Posted on 03/04/2011 10:48:23 AM PST by qam1
Considering how immediate the best of it feels, it's always a little bit surprising how well metal music ages. While not everything still sounds fresh, many of the genre's cornerstone releases hold up extremely well. Slayer's Reign in Blood still sounds as fresh and vital as it did when it first came out, and Black Sabbath's Paranoid remains top-shelf. While not all of their albums hold up well, Metallica's Master of Puppets — which came out on this day in 1986, a full 25 years ago — remains a stone cold classic and an album by which other metal albums should be judged.
The thing that stands out about Master of Puppets all these years later is how hard the whole thing is. Every chord crunch, every drum hit and every bellow from the throat of frontman James Hetfield is jagged and punishing, like the musical equivalent of a steel-toed boot constantly stomping on your face. Even the slower, slightly quieter moments (most notably on "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)") are infused with a snarling menace that permeates everything. Most people consider Metallica's self-titled 1991 album (the one with "Enter Sandman") to be their crossover, but Metallica is a full-on heavy album (a vibe they would inhabit for the remainder of the '90s). Master of Puppets is hard, and in retrospect, it actually does a better job than Metallica of splitting the difference between what the band was (the thrash-happy noisemakers of Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning and ...And Justice For All) and the band they were becoming (a stadium-filling anthem machine of epic proportions).
Indeed, it's the fact that Master of Puppets is so undeniably catchy that stands out more than anything else. Sure, the pounding rhythms of "Disposable Heroes" and the epic shred jam "Orion" are for hardcores only, but "Master of Puppets and "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" are absolute singalongs. You can clearly hear the roots of more obvious crowd-pleasers like "Sad But True" and "The Unforgiven," and it's pretty thrilling to be able to heard a band at the top of its game evolving in real time.
Of course, there's a lot of sadness attached to Master of Puppets, as it ended up being the final album the band recorded with original bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident on September 27, 1986. A certain era of Metallica was over, and a new one began shortly thereafter with the arrival of bassist Jason Newsted (and the creation of Metallica, of course). There's also an argument that Master of Puppets was the last great metal album of the '80s, which is not unreasonable (although fans of Tesla's The Great Radio Controversy would probably raise a stink). And considering Nirvana's Bleach came out only a year after Master of Puppets, change was already in the air for all of rock music. If Master of Puppets sounds like the end of days — and it does — that's probably because it sort of was.
The album ‘Iron Maiden’ came out over 30 years ago. Iron Maiden as a band has been going for over 35 years.
I remember on Cliff ‘Em All, some guy commented about Master of Puppets bringing to his mind drugs, specifically chemicals. Well, Iron Maiden brings to mind mythology, poetry, and history. If I want good story, I know which band I’d rather listen to.
Besides, Metallica sold out to sell more albums.
Only Sabbath compares in the genre.
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I still put that one on just to make my Polk Audios smoke. One of the best albums of all time. Master of Reality being just as good.
Maybe.
He's also one of the top 3 or 4 drummers that ever lived...and my personal favorite.
The first Sabbath album called “Black Sabbath” was (is) the best ever.
Master Of Puppets must be good Savage uses it for his intro.
As Jason Newstead said, "Yep we sell out...every single time, everywhere we play."
I’m not really sure that’s a fair comparison. I mean Master of Puppets the song is ABOUT drug addiction, but also on that album is The Thing that Should Not Be, which is based on Cthulhu, Sanitarium which is a tribute to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and Disposable Heroes about being on the frontline. There’s plenty of good stories based on external things in the album.
I don’t know of Metallica sold out so much as just changed. They happened to change in a way that hit the popular vein and made them lots of money. They needed to change, Justice featured two songs longer than Yes’ Heart of the Sunrise, they were seriously running the risk of drowning in their own musical excesses. I think they over corrected, but what the hell, they wouldn’t make that much money off of me anyway.
Everybody changes. You can say that Maiden has gone too far to the prog-metal extreme. The albums are still musically good but they aren’t nearly as exciting.
Good point, it would be silly for guys in their Fifties, to be doing the same kind of material as when they were young punks.
People tend to care more for the early stuff, because that music is a much larger part of their lives. But had Metallica simply redid “Kill ‘Em All” every time, they certainly wouldn’t have had the longevity that they’ve had.
Same here. Lost me after the Black album and I agree...Justice was the one. Damn, I still miss Cliff.
But the one song that wakes me up every morning on MOP is Leper Messiah.
Yeah, I feel old too LOL. I knew about Metalica back in 85 when my stoner Uncle was playing it on his tape deck. Then I discovered Slayer..
I saw ‘em live back in 1994.
James is the one who got me into guitar.
Yeah, bands that aren’t AC/DC gotta change. Somehow AC/DC keeps managing to make the same album over and over and we all go buy it, but few are the bands that can pull that off. I always think it’s funny when people complain about bands selling out, like there’s suddenly something wrong with making money and being popular somehow makes it impossible to be good. Metallica has changed in a way I don’t like that much, but I don’t begrudge them that change, I still have the old albums and memories of the old tours, and who knows maybe next album they’ll change to something I like better than the olden days.
Yep, AC/DC has been doing the same song for 40 years, but what a song it is.
So is ZZ Top the only big-name rock act that has gone over 40 years without 1 single personnel change?
I knew I was getting old when I heard Back in Black on a Disney movie. When I was coming up, AC/DC was devil music. Now it’s cartoon music.
I cried.
the same stoner Uncle of mine passed to me his extremely rare Just Another Kraut’ live record album. He also “claimed” to watch Guns N Roses at the Whisky in L.A. not once..but TWICE years before Appetite for Destruction. This was when Axl and the band were selling beer in a car at the corner of Sunset and Gardner while they were writing Appetite..
That was back when CA was the heart of the metal scene. Long time ago. . ..
Hang on to the Kraut album. That’ll be really valuable one day.
I had a great time with the “devil music folks” and “Creeping Death.” :D Amazing how many good Christian folks couldn’t recognize the story of the Exodus.
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