Metallica earned a growing fan base in the underground music community and won critical acclaim with its first five albums. The band's third album, "Master of Puppets" (1986), was described as one of the heaviest and most influential thrash metal albums. Its eponymous fifth album, "Metallica" (1991), the band's first to root predominantly in heavy metal, appealed to a more mainstream audience, achieving substantial commercial success and selling over 16 million copies in the United States to date, making it the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. After experimenting with different genres and directions in subsequent releases, the band returned to its thrash metal roots with the release of its ninth album, "Death Magnetic" (2008), which drew similar praise to that of the band's earlier albums.