Official Score = 3 1/2 Devils[/caption]Believe it or not, when I was a kid, even though I was a fan of Horror & Science Fiction Movies (and I suppose that you could say, the darker side of entertainment, but believe it or not until I was around 14 or 15 I was really in to the more easy listening style of music... I know kind of odd right?
Well that was until one day when I was visiting a friend when I was about 14 or 15 and my friend happened to be playing the Load album by, 'Metallica', (Listen I know most fans tend to consider that Metallica sold out at that point but the truth is, is that Load and Reload were good albums, but misunderstood just because of how different they were from the rest of their music,)
Regardless, after listening to a few of the songs from, Load, I really enjoyed heavy metal music, and especially Metallica... there is something about their Music which has been known to have post-apocalyptic (but so in what I believe to be a tasteful non over the top sort of way), but besides that, they have taken heavy metal music in directions that a lot of other musicians never really did to much of... Including creating an album with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, as well as doing some really bad ass country'esque style music on one of their albums as well!
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Lead singer, 'James Hetfield' as he is playing with the San Francisco symphony orchestra at the concert hat they did together![/caption]With all that in mind, one of the first albums that I purchased of theirs, that I have still to date found to be one of their better albums was the album, Master Of Puppets (1986), which I would say has one of their most popular songs in their catalog... the title name of the album... Master Of Puppets!
What made this song so great in my opinion? Well a few things, first off this song gave off the tone and attitude of what I would consider to be a greath thrash metal album (which I always kind of attributed to some of their earliest works... And which it seems like they have tried to re-capture with some of their later albums,) Their first album was a great example of this, but besides that, this album tonally I believe gave the listener a hint of the more dusty, (almost country-esque) style of heavy metal that would keep them going through out the 1990s... Although I will admit that this song is more thrash metal then the more easy, but still bad ass almost (country-esque) style of music...
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Cliff Burton with the rest of the Metallica crew back in the 80s.... It has been said that Cliff always thought that the song, 'Master Of Puppets' was the best song on that album![/caption]Another thing that I wanted to say, is that for this album, that this would be the last album that bassist Cliff Burton would do with the band, which was quite unfortunate because he would end up passing away after this album was released (for those of you who are new to Metallica, Cliff Burton was the bassist for Metallica from it's first album all the way up till he passed away in 1986... And he is also the bassist that most Metallica fans (myself included) consider to be the best that Metallica ever had!) Which makes not only this song but the album in the whole a little anti-climatic...
This award winning song is so good and was so popular by fans (myself included), that it was re-produced for Metallica's album, S&M, as well as having been sang at other live performances many times, as well as having been re-produced by other musicians such as, 'Limp Bizkit', 'Anthrax' and even, 'Ugly Kid Joe' who ended up using it as one of the songs for the Metallica tribute album!
In the end, this is an awesome song, and if you are a metal fan, then give it a try, you might find that you really like it!
Please enjoy this live segment from Metallica's, 'Cunning Stunts' concert that Metallica released in 1998!
http://youtu.be/K_WPYZQ5N98
