As you all probably know, this album was the first and for now only metal album to be added to the U.S. Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.
I found 2 funny things while researching:
1. On this official Library of Congress website, the album is listed as "genre:pop"
And
2. The first search result on Google is this essay from the Library of Congress. To be fair, it does have the disclaimer "views expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the
Library of Congress".

Anyways, this essay talks about why Master of Puppets is super influential and why it therefore rightly deserves to be preserved as a historic work of art.
However, it's funny the author's argument isn't very convincing. He mentions how it pushed the melodic approaches in thrash metal, that Cliffs bass is so prominent, etc. But he also admits that all of these things were already introduced in their previous album.
He also mentions that many fans believe they sold-out with this album (which is of course totally not true ).
And finally, when he talks about the actual songs, he skips over 4 songs, praises only "Battery", the title track, and "Orion", and even calls "Damage Inc" a "throwaway" song

They should've taken one of the reviews here on MS to sell this decision, not this essay. Reading it just makes me think of all the albums out there with flawless songs that they could have chosen... but I guess those wouldn't have been "influential" enough.

Oh well. I guess it's fine. The most well-known album can be the only metal album in the registry. After all, the beauty of metal is that it isn't mainstream. I'm happy with keeping the true gems out of sight of the mainstream media

Written by F3ynman on 04.05.2022 at 19:03

Oh well. I guess it's fine. The most well-known album can be the only metal album in the registry.

I would say by this fact alone the album deserverdly is genre-tagged "pop" here, in the sense of popular music, so d'accord about that.

I've always liked Orion and I cannot lie.

The mid to slower songs are by far stronger than the faster ones which are both paled by Ride The Lightning. It's Orion and the title track that excels, by advancing into new terrain with melodic interludes to connect them but ever since I first heard the title track, I always felt the main riff had never stayed its welcome enough. That's usually a common flaw I find with certain riffs, leads and progressions.

All that time to build up and when you're finally there riff that crushes more than the doomer-eque ones (Creeping, Leper, Harvester) your only going to repeat yourself once and yeet like that? Black Rose Immortal and Advent come to mind too.

Written by Alakazam on 16.06.2022 at 17:36

far stronger than the faster ones which are both paled by Ride The Lightning

You don't like Battery and Damage Inc?

Written by gavdann on 17.06.2022 at 11:50

Written by Alakazam on 16.06.2022 at 17:36

far stronger than the faster ones which are both paled by Ride The Lightning

You don't like Battery and Damage Inc?

Listening to Reign In Blood first out of the two messed them up for me. Battery has the intro and outro going for it that under-stays its welcome and even that track was played better by Dave Lombardo.


Damage Inc has one nice interlude riff and that's it.

Some thoughts:
Fight Fire with Fire is a far better opener than Battery, being far more agressive and having more interesting riffs. I used to consider Battery their most over-rated 80s song because I find the main riff to be so generic and the vocals unconvincing, despite everything else about the song being great (the intro, the way it changes from acoustic to electric, the bridge, the awesome riff at the end), but the thing is, this is such a well written song, and that is the main strength of this record compared to other thrash classics.

There are plenty thrash records that are better at thrash-metal than Master of Puppets (including Ride the Lightning and Justice), yet this is the at the same time one of the best records in rock music; the mistake is seeing it a thrash record, when really it's more like a metal record which rests on a thrash foundation. It might just be the best structured album in all modern music, with the exception of A Love Supreme from Coltrane.

I would not consider the slower songs here as heavy-metal, because ironically they are too heavy. Like compared to the heaviest of heavy-metal, Black Sabbath, The Thing that Should not Be and Lepper Messiah are completely different. I would consider The Thing that Should not Be a strange case of rythmic doom and Lepper Messiah more like a sludge-metal song, I mean, it's closer to sludge than anything I heard from Mastodon.

The Thing that Should not Be is an excellent song. It's not generic by any means, it's minmalistic in a way that perfectly compliments the progressive nature of the title track. It has the right kind of riffs that work with a minmalistic, repetitive structure. It's not a weakness of the album, but a strength.

While there are other records better at trash-metal, this album might actually contain the best thrash-metal sonf of them all: Dispossable Heroes. That song is a monster.

It’s the perfect album. Everything flows even moreso like butter than Ride the Lightning. The album is less speed focus and more melodic focused which was the correct direction Metallica to set themselves apart. It’s just a masterpiece. Period.

The title track is LEGENDARY! "Battery" and "Damage, Inc." - cool, fun songs. A very good album, but gets a lot more attention and praise than it deserves.