Master of Puppets (song)

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"Master of Puppets"

Cover of Master of Puppets
Song by Metallica
from the album Master of Puppets
Released	February 21, 1986
Recorded	Sweet Silence Studios Copenhagen, Denmark September-December, 1985
Genre	Thrash metal
Length	8:37
Label	Elektra Records
Producer(s)	Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen
Master of Puppets track listing
"Battery" "Master of Puppets" "The Thing That Should Not Be" "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" "Disposable Heroes" "Leper Messiah" "Orion" "Damage, Inc."

"Master of Puppets" is a song performed by thrash metal band Metallica. It is the title track of their 1986 album.

At 8:36, "Master of Puppets" is the longest track on the album. It is also following the tradition of Ride the Lightning in having the title track as the second track, preceded by a shorter, high-speed typical thrash metal track. There are several such track similarities on Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All. "Master of Puppets" is also notable for its long and complex instrumental section beginning about three and a half minutes into the song.

Before the solo on the song, Cliff Burton, the bass player, in the background can be heard vaguely reciting the verse, in a deep gruff voice.

[edit] Trivia

The song has been ranked as the 3rd greatest heavy metal song ever by VH1 ^[1] . In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 22 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

Master of Puppets was ranked #2 in Martin Popoff book "The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time". Popoff put together this book by requesting thousands of metal fans, musicians, and journalists to send in their favourite heavy metal songs. Almost 18,000 individual votes were tallied and entered into a database from which the final rankings were derived. ^[2].

The song was said to be bassist Cliff Burton's favorite Metallica song.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, metalcore band Trivium released a cover of the song, and they frequently play it live, occasionally without the slower bridge part or end.
This song was covered by Trivium for Kerrang magazine's Remastered:Master of Puppets album.

The conservative talk show host Michael Savage uses this track as the opening of his radio show, The Savage Nation.

At Woodstock 94, the funk metal band Primus played the opening of the song.

It was covered live at least once by progressive metal band Dream Theater.

Finnish band Apocalyptica released a cover of the song played only by cellos.

The song was also featured in the movie "Old School".

This song is the theme song for the San Francisco Giants' third baseman, Pedro Feliz

It was the song featured in the Simpsons episode "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" when Hans Moleman drives away as Metallica is playing.

German punk band Die Ärzte samples it in the middle of their song "FaFaFa".

This song came first in a recent '100 Greatest Riffs'poll from Total Guitar

[edit] Notes

^ "VH1 40 Greatest Metal Songs", 1-4 May 2006, VH1 Channel, reported by VH1.com; last accessed September 10, 2006.
^ "The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time"[1].