When Metallica became a significant element of my musical life in the late 1980s, around the release of …And Justice for All, owning their products became a badge of honour among the metal tribe I was a part of. Essentially, it was cool to listen to heavier and heavier music; it was cool to like Metallica; it was cool to own all the albums; it was cool to have limited edition releases. Like the band’s own ethos, more was more – the more Metallica you were, the cooler you were. As a fifteen year old, heavily into metal, wanting more than anything to be cool, I bought into it and consumed as many of my favourite band’s products as I could, be it the Cult, Metallica, Guns n Roses, or whoever I’d got into. Also, I had grown up in a single-parent family with little in the way of luxury, but birthday money, Christmas money and what I could spare from my paper round and then my Saturday job went on an endless merry-go-round of first and second-hand vinyl and cassettes. The fact that I paid for these things myself gave them even more value.

Obviously, the culmination of all this investing in my favourite bands came as I grew up a little and had the chance to see them live. Monsters of Rock at Donington in 1991 just after the release of the Black Album was quite simply prime Metallica, and I have included some shots in the gallery of reviews and pictures from the magazines of the day that I still have. The fact that I made a scrap book probably tells you that I was maybe not quite the cool metal kid I had aspired to be, but I no longer worry about these things. Milton Keynes Bowl in 1993 with Megadeth guesting, with The Almighty, who supported everyone back then (I saw them a bunch of times) and Diamond Head, should have been the peak moment in my love for the band. However, too much drinking and chaos took the shine off that day. Still got my ticket though (see below).

I’ll admit that I am no longer in possession of everything I have ever owned by Metallica – a few odds and bits got sold at a record fair recently and other items got lost in the mists of time (VHS Tapes of A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica) – but I still have some significant, meaningful items that will no doubt end up being inherited! Featured in the gallery below are: the US edition 7″ of One; the crate edition of Live Shit: Binge and Purge; the six and a half year anniversary 12″ collection – The Good, The Bad & The Live (what was Metallica’s thing with half years?!); the cassette single of Eye of the Beholder; the cassette of The $5:98 EP Garage Days Re-Revisited; Limited Edition 12″ singles of Nothing Else Matters and Enter Sandman; and the Master of Puppets aniversary book, Back to The Front.

These are all just things, I know, but together they tell a story and represent the impact music can have on how we choose to live our lives. These memories represent moments of joy, disappointment, discovery and regret, and looking back now, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Good times!