Master of Puppets is a hallmark album in metal history that is often lauded as one of the genre’s most important albums of all-time. Along with going six times platinum (which is insanely impressive for a thrash metal full-length) it has the unique distinction of being the very first metal album to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation due to being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” In other words, this is one of metal’s holy grails.
Metallica was sort of in a unique position in 1986 when this album was released. This was the first album where they didn’t use material co-written by former lead guitarist (and legendary bitter Metallica hater) Dave Mustaine who had been fired from the band before their debut album Kill Em’ All was released in 1983. The songwriting process for Master of Puppets comprised of lead singer James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich holed up in a garage in El Cerrito, CA jamming on guitar riffs and slowly morphing them into structured songs before inviting lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Cliff Burton in for rehearsals. The songs were built with the musical arrangements as the foundation, and then the band would come up with a song title and topic before Hetfield would begin writing lyrics. This led to very fleshed-out demos heading into the recording sessions, with very limited changes to composition occurring once they were finally in the studio. And in a somewhat surprising twist, the band (who at that time was famously referred to as “Alcoholica” due to their hard-partying ways) stayed sober during recording days in the studio.
As you would expect from the album cover the themes in the album are plagued with paranoia and focus on the lack of control we often have in our lives due to factors we can’t see or recognize. This overarching theme of subconscious manipulation is laid bare in some of the overt songs about war (“Battery”, “Disposable Heroes”) and televangelism (“Leper Messiah”), along with the perils of substance abuse that plagued the band during that period (“Master of Puppets” notably is about the perils of cocaine addiction).
The result was immediately iconic, earning both commercial and critical success, and sending Metallica into the stratosphere where they became the biggest metal band on the planet (and remain there to this day). Tragically bassist Cliff Burton would lose his life in a bus accident in the fall of 1986 during the tour for Master of Puppets, making this the final recording of his with the band.
Standout Songs: “Battery”, “Master of Puppets”, “Leper Messiah”
