"Garage Inc." is a compilation album of cover songs by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on November 24, 1998, through Elektra Records. The album includes cover songs, B-side covers, and The $5.98 E.P. - Garage Days Re-Revisited, which had gone out of print since its original release in 1987. The title combines Garage Days Revisited and Metallica's song "Damage, Inc." from Master of Puppets. The album cover's design heavily references the 1987 EP. It features songs by artists that have influenced Metallica, including bands from the new wave of British heavy metal, hardcore punk, and popular songs.
The day after Metallica completed the North American leg of the Poor Re-Touring Me Tour in San Diego, the band entered the studio to start recording a new album of cover versions. Lars Ulrich explained that after "three pretty serious albums in a row" (beginning with The Black Album, followed by Load and ReLoad), the band wanted to do something different. The process was easier since the band had a tradition of taking other people's songs and transforming them into something distinctly Metallica. Many of the covers had already been released as B-sides to singles or on the 1987 EP, and the band decided to package them all together with newly recorded versions. Only one of the eleven songs in the "New Recordings '98" disk was not done in the three-week sessions: a version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone," which was recorded for a radio broadcast and featured friends like Les Claypool, John Popper, and Gary Rossington.
To support the album, Metallica played five shows in November 1998, with the setlist consisting entirely of cover songs. Metallica's own music was played by the opening band, Battery, a Metallica tribute band.
The cover for Garage Inc. featured a photograph by Anton Corbijn, showing Metallica dressed as mechanics. The band wanted the booklet to provide a detailed account of the project's contents, so designer Andy Airfix was given access to Ulrich's collection of Metallica memorabilia in San Francisco. He used this to create a 32-page booklet. Airfix also designed the back cover, which modified the front of Garage Days Re-Revisited with headshots of Metallica from 1998, and the tracklist was written on tracing paper.
