Nothing else matters right now except for Phoebe Bridgers‘ new Metallica cover. The “Motion Sickness” singer’s contribution for Metallica’s upcoming compilation project The Metallica Blacklist dropped Wednesday (Aug. 11), and it’s a swirling rendition of the metal band’s 1991 track “Nothing Else Matters.”
The Metallica Blacklist, due out Sept. 10, is a celebration of the band’s The Black Album, and featuring 53 covers from artists across numerous genres and generations. Bridgers isn’t the first to try her hand at “Nothing Else Matters” — Miley Cyrus, Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, WATT, Robert Trujillo and Chad Smith teamed up for their own version back in June. Weezer also recently threw their heavy metal hat in the ring with a cover of “Enter Sandman.”
The indie-rock singer-songwriter joined Zane Lowe on his Apple Music show to talk about the new track, which stars Bridgers’ characteristic feathery vocals, and is adorned with soft piano and orchestral synths. “It was just so fun to take a part in it,” she told Lowe. “I feel like my version almost sounds Baroque. Literally, James [Hetfield] does all sorts of weird octave jumps and stuff that I can’t do, and I almost have a Billie Eilish approach of right by the microphone, performing it the opposite of them, which was really fun to lean into.”
She also discussed her longtime appreciation for the band, saying she discovered them as a teenager. “I’ve always been a big Metallica fan,” she said. “When I was a teenager, I went to Outside Lands and I definitely knew Metallica songs from video games and stuff, but I went to Outside Lands and saw their set and was like, ‘This is a rock band.’ It’s kind of a gateway to metal because they’re so hooky and you can hold onto so much of it and it actually can get stuck in your head.”
Bridgers also talked with Lowe about her feature on Lorde’s upcoming album Solar Power. She and Clairo both lent their voices to the reverent background vocals of the record’s title track, but Bridgers never met the “Stoned at the Nail Salon” singer (born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor) in person. “I think that was one of my favorite parts of it was, we were so unconnected to each other, that borders and being in the same town as someone just stopped mattering completely,” she said. “I had the same line of communication with Ella as I have with someone who lives right down the street from me. So that was kind of magical to exist in a weird, ethereal multi-verse for a while.”
Listen to Phoebe Bridgers cover “Nothing Else Matters”:
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