The 50(ish) Greatest Albums of All Time
Jack of All Trades, Master of Puppets
Album #10 : Metallica — Master of Puppets
Ok, before we press play, can we address something from the very start please? This band is called Metallica. METAL-LI-CA. That’s like N.W.A. calling themselves Rapamondo or Chic calling themselves Discotron 3000. It’s honestly amazing anyone has ever taken them seriously — but they did, so here we are.
Now we have got that out the way let’s get started. The first thing to note about this record is the lyrics. At this point I should remind myself that Master of Puppets was released in 1986. It is 35 years old and obviously since then artists, thanks in no small part to Metallica paving the way, have really pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable in music. However, these lyrics are really lame. There’s a lot of ‘gates of hell’ and all that nonsense — maybe I am a jaded millennial but they don’t really hit home as well as the presumably used to. In fact, they get quite annoying after a while: “I wonder what this next song is about. Oh, it’s the gates of hell again.” Maybe I am the disgruntled boomer, then, getting frustrated at his kid’s angry records? What’s wrong with a melody, son?!
To be honest, I don’t think the phrase ‘gates of hell’ is actually ever used on this album. But that is the general vibe. Apart from title-track Master of Puppets, which is apparently about drugs, and album opener Battery (which seems to involve just shouting the word “Battery!” and I can only assume was written by an old smoke detector), most of the lyrical themes blend into one.
In fact, now we are getting to the middle of the album, most of the songs blend together too. If I had to choose a favourite track so far it would be the one that goes “dundeledun-deledun-deledun…” which, of course, is all of them. For the first few minutes of any song, I can understand how people can get into Metallica — there’s a rhythm to the tracks that can be quite enjoyable but they just… keep… going. Then, suddenly, they stop.
But then they keep going again. These songs are the musical equivalent of one of my Nana’s stories (except with fewer references to the gates of hell). They just chunter on and on until it is time to leave or you end up screaming “Oh my god get to the punchline of the story.” At least Nana has good biscuits.
Maybe as we get towards the end of the album Stockholm Syndrome is setting in, but let’s give credit where it is due; this whole project is about seminal records and influential bands and Metallica basically created their own genre of music. Unfortunately, that genre of music was:
“Let’s all play the same thing, at the same time, for about 8 minutes.”
Then we suddenly stop, so the listener thinks it is over, then we go back to “dundeledun-deledun-deledun…”. And that is basically it for every song — putting a Spanish guitar riff at the start of the album isn’t fooling anyone.
Perhaps I am too harsh. I never really got into Metallica, or metal music in general, when I was younger and I think it is a bit like Star Wars in that respect. If you aren’t introduced to it at an early age, you don’t buy into it and it all feels a bit forced and a bit square. Clearly, lots of people like Metallica and this record so I’ll leave them to it and get on with my life. I would never have said that in high school though — there I would have fought tooth and nail to prove that whoever liked them was wrong, wrong, wrong.
And so, now we have reached the end of the record, it is time to reflect. I suppose, I have really learned something about myself in this process. What I have learned is tha-“dundeledun-deledun-deledun…”
Oh, for god’s sake.
Thanks for reading — over the course of 2021, I’ll be reviewing 50(ish) of the greatest albums ever recorded. You can see the list here.
