“I chose this song for two reasons,” renowned jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington says of “My Friend of Misery,” the song from Metallica’s 1991 landmark Black Album that he reimagined for the sprawling Metallica Blacklist project. “First, that bass intro just always caught my ear. Every time I heard it, I was like, damn, that’s dope! Then, on a deeper dive into it, there was something about the lyrics that reminded me of Billie Holiday. I just felt like I could do something cool with it.” But that isn’t where Washington’s admiration ends—he made Apple Music an exclusive playlist of his favorite Metallica songs, as well as ones by forebears such as Jimi Hendrix and King Crimson and contemporaries like Guns N’ Roses and Meshuggah. “I’d have to say ‘Master of Puppets’ is probably my favorite Metallica song,” he says. “The rhythm of that guitar part is so sick.” Another favorite is “King Nothing” from 1996’s Load, Washington’s point of entry into the band. “When I was like 15, my friend Big B had the craziest sound system in his car,” he says. “You could hear him coming from five blocks away. One day he came down the block bumpin’ this song. I was like, ‘Who is that?’ I was instantly a fan.”