(1996). The music on this album bordered between
the alternative and heavy metal genres, and the entire
Metallica image underwent significant reform with
band members cutting their trademark long hair and
remaking the signature jagged-edged Metallica logo
into a blocky, simpler form.
This change in image, which seemed to fit the
rock fashions made popular by MTV, carried into
the band’s next album,ReLoad(1997), which was
originally intended for release as a double CD with
Loadand bore similar artwork and music as the pre-
vious album. A testament to its continued popular-
ity, Metallica was given a star on San Francisco’s Walk
of Fame the year after the release ofGarage Inc.
(1998), a collection of cover songs, including the
popular rendition of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page.”
Metallica rounded out the decade in collaboration
with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, per-
forming songs with the symphony in April, 1999.
The performance was released on CD and DVD later
that year asS&M.
Impact Metallica pushed the boundaries of the
heavy metal genre into new territory in the 1990’s,
often raising questions as to whether it could justly
be called a heavy metal band. Nevertheless, the stac-
cato rhythms and power chords characteristic of
Metallica’s first four albums were incorporated into
the more traditional song structures that would
make up later albums, exposing heavy metal sounds
to a broader audience. Because Metallica’s popular-
ity continued to grow throughout the 1990’s and its
sound was continually reshaped, it is hard to say ex-
actly what sounds other bands have borrowed.
Metallica’s influence, rather, is more appropriately
seen in paving the way on MTV and the radio for
such “nu metal” bands as Korn, Limp Bizkit, and
Linkin Park.
Further Reading
Berlinger, Joe, and Greg Milner.Metallica: This Mon-
ster Lives. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.
Chirazi, Steffan.So What! The Good, the Mad, and the
Ugly. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
Crocker, Chris.Metallica: The Frayed Ends of Metal.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.
Lawrence Schwegler
See also Alternative rock; Grunge music; Lolla-
palooza; MP3 format; Music; Nine Inch Nails; Nir-
vana; Woodstock concerts.
MetLife scandal
The Event The nation’s largest life insurer and
the second-largest insurance company misleads
thousands of its customers who had purchased
policies disguised as retirement plans or saving
accounts
Date 1994MetLife sales agents were alleged to have misrepresented
facts about policies and deceived nearly forty thousand cus-
tomers who had bought insurance policies that were dis-
guised as high-interest retirement savings accounts. Al-
though MetLife denied wrongdoing, over a billion dollars
was refunded to most of the plaintiffs who filed a civil ac-
tion.During the fall of 1994, it was discovered that sales
agents at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
(MetLife) in the Tampa, Florida, had sold life insur-
ance policies disguised as retirement savings plans
or investment products. The word “insurance” was
never mentioned in these particular policies. Fur-
thermore, an industrywide practice known as churn-
ing was purposely used by some of MetLife sales
agents to persuade customers to exchange old poli-
cies for newer ones, with the false claim that the
newer policies were more cost-effective and offered
more comprehensive coverage. It was later asserted
that the underlying goal of these agents was to ob-
tain high-end commissions at the expense of their
customers. Most of the victims of the agents’ actions
in Tampa were nurses and other health care profes-
sionals who resided in the state.
Aside from the practice of churning, other cus-
tomers alleged that MetLife also sold policies with
so-called vanishing premiums, in which the pre-
mium would not have to be paid after a given num-
ber of years. For some customers, this premium
never disappeared as promised, leading to more al-
legations and subsequent civil suits filed against the
company. Although MetLife publicly claimed no
wrongdoing and that deceptive practices were never
used by its employees, it did provide thousands of
customers with monetary refunds for the miscom-
munication that took place between MetLife agents
and their customers.Impact By the end of 1994, some fifteen states, in-
cluding New York, California, Texas, Pennsylvania,
and West Virginia, had followed in Florida’s foot-The Nineties in America MetLife scandal 563