#84/1251
March 3 1986
Metallica
Master of Puppets
Genre: Thrash Metal
4.5 out of 5
Highlights:
Master of Puppets
Disposable Heroes
Damage, Inc
In early 1988 I was living in a basement apartment off Sunset Blvd kitty corner from Tower Records. The payphone at Tower was my main source of communication with the outside world for the first few weeks while we got our telephone line installed. Above us was a psychiatrists office. We had no furniture.
I slept on an inflatable air mattress and my roommate had our only TV. I was lucky if I got to watch reruns of Charlie’s Angels at 3 in the afternoon before I caught the bus to my telemarketing job at Factor Fox in Santa Monica.
One day, after calling home from the payphone, I was wandering around Tower and grabbed a copy of the LA Weekly and, laying on the floor of the main room of this dwelling (the only place to actually sit was a giant chair I fashioned out of milk crates), popped on the Residents compilation, “Hell!” and opened the Weekly.
There was an article about a burgeoning and explosive new music form that was bubbling up from the underbelly of metal. It was being led by an aptly named group called Metallica. I can not find that article in any archives but I remember it well. Mostly because I thought, “well, that doesn’t interest me but I’m sure my metal head friends would love it.” And I moved on.
Of course, I and everyone else would get caught up in the Metallica swirl a few years later with the black album but that was a lifetime away.
All this to say: I never listened to Master of Puppets.
Until today.
It opens in the same way, with a tasteful acoustic guitar that belies what’s coming. And I’m okay with that trick again, since this is the first major label release and new audiences might not have heard that.
Let’s just take a moment to realize that this album came out 33 years ago at this writing. When it came out “Rock and Roll” was not yet 33. Elvis was just 30 years before this. That boggles my mind. That Master of Puppets is older now than “Blue Suede Shoes” was when it came out…just weird, man.
Wow.
Just…
Wow.
But I’m gonna say this (and probably get killed for it): I liked Ride the Lightning more. I feel like it’s assault was more devastating and immediate. This is gigantic and great, but that was more of a surprise.
