"Enter Sandman" was released as
Metallicas
lead single on July 29, 1991; it reached number 16 on the
Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and was certified Platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The follow-up single, "
Don't Tread on Me", was released promotionally but did not chart.
Metallica was released on August 12, 1991, and was the band's first album to debut at number one on the
Billboard 200, selling 598,000 copies in its first week. It was certified platinum in two weeks and spent four consecutive weeks atop the
Billboard 200. Meanwhile, more singles were released to further success. "Nothing Else Matters" reached number six in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and "Wherever I May Roam" peaked at number two on the
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks singles chart, Internationally,
Metallica was also a success. It debuted at number one on the
UK Albums Chart and was certified 2× platinum by the
British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for selling 600,000 copies in the UK.
Metallica topped the charts in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. It also reached the top five in Austria, Finland, and Japan, as well as the top 10 in Spain. The album failed to reach the top 20 in Ireland, having peaked at number 27. The
Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) certified the album 12× platinum. In 2009, it surpassed
Shania Twain's
Come On Over as the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. It became the first album in the SoundScan era to pass 16 million in sales, and with 16.4 million copies sold by 2016,
Metallica is the
best-selling album in the United States since Nielsen SoundScan tracking began in 1991. Of that sum, 5.8 million were purchased on
cassette. The album never sold fewer than 1,000 copies in a week, and moved a weekly average of 5,000 copies in 2016.
Metallica was certified
2× Diamond by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2025 for shipping twenty million copies in the US.
Metallica sold 31 million copies worldwide on physical media. All five of
Metallicas singles, "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Nothing Else Matters", "Wherever I May Roam" and "Sad but True" charted on the
Billboard Hot 100. Some unofficial estimates put the attendance as high as 1,600,000. The first tour directly intended to support the album, the
Wherever We May Roam Tour, included a performance at the
Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, at which Metallica performed a short set list, consisting of "Enter Sandman", "Sad but True", and "Nothing Else Matters", along with Hetfield performed the Queen song "Stone Cold Crazy" with
John Deacon,
Brian May, and
Roger Taylor of Queen and
Tony Iommi of
Black Sabbath. At one of the tour's first gigs the floor of the "Snake Pit", an audience area completely surrounded by the stage's triangular catwalk, collapsed. Metallica left the stage and later updated the crowd on James' status. Guns N' Roses then delayed taking the stage for another two hours, resulting in fans becoming restless. The Guns' frontman, Axl Rose, stormed off the stage partway through their set, sending much of the frustrated crowd into a riot. Newsted said Hetfield's skin was "bubbling like on
The Toxic Avenger". Brazilian musician
Andreas Kisser from
Sepultura was initially considered to join the tour, but Marshall was ultimately chosen. The shows in
Mexico City across February and March 1993 during the Nowhere Else to Roam tour were recorded, filmed and later also released as part of the band's first
box set, Pressings of the box set since November 2002 includes two DVDs, the first one being filmed at San Diego on the Wherever We May Roam Tour, and the latter at
Seattle on the Damaged Justice Tour. The Mexico City shows were also the first time the band met future member
Robert Trujillo, who was in
Suicidal Tendencies at the time. The final tour supporting the album, the
Shit Hits the Sheds Tour, included a performance at
Woodstock '94 that followed
Nine Inch Nails and preceded
Aerosmith on August 13 in front of a crowd of 350,000. Some songs, such as "Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters", and "Sad but True", became permanent staples of Metallica's concert setlists during these and subsequent tours. Other songs though, such as "Holier than Thou", "The God That Failed", "Through the Never", and "The Unforgiven" were no longer included in performances after 1995 and would not be played again until the 2000s, when Metallica began performing a more extensive back catalog of songs with Robert Trujillo on bass after he joined the band upon completion of the album
St. Anger. After touring duties for the album were finished, Metallica filed a lawsuit against Elektra Records, which tried to force the record label to terminate the band's contract and give the band ownership of their master recordings. The band based its claim on a section of the
California Labor Code that allows employees to be released from a personal services contract
after seven years. Metallica had sold 40 million copies worldwide upon the filing of the suit. Metallica had been signed to the label for over a decade but was still operating under the terms of its original 1984 contract, which provided a relatively low 14% royalty rate. The band members said they were taking the action because they were ambivalent about Robert Morgado's refusal to give them another record deal along with
Bob Krasnow, who retired from his job at the label shortly afterwards. Elektra responded by
counter-suing the band, but in December 1994,
Warner Music Group United States chairman
Doug Morris offered Metallica a lucrative new deal in exchange for dropping the suit, which was reported to be even more generous than the earlier Krasnow deal. In January 1995, both parties settled out of court with a non-disclosure agreement. Metallica played the album in its entirety during the
2012 European Black Album Tour. == Critical reception ==