Burton received posthumous co-writing credit on "To Live Is to Die" as Newsted followed bass lines Burton had recorded before his death.
Metallica recorded the album with producer Flemming Rasmussen over four months in early 1988 at One on One Recording Studios in Los Angeles. It features aggressive complexity, fast tempos, and few verse-chorus structures. It contains lyrical themes of political and legal injustices, such as governmental corruption, censorship, and war. The cover, designed by Roger Gorman with illustration by Stephen Gorman and based on a concept by Metallica guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, depicts Lady Justice bound in ropes, being pulled by them to the point of breaking, with dollar bills piled upon and falling off her scales. The album title is derived from the last four words of the American Pledge of Allegiance. Three of its songs were released as singles: "Harvester of Sorrow", "Eye of the Beholder", and "One"; the latter backed the band's first music video, and earned Metallica their first Grammy Award in 1990 (and the first ever in the Best Metal Performance category).
...And Justice for All was acclaimed by music critics for its depth and complexity, although its dry mix and nearly inaudible bass guitar were criticized. It was included in The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll of the year's best albums, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1989, controversially losing out to Jethro Tull in the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental category. It was commercially successful in the United States, peaking at number six on the Billboard 200, and was certified 8× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2003. Retrospective reviews rank the album among Metallica's best works. The album was remastered and reissued as an expanded box set in 2018.
Background
...And Justice for All is the first Metallica album to feature bassist Jason Newsted after the death of Cliff Burton in 1986; Newsted had previously played on the 1987 Metallica EP The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited. Metallica had intended to record the album earlier, but was sidetracked by the large number of festival dates scheduled for the summer of 1987, including the European leg of the Monsters of Rock festival. Another reason was frontman James Hetfield's arm injury in a skateboarding accident.
Metallica's previous studio album, Master of Puppets (1986), was their last under their contract with the record label Music for Nations. Manager Peter Mensch wanted them to sign with British record distributor Phonogram Records. Phonogram manager Martin Hooker offered them "well over £1 million, which at that time was the biggest deal we'd ever offered anyone". He explained that the final figure for combined British and European sales of all three Metallica albums was more than 1.5 million copies.
Recording
upright=0.8|thumb|alt=A middle-aged man wearing a black T-shirt holding a bass guitar and singing into a microphone|...And Justice for All was Metallica's first studio album to feature bassist [[Jason Newsted (pictured in 2013). His bass parts are noticeably inaudible in the mixes.]]
...And Justice for All was recorded from January to May 1988 at One on One Recording Studios in Los Angeles. Metallica produced the album with Flemming Rasmussen.
Despite this, the sessions with Clink were not completely wasted; rather, the band spent time warming up and fine-tuning sounds in the studio ahead of Rasmussen's arrival to start the record properly. Two cover songs were recorded — Budgie's "Breadfan" and Diamond Head's "The Prince" — for use as B-sides on the album's singles, as well as drum tracks for "The Shortest Straw" and "Harvester of Sorrow" which were kept.
Eventually, Rasmussen became available to work with the band, joining six weeks into the album's recording in March and relieving Clink from his production duties. Hetfield wrote lyrics during the recording sessions; these were occasionally unfinished as recording began, and Rasmussen said that Hetfield "wasn't really interested in singing" but instead "wanted that hard vibe".
At Hetfield and Ulrich's instruction, Newsted's bass guitar was made almost inaudible. According to Rasmussen, "After Lars and James heard their initial mixes the first thing they said was, 'Take the bass down so you can just hear it, and then once you've done that, take it down a further three dBs.' I have no idea why they wanted that, but it was totally out of my hands." As per Newsted, the bass sound achieved had little low end to begin with, with Hammett adding that it interfered with Hetfield's guitar sound when blended, so they turned the bass down.
Newsted was not satisfied with the final mix and was unhappy that the bass was inaudible. In 2019, Hetfield and Ulrich said they had mixed the bass low not to belittle Newsted, but because their hearing was "shot" following heavy touring and so they "basically kept turning everything else up until the bass disappeared". Newsted added they did not fully understand at the time how frequencies worked in the mix.