Fuel (song)

1997

Fuel is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica. The song was released as the third single from the seventh studio album ReLoad and nominated in 1999 for a Grammy in the Best Hard Rock Performance category.

Formation

Fuel was written by Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Already in 1995, the band recorded a demo recording of the song, under the title Fuel for Fire, with the text compared to the published song is different. A version with the original text can be heard on the DVD Cunning Stunts. In the song Fuel it comes that many people have the desire to drive their cars too fast or to live their lives too fast.

Performances

For the first time the song was played on February 9, 1997 in Chicago. Fuel is one of the regularly played songs at concerts, although the song with 418 performances (as of August 2012) is not one of the most played songs of the band. As a singer James Hetfield in July 2000 because of an injury could not occur, bassist Jason Newsted took over the vocals. In these appearances Kid Rock appeared on the turntables as a guest musician.

Reception

The British author Joel McIver in his book called Justice for All: The Truth About Metallica Fuel the song, although the highlight of the album ReLoad. However, he qualified this statement by noting that "even the worst songs on the albums Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets better many times would be as fuel".

Fuel reached number 31 on the UK Singles Charts In Australia, the single reached number two in Finland in fifth place and in Germany ranked 57th in a list drawn up by the magazine Guitar World list of the 100 best Metallica songs of all time took place 50 Fuel In 1999 the song for the Grammy in the Best Hard Rock performance category nominated. However, the award went to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Further use

The song was used for the Fuel Video Games Hot Wheels Turbo and Test Drive Off- Road Wide Open. The Hockey team the Philadelphia Flyers played Fuel in the late 1990s with their home games shortly before the game. In addition, the song was heard on television broadcasts of the NASCAR series. In 2003, Avril Lavigne coverte the song as part of the MTV show MTV Icon. For James Hetfield was " it was strange to hear the song sung by a woman ."