To mark the 30th anniversary of Metallica‘s iconic 1991 release The Black Album, 53 different artists of various genres have recorded their versions of every track on the album for a massive project called The Metallica Blacklist. Among them is Alessia Cara, who says she was “honored” to have been invited to participate.
“They asked me if I wanted to be part of this project, which is, like, crazy!” she tells ABC Audio. “I was very blindsided. I didn’t think that they would pick me on their list of people, but it was awesome…I was so honored and flattered that they asked me to do it.”
Alessia teamed up with a trio of sisters from Mexico called The Warning to cover the album’s best-known song, “Enter Sandman.”
“Because The Warning sort of got popular and got discovered through doing their cover of “Enter Sandman,” they asked if we could do that one,” Alessia explains. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, of course…that’s such a legendary song.'”
Alessia says the song choice is “kind of cool” because in her latest single “Sweet Dream,” she references the Sandman. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe it’s serendipitous to to do this,'” she adds.
So, did Metallica approve of the job they did? Alessia says she got a thumbs up.
“Not directly, but through the ‘team,’ we heard that they really loved it,” she laughs. “So thank God, as long as we got the stamp of approval from them, I’m happy.”
The Metallica Blacklist, which for now is a digital-only release, also features covers by Miley Cyrus, Weezer, country star Chris Stapleton, and Portugal. The Man, among many others. All profits go to Metallica’s All Within My Hands foundation, plus the charity of each artist’s choice.
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