Indie-rock artist Phoebe Bridgers dropped her cover version of the iconic metal song, “Nothing Else Matters.” The song was originally performed by metal giants Metallica, and is featured on their groundbreaking self-titled album, aka The Black Album. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the album, the band announced their massive charity tribute album, The Metallica Blacklist. The record is coming out on September 10th.
Several artist have released their covers prior to the album’s release, including Miley Cyrus who also covered “Nothing Else Matters.” From the first seconds, it is clear that both artists have taken very different approach on covering the song. Bridges version is a lot more stripped-down and her vocals seem closer to the audience. Compared to the original, they are miles apart in style but still, both, original and cover are magnificent. Bridgers talked to Zane Low on Apple Music 1 and called her version “baroque.” She also says, “Literally, James [Hetfield] does all sorts of weird octave jumps and stuff that I can’t do, and I almost have a Billie Eilish approach of right by the microphone, performing it the opposite of them, which was really fun to lean into.”
The song features a baroque-like piano and her vocals are very melodic, so Bridgers isn’t wrong with her analysis of her version. Metallica singer James Hetfield has his own original style so it’s nice to see when an artist is bringing their own into their cover version, instead of simply copying the original.
Most recently, Weezer shared their cover of “Enter Sandman” last week. The band often covers other artists so it wasn’t all too surprising they would be tackling a Metallica song. The group also brought in their own style, most prominently featuring their iconic “Buddy Holly” guitar solo in the midst of “Enter Sandman.”
Other artists who shared their covers include St. Vincent, OFF!, Diet Cig, Kamasi Washington and Biffy Clyro.
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