Phoebe Bridgers Covers Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”

Phoebe Bridgers has shared her rendition of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” one of more than 50 different interpretations of The Black Album hit featured on the upcoming The Metallica Blacklist, a 30th-anniversary celebration of one of the band’s most pivotal albums, out Sept. 10.

Bridgers’ tender piano-led rendition shows a softer, gloomier side of “Nothing Else Matters.” “I feel like my version almost sounds baroque,” said Bridgers of her rendition in a recent interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “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.”

Featuring artists across all ages, genres, and continents, each offering their different reimagining to “Nothing Else Matters,” The Metallica Blacklist includes covers by Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Elton John, Miley Cyrus, and Yo-Yo Ma, and some additional Black Album cuts covered by Corey Taylor, Weezer (“Enter Sandman“), Ghost, Biffy Clyro, Volbeat, St. Vincent (“Sad But True“), Sam Fender and more, including a cover of “Sad But True” by Jason Isbell. 

Profits from each track off of The Metallica Blacklist will benefit Metallica’s charitable foundation, All Within My Hands, named after the band’s 2003 release, in addition to a charity of each artist’s choice.

A longtime Metallica fan, Bridgers says she got into the band much later than most people during an Outside Lands festival when they headlined the festival in 2017.

“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,’” says Bridgers. “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. So that’s what I’ve always loved about Metallica is that they don’t shy away from a great hook.”