MANAGEABLE METALLICA MONDAY (ON TUESDAY) #2 (OF 4)
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 1:41pm by Kip WingerschmidtOkay, now that we got yesterday’s cavalcade of the new out of the way, let’s go back in time once again…
The seminal album Master of Puppets represents the time period when Metallica’s sharp, relentless sound noticeably became something more. The songwriting was a lot more grown-up, the sound full-well
rounded-out, the risks were loftier…it was immediately apparent to anyone with ears and a set of ballz that this was the future of metal. With the line-up that many believe to be the band’s greatest — whiney skinsman Lars Ulrich, gruff aristocratic white-trash frontman James Hetfield, wiry, stab-ya-for-lookin-at-me-funny-eyed lead guitarist Kirk Hammett (replacing the recently-booted Dave Mustaine, who would go on to form Megadeth, metal’s greatest revenge band), and bass-player-from-the-beginning Cliff Burton, who tragically died when the band’s tour bus overturned in Sweden whilst promoting this album — this sound was destined to go down in history.
If you’ve never heard this album, then you are a virgin to the crystallization of aggressive music, and you are doing yourself and everyone else in the pit a disservice.
Obviously the title track is a classic and one of the cornerstones of this brilliant record, but for my money the two best songs are this guy right here, and the album opener, “Battery”.
METALLICA - “Battery”, from Master of Puppets (1986)
-KW
The second metal album I ever owned (Vulgar was first). A cousin got it for me when I was 11. IMO the best thrash album ever.
Ride the Lightning is better
First metal album I owned, Battery and Leper Messiah are my personal favourites. I still remember hearing the opening bars of Battery and just being hooked from then on.
Cant wait to see them Saturday!
Love this Album.
Got this the day it released. My friends and I couldnt listen to or talk about ANYTHING but this record for weeks. Not long after, I saw them open for Ozzy on the “Ultimate Sin” tour.
I remember 3 things very vividly:
1) I could NOT believe how tight they were, or how little James spoke to the audience.
2) I could NOT believe how much/hard Cliff was headbanging, he NEVER stopped.
3) Getting caught in a pit (yes, it was a circle… but they didnt call them “circle pits” then, actually that still sounds corny to me) on the concrete stairs of the Thomas and Mack center.
You can say RTL is a better album, I won’t argue too much, as I love that album too, but ‘Master’ had a much larger cultural impact. This was the record that sent countless metal bands back to the rehearsal space.
The day this album (cassette at the time) came out, my roommates and I picked it up. We were playing it when Jehovah’s Witnesses came to the door, to which I was the lucky door answerer. My roommate cranked up the song “Master of Puppets” and fast forwarded to the “master! master!” part. The look on the Jehovahs’ faces was worth having answered the door.
BACK TO THE FRONT!
There is no need to debate. Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning are both classics, made by one of the finest assemblages of metallers, excluding Lars of course. Just listen to the intro to “Orion.” He almost killed any kind of momentum that song had going with his listless approach to drumming. He probably thought that was pretty monumental sounding, listening to the playback with Flemming Rasmussen. What a boner.
It is a great album, one of Metallica’s finest. But did it really “become something more”? I mean, I love that album, but stylistically it didn’t really develop any from Ride the Lightning. Let’s analyze (emphasis on the anal):
track 1 – fight fire with fire and battery: both have acoustic intro, then a rapid paced guitar assault kicks in.
track 2 – ride the lightning and master of puppets: the title track, over 8 minutes long, has an extended instrumental break in the middle
track 3 – for whom the bell tolls and the thing that should not be: a slow, short, grinding track
track 4 – fade to black and sanitarium: the ballad track, very similar in song structure with arpeggios, a solo, then verses etc.
track 5 – you get the picture here, switch the placement of the instrumental track and Master of Puppets is almost like a reworking of Ride the Lightning. Sad but true.
hibernum: structurally, both albums are very similar, but the songwriting on Master of Puppets is a little more refined (and it doesn’t have Escape). With that said, I do think Ride the Lightning doesn’t get nearly enough credit (especially from those outside the metal scene) for doing it first, and about as well in my opinion.
Kip, some of your statements are wrong.
1) “… Kirk Hammett (replacing the recently booted Dave Mustaine …)” Well, “Master of Puppets was released in 1986. Kirk had played on “Kill Em All” in 1983, so Kirk had been in the band for at least three years by the time of MOP. That’s probably longer than Mustaine was in the band, period. When does Mustaine stop being “recently booted” in your book? Five years? Ten?
2) “… bass-player-from-the-beginning Cliff Burton …” Umm, there was Ron McGovney, who played bass in the band until the others met Cliff and fired Ron.
Jeeze, Kip, do some fact-checking once in a while. But othewise, yeah, Master of Puppets is a classic.
No doubt, Metallica’s best album.
Hibernum: You are forgetting that all the songs on MOP are just plain better than the ones on RTL.
Bear in mind, I have had RTL on constant repeat in my van for oh…. about 3 weeks. So I love it too.