Symphony & Metallica
Contributed by Shiva Nallaperumal
on Dec 16th, 2014. Artwork published in
.
Metallica’s collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and conductor Michael Kaman resulted in the provocatively named S&M: Symphony & Metallica. The album cover design departed significantly from Metallica’s usual imagery and even the band’s logo (only the M is seen) and is typeset in the sober Frutiger. The ampersand in the bottom is from Apple Chancery.
2 Comments on “Symphony & Metallica”
Metallica worked with Frutiger almost uniformly post-Black Album. It’s all across the three albums preceding S&M, along with singles and promo material. It went away by the turn of the millennium, with the MI:2 tie-in “I Disappear” (which of course used Serpentine, the mandatory 1990s action movie typeface). When 2003’s St. Anger rolled around they had rebranded themselves completely.
Basically, the “experimental” late ’90s period that many Metallica fans refuse to even acknowledge can quite nicely be summed up as the Frutiger Era.
I wish people would realize how much of a gem this album is, as well as S&M 2, that they did right before COVID screwed us over. At the very least, you gotta give em credit for having the balls to do it not once, but twice.