By JACOB FRIDLUND
Staff Writer
Widely regarded as Metallica’s masterpiece and a leading candidate for the title of the Greatest Metal Album of All Time, Master of Puppets is a front-to-back tour de force that somehow recently got even bigger and more beloved due to its title track appearing prominently in Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Since Master’s 1986 release, pretty much every band to follow has been influenced by the album — including Iowan masked maniacs Slipknot. In particular, vocalist Corey Taylor has cited Metallica’s magnum opus as one of the three albums he’d choose to take to a desert island, and in a 2022 interview with Metal Hammer, he sided with those who would name it as heavy metal’s defining work.
“Bar none, Master of Puppets is the quintessential metal album,” Taylor enthused. “Metallica has melody and ferocious riffs in abundance and every riff, every vocal, every drum beat, every performance, every second of that album is perfect. Top to bottom, it is probably in my top two albums ever made.”