Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” Reaches 1 Billion Stream Milestone on Spotify

Whether you love it or think it’s a lame ass filler ballad for girls (guess which one I fall under), there’s no denying that Metallica‘s “Nothing Else Matters” off the band’s insanely massive 1991 self-titled album is a fan favorite. Regularly considered by most old school metal fans as the perfect time to go get a beer or use the restroom, the ballad is now one of the less than 500 tracks on Spotify to reach one billion streams.

The mark was reached in less than 11 years on the streaming service, as Metallica didn’t officially put their tunes on Spotify until December 2012. Given the fact that the Black Album continues to sell well all these years later, along with its easy mainstream appeal, it shouldn’t be any surprise that the ballad got this many plays.

What’s particularly funny about this whole thing is the fact that Metallica has gone on to say that “Nothing Else Matters” almost ended up not being a thing at all. The story goes that James Hetfield had written the song while out on one of their long ass world tours about missing his girlfriend at the time. During an interview with Mojo Magazine, the iconic frontman said he considered not even playing the song for his bandmates.

“At first I didn’t even want to play it for the guys. I thought that Metallica could only be the four of us. These are songs about destroying things, head banging, bleeding for the crowd, whatever it is, as long as it wasn’t about chicks and fast cars, even though that’s what we liked. The song was about a girlfriend at the time. It turned out to be a pretty big song.”

“Nothing Else Matters” is the second Metallica song to reach a billion streams, with obviously “Enter Sandman” hitting that mark this past January. Looking at their Spotify page, it seems that the next closest track to a billion listens is “Master of Puppets” with more than 722 million streams, though that one could take a while still to reach that mark.