(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Universal Music)
Wed 2 July 2025 21:00, UK
It says a lot when you think about how some of the biggest feuds in music history have been about plagiarism. When musicians sense someone has ripped off their stuff, it sets something off deep inside, like stumbling across something you’re sure you came up with first but which someone else is passing off as their own – a betrayal of sorts, even if the other person is a complete stranger.
It makes complete sense for this to be a common experience, especially in music. There are only a certain number of notes and combinations you can come up with, and considering how long music has actually been around, coming across similarities is merely a mathematical certainty. Put it this way: how many times have you heard someone try to dismiss someone’s music because they sound too much like a lousy rip-off of someone else?
For some, copycat allegations can dissolve in time, passing by like a fleeting piece of criticism that only appeared in the early stages of people trying to figure out where an artist sits among other, more established rivals. For others, though, like Metallica, it lingers like a bad smell, forever attached to the shadows with a charge fueled by its own quest for revenge, for being left on the sidelines as merely a distant version of something else that grew more popular.
For those only just tuning in, there are a couple of different ways to tell the story, but generally, it goes a little like this: In 1989, a band called Excel released a song called ‘Tapping Into The Emotional Void’. A couple of years later, Metallica released the song that would propel them to new commercial heights, ‘Enter Sandman’. Now, bearing in mind that context is key, these years were particularly transformative for the metal scene, especially with Excel’s record revealing a different journey into the throes of thrash metal.
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Metallica, too, were finding footing in new areas, hot-wiring off the joy of a recent Grammy win and a new record that cemented their status in the genre. ‘Enter Sandman’ had become its guiding principle, allowing James Hetfield and the rest of the team to build around something that was initially a Sound Garden-inspired instrumental to create music that was far-reaching and structurally complex, introducing a different side to the band and thrash metal that went beyond its simple origins.
Obviously, however, crossover was inevitable in this arena, though, for some, it went beyond simple influences and into dangerous plagiarism territory, with ‘Enter Sandman’ seeming like a direct rip-off of ‘Tapping Into The Emotional Void’. In all fairness, there seems to be some truth in it, listening to both tracks side by side. There are undeniable similarities there, not just in the notes but in the atmosphere too, mirroring the sense of foreboding Metallica grew to master.
The other part of the story is that Dave Mustaine can’t seem to get past it. Context is key here too, so it’s worth knowing that Mustaine has allegedly felt bitter towards Hetfield’s group for decades, mainly because he was fired from the band in the 1980s before they’d even recorded any albums (“I wanted people to know I was unfairly dismissed and I didn’t give a shit”).
And while he first brought up the similarities between the two tracks years ago, he remains steadfast to this day. “Hell, their biggest song, ‘Enter Sandman’ —go look up the band Excel right now,” Mustaine recently accused on The Shawn Ryan Show. “Look up their song—I think it’s something ‘Into the Unknown.’ Pretty similar.”
Apparently, Excel were considering taking legal action against Metallica in 2003, but nothing ever came of it. So, while there’s some basis there for such accusations, it’s hard to tell whether the situation seems a little explosive and a product of soured relationships or genuine concerns about originality. After all, with Metallica remaining nonresponsive, it’s easy to look at it from all angles, the most obvious being the band’s clear disinterest in the entire conversation.
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