Metallica’s Third Studio Album Marks 40 Years Since Transforming Metal Genre

Master of Puppets hit stores on March 3, 1986. Forty years later, this record is still a monument. Over 300,000 copies flew off shelves in the first year, according to Hit Channel.

Metallica flew to Copenhagen in September 1985, and Sweet Silence Studios became their workspace through December. Producer Flemming Rasmussen manned the boards. Kirk Hammett took lessons from Joe Satriani to sharpen his solos, while Lars Ulrich drilled with a drum instructor to keep pace with songs that demanded more than they'd ever written.

"I hope with this album people will start taking the whole musical side of us a lot more seriously than they have in the past," Ulrich said in 1986, according to O'Colly. Elektra Records signed them in 1984. 

The title track wove speed with melody. Its middle section tipped its hat to Iron Maiden's twin-guitar harmonies. James Hetfield wrote about addiction, painting a picture where the master controls helpless puppets. Eight minutes long, the song shifted tones in its midsection and never let up.

"Battery" started the record. Acoustic guitars layered and built tension before the band erupted into down-picked fury. The name came from Battery Street, where they played shows during their San Francisco years.

"Orion" plays for over nine minutes without a single word. Bassist Cliff Burton crafted the midsection around moody basslines that twisted and turned. His training in classical music brought sophistication that the band had never touched before. Burton died on Sept. 27, 1986, when the tour bus crashed in Sweden. At his funeral, they played the melody from "Orion."

The Library of Congress added Master of Puppets to the National Recording Registry in 2016. It was the first metal album to receive that honor. When Netflix released Season 4 of Stranger Things with the title track in a key scene, streams jumped quickly.