The American heavy metal band Metallica released their third studio album, titled Master of Puppets, on March 3, 1986 through Elektra Records. This album was their third studio effort overall. This was the band’s final album to feature bassist Cliff Burton, who passed away in a bus accident in Sweden during the band’s promotional tour for the album. The album was recorded in Denmark at Sweet Silence Studios with producer Flemming Rasmussen, and it was the band’s last album overall.
The cover artwork for the album was developed by Metallica and Peter Mensch, and it was painted by Don Brautigam. It depicts a cloudy, blood-red sky with a bright orange glow on the horizon, and it shows a cemetery field filled with white crosses that are attached to strings.
Metallica decided to go on tour in the United States in support of Ozzy Osbourne rather than releasing a single or video in advance of the album’s release. The tour would last for five months. After Burton passed away in September of 1986, the European part of the tour was postponed, and the band came home to hold auditions for a new bassist.
Master of Puppets reached its highest position on the Billboard 200 chart at number 29 and was met with universal acclaim from reviewers, who lauded the album’s music as well as the political lyrics it included. It is widely acknowledged as one of the best and most influential thrash metal albums of all time, and it is recognised with playing a significant role in the development of the thrash metal scene in the United States.
Master of Puppets Featuring in Stranger Things
Happy Fourth of July! It is the beginning of a new month, and it is also the date of the launch of the second volume of Stranger Things’ fourth season, which has been sprinkled throughout with references to rock and metal throughout the entirety of the show. It has been reported that Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is featured in the season finale, and all of the episodes are now available on Netflix, so this comes as no surprise.
Eddie Munson is the character who’s been waving the heavy music flag throughout the fourth season of the show, from wearing a denim jacket with a giant Dio patch on the back to shredding a mysterious guitar solo that had the entire internet going insane. Metallica is a band that Joe Quinn, the actor who played Munson in the series, is a fan of, and he listened to a lot of metal as part of his preparation for the character.
Eddie Shake Things by Playing Master of Puppets
It would appear that the producers of Stranger Things took my criticism of the character Billy, a metalhead, from the second season to heart, because the new season has made a conscious effort to shift the show’s perspective on heavy metal. Eddie, a Dungeons & Dragons fanatic and Dio supporter, is assumed to have been Billy’s predecessor.
He is modelled after Damien Echols, one of the infamous West Memphis 3, who was a headbanger. And now, Eddie has taken metal to the forefront of the show’s season 4 finale by performing “Master of Puppets” by Metallica on a massive rock while red lightning crackles in the background.
Eddie makes the decision to stir things up in the Upside-Down by playing “Master of Puppets” on his guitar, which in turn ushers in an entire scene that is set to the Metallica classic. he stated, Because I’ve been too busy writing about Ghost and crap to watch anything other than fuckin’ Mad God in the previous six months, I’ll be completely honest and say that I don’t know what exactly the context of the scene is.
But hey, any metalhead who has ever lived has longed to watch a show or movie in which someone plays “Master of Puppets” on a precipice while terror-dactyls fill the air, so we’ll take it if it comes our way!
