Metallica: Master of Puppets [BLACKENED]

Why you'll love it

Master of Puppets was the first metal album added to the US Library of Congress National Recording Registry, and it's the record most metalheads name as the greatest of all time. Thanks to Stranger Things, the title track found a whole new generation.

This edition

• Single LP, 8 tracks
• Blackened remastered pressing
• Produced by Flemming Rasmussen with the band

About the album

By 1986 Metallica had already reinvented heavy metal twice, and on their third album they perfected the formula. Recorded in Copenhagen with producer Flemming Rasmussen, Master of Puppets is eight songs and almost an hour of thrash ambition: lightning-fast riffs, long multi-part epics, acoustic intros that explode into fury and lyrics about addiction, war and manipulation. It was the final album with bassist Cliff Burton, whose melodic genius shines on the instrumental "Orion."

"Battery" opens with Spanish guitar before it charges, the title track is an eight-minute masterclass that Stranger Things fans now scream along to, and "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" and "Disposable Heroes" show just how far Metallica had pushed past their peers. It went platinum without a single or a video and became the first metal record ever added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. Play it loud.

Also at Kops: more Metallica on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Blackened, a remastered reissue of the 1986 album.