Every Metallica Riff You’ve Ever Heard

(Image credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Metallica’s sound has changed up from album to album, and there’s no better indicator of that than James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett’s guitar tone.

Now a YouTuber named Gürschach X has combined palm-muted open-string chugging from each of the group’s albums—from 1983’s Kill ’Em All to 2016’s Hardwired…to Self-Destruct—into one epic, albeit very short video titled Every Metallic Riff You’ve Ever Heard. The result is a 12-second trip through Metallica’s ever-changing guitar tone.

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Christopher Scapelliti

Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player (opens in new tab) magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World (opens in new tab), a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar WorldGuitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.