“Hip To Be The Sandman” – This Metallica/Huey Lewis Mash-Up Is Surprisingly Satisfying

Kreepin Deth, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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If you time-traveled back to 1986 and told Metallica that their music would sound really good to the tune of Huey Lewis & The News’ “Hip To Be Square,” James Hetfield might have hocked a loogie on you. But one YouTuber has mashed up that track with Metallica’s own “Enter Sandman,” and damn if the two don’t go perfectly together.

Metallica mash-ups are a dime a dozen these days, but rarely are they as perfectly arranged as this. The Horsemen’s vocal rhythms feel as though they were written for this song, down to the slightly-extended line in the chorus that leads to the big drop of, “Off to Never Neverland!” While most of these sorts of combinations feel forced, this comes off like a listener started singing one track to the tune of the other and had an epiphany.

Check out “Hip To Be The Sandman” below:

Thankfully, this mash-up isn’t the only thing Metallica fans have to look forward to in 2021. According to a recent interview, the band are currently hard at work on their new album.

Speaking to singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridges via Rolling Stone, Lars said, “We’re three, four weeks into some pretty serious writing. And of all the shit – pandemics, fires, politics, race problems, and just fucking looking at the state of the world – it’s so easy just to so fall into a depressive state.

“But writing always makes me feel enthusiastic about what’s next. It’s like, ‘Fuck, there’s an opportunity here to still make the best record, to still make a difference. To still do something that not even turns other people on, but turns me on.’”

Lars also commented on the constant circulation of information about Metallica that has come with the digital age. In his eyes, it’s the most stark difference between now and when the band started — a sense that suddenly everyone’s knowledge and judgment of your music is on blast at all times.

“The difference now, compared to back in the day, is that everybody’s got an opinion,” said the drummer. “In the mid-to-late Nineties, it was like, “We played a show four days ago in Bumfuck, Somewhere, and the set list is posted online. The whole Napster thing 20 years ago, when we woke up in the middle of that shitstorm, was the first time where we were not universally the good guy. That’s when I conditioned myself to stop paying attention [to online commentary].”

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Words by Chris Krovatin