Master of Puppets

This article covers the album. For the song, see Master of Puppets (song) .

Master of Puppets
Metallica studio album
Publication (s)	March 3, 1986
admission	September - December 1985
Label (s)	Elektra Records
Format (s)	CD , LP
Genre (s)	Thrash metal , speed metal , heavy metal
Title (number)	8th
running time	54:41
occupation	Vocals , guitar : James Hetfield Lead guitar: Kirk Hammett Bass , background vocals : Cliff Burton Drums , percussion : Lars Ulrich
production	Metallica , Flemming Rasmussen
Studio (s)	Sweet Silence Studios, Copenhagen (Denmark)
chronology Ride the Lightning (1984) Master of Puppets Garage Days Re-Revisited (1987)
Single release 2nd July 1986 Master of Puppets

Master of Puppets ( English for "Master of Puppets") is the third studio album of American Metal - band Metallica . It was released on March 3rd, 1986 by Elektra Records and is considered a milestone in Thrash Metal . Master of Puppets was the last album Metallica recorded with Cliff Burton on bass . Burton died that same year in a bus accident in Sweden while on tour. Considered one of the best metal albums, Master of Puppets was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2016 .

content

The hook of the album is a metaphor of people on marionette strings . This subject deals with people who are no longer in control of their own actions, but are controlled by a “master” (see title Master of Puppets ). Many of the songs on the album are about constraints that control people; Each of these pieces thus represents one of these “lords of the marionettes”: The anger is dealt with in the song Battery (German: 'Schlägerei' or 'body injury') - it begins with an acoustic, calm guitar, and then suddenly turns into a fast thrash -Metal piece to be. The title is also an indirect tribute to the Old Waldorf Club on Battery Street, San Francisco, where Metallica first appeared. Central themes of the album include addiction (especially of drugs) in Master of Puppets , mental illness in Welcome Home (Sanitarium) and religion in Leper Messiah (German: 'Leper Messiah ').

In addition, the use of soldiers as "cannon fodder" is shown in the song Disposable Heroes (German: 'Disposable Heroes'). The reference to the Cthulhu myth in The Thing That Should Not Be is also reminiscent of cult followers, i.e. people with limited will (the book Shadows over Innsmouth by HP Lovecraft was used as a template ). Also, Orion , the hunter in Greek mythology, is a character whose life was determined by others. Metallica chose the name Orion because the music reminded them of space. The last track of the album, Damage, Inc. , cuts the “puppet strings” to the “Lord” due to its non-conformity.

Music style and structure

Master of Puppets is not only a central album of early metal from the time it was released. In its time it shows new (nowadays already common) approaches to the composition and execution of speed and thrash metal. It is also the last album under the "classic" line-up of the band.

The music on the album is very typical of the early Metallica. Despite its Thrash Metal elements, Master of Puppets is "no longer a real Thrash album"; according to anthrax guitarist Scott Ian , the band "pushed the genre boundaries" and "created something that was much bigger than Thrash Metal". With this, however, the band moved away from the extreme metal underground: Jon "Metalion" Kristiansen , editor of Slayer - Fanzines , found Master of Puppets at the end of 1986 disappointing compared to the underground bands in his environment; however, he writes in the book Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries that he is older and smarter now and would probably like the album more by now. In particular, the songs Welcome Home (Sanitarium) , Battery and the theme song Master of Puppets are considered classics of Thrash Metal.

The band was strictly based on the dramaturgical album scheme of the successful forerunner record Ride the Lightning . Almost every track on the 1984 album can be assigned a stylistically corresponding track by Master of Puppets : Both albums start - after an intro plucked on acoustic guitars - with a brutal Thrash Metal opener ( Fight Fire with Fire or Battery ) for the passionate headbanger audience, before the mid-tempo, longer LP title track is played and the album actually begins. In both cases, the A-side closes with an epic ballad: Fade to Black and Welcome Home (Sanitarium) . The B-side starts routinely with moderate Speed ​​Metal ( Trapped Under Ice or Disposable Heroes ). There is also a long instrumental piece, each consisting of several movements ( The Call of Ktulu or Orion ). Only at the end of 1986 did Metallica allow themselves an innovation, namely to end the LP with a quick song: Damage, Inc.

Cover design

The cover of the album shows a cemetery with white grave crosses in front of a low sun. A steel helmet can be seen on the left edge of the picture hanging from the crossbar of one of the crosses. An identification tag of the type used in the US Army hangs on the middle cross . These military attributes characterize the burial ground as a military cemetery. Threads lead up from the graves to the hands of a puppeteer. In between, the Metallica logo floats, made of marble blocks (similar to the grave crosses). It was drawn by Don Brautigam . The cover was inspired by Taken by Force , the fifth album by the German rock band Scorpions . On a band photo on the back of the album cover, guitarist Kirk Hammett wears a red T-shirt from the German music club Rockfabrik , which is based in Ludwigsburg , Baden-Württemberg, under a black vest .

Track list

1. Battery (Hetfield, Ulrich) - 5:09
2. Master of Puppets (Burton, Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) - 8:32
3. The Thing That Should Not Be (Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) - 6:33
4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium) (Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) - 6:26
5. Disposable Heroes (Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) - 8:16
6. Leper Messiah (Hetfield, Ulrich) - 5:39
7. Orion (instrumental) (Burton, Hetfield, Ulrich) - 8:22
8. Damage, Inc. (Burton, Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) - 5:30

reception

Reviews

At the Rock am Ring festival on June 3, 2006, the entire track list of the album was played for the first time during the Escape from the Studio '06 tour. This happened on the album's 20th birthday and in honor and memory of Cliff Burton. In the course of this, the instrumental piece Orion was performed in its entirety for the first time (after only the first half was played at two concerts in 2005 and otherwise only a few fragments were used as guitar / bass solos). At the following concerts of the tour (apart from the last show in Seoul / South Korea on August 15th) the entire track list was also played.

The music magazine Rolling Stone has Master of Puppets on its list of the 500 best albums of all time as the band's best album at position 167, ahead of Metallica (# 255). In the selection of the 500 best hard rock and heavy metal albums of all time by the renowned German music magazine Rock Hard , Master of Puppets landed in second place (behind Back in Black from AC / DC and immediately followed by the Metallica album Ride the Lightning in 3rd place). According to Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann from Rock Hard , the band “hasn't released a single exceptional album after 'Master of Puppets'”. On 3 October 2007, the album reached at WDR 2 -action WDR 200 47th the most important albums in rock history.

The online magazine laut.de rated Master of Puppets in its Milestones column retrospectively with five out of five possible points and described the album as a "metal epic for eternity".

In 2016 the album was included in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress because it is considered to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Chart successes and sales figures

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Master of Puppets   DE 12 03/17/1986 (10 weeks)   AT 27 11/24/2017 (2 weeks)   CH 18th March 16, 1986 (7 weeks)   UK 41 03/15/1986 (8 weeks)   US 29 03/15/1986 (137 weeks)

Master of Puppets entered the German charts at number 40 on March 17, 1986 and two weeks later reached the top position at number 31. After re-releasing a remastered version in 2017, it reached number 12. In the United States, the album was number 29 and stayed in the top 200 for a total of 132 weeks. The album was particularly successful in Finland, where it reached position 7.

Master of Puppets earned a 6-time platinum record for more than six million units sold in the United States in 2003 .

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Argentina (CAPIF)	gold	30,000
Belgium (BEA)	gold	25,000
Germany (BVMI)	platinum	500,000
Finland (IFPI)	platinum	57,647
Italy (FIMI)	gold	50,000
Canada (MC)	6 × platinum	600,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)	platinum	15,000
United States (RIAA)	6 × platinum	6,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	platinum	300,000
All in all	2 × gold 17 × platinum	7,577,647

Main article: Metallica / Music Sales Awards

Cover versions

The progressive metal band Dream Theater played the entire album live as an encore during their 2003 world tour and released a recording of the performance on CD via their own label, YtseJam Records .

The English metal magazine Kerrang celebrated the 20th anniversary of Master of Puppets with a CD included in issue 1102, on which each song by Master of Puppets was covered by another famous metal band in honor of Metallica. For example, Master of Puppets: Remastered , Machine Head contributed the title Battery to this album , Trivium re- recorded Master of Puppets and Bullet for My Valentine Welcome Home (Sanitarium) . Likewise, the band Limp Bizkit played the same song live in the presence of the entire band on the MTV Icon on June 5, 2003.

Battery was also covered by German a cappella metal band Van Canto on their 2006 album A Storm to Come ; Their 2010 album Tribe Of Force features a cover of the theme song Master of Puppets . Machine Head also released the song Battery on their 2007 album The Blackening , as did the folk metal band Ensiferum on the special edition of their 2007 album, Victory Songs . Folk guitarist Michael Völkel released an instrumental version of the song Master of Puppets for acoustic guitar solo on his album Landscapes.

Contributors

• Musicians / producers: see table
• Illustrations: Don Brautigam
• Photography : Rob Ellis, Ross Halfin
• Remastering: George Marino
• Production, sound engineering : Flemming Rasmussen
• Mixing: Michael Wagener

Web links

• Review: Master of Puppets (medienkonverter.de)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Master of Puppets | Metallica.com. Retrieved May 6, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Cliff Burton -20.Todestag ( Memento of 13 February 2009 at the Internet Archive ).
3. ↑ Josh Tyrangiel: Master of Puppets .
4. ^ ^{A b} Library of Congress press release: National Recording Registry Recognizes "Mack the Knife," Motown and Mahler. March 23, 2016, accessed March 30, 2016.
5. ↑ Battery .
6. ↑ Jan Fleckhaus, Christof Leim: The origin of hardness . In: Metal Hammer , No. 3, 2008, pp. 34-41.
7. ^ Jon Kristiansen : Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries . Brooklyn, NY: Bazillion Points Books 2011, p. 57.
8. ↑ The existence of the rock factory in Ludwigsburg seriously threatened in the news on www.metal-hammer.de ( Metal Hammer ), June 13, 2019
9. ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Metallica, 'Master of Puppets'. Rolling Stone, May 24, 2012, accessed April 16, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Best of Rock & Metal - The 500 strongest discs of all time (Ed. Michael Rensen), Heel Verlag, 1st edition October 31, 2005.
11. ↑ Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: The Blackest Album - An Industrial Tribute to Metallica . In: Rock Hard , No. 139, accessed July 25, 2013.
12. ↑ Josef Gasteiger: Metal epic for eternity .
13. ↑ Chart positions: DE AT CH UK US
14. ↑ Chart tracking Master of Puppets on officialcharts.de
15. ↑ International chart tracking Master of Puppets
16. ↑ US: 6x platinum