I guess you could say that Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has somewhat of a love/hate relationship with their seminal 1986 album “Master Of Puppets“. That 6x multi-platinum effort helped to define the genre of heavy metal as a whole and remains an indelible classic to this day. The pandemic years saw it reach a whole new audience, thanks to it prominently being featured in an pivotal episode of the Netflix hit series ‘Stranger Things‘.
Recently, Hammett expressed his disdain for playing the solo to the title track live, along with being locked into solos onstage in general.
In a newly published interview with Rock Candy, Hammett revealed that despite his recent comments, that album still stands as his personal favorite in the group’s catalog. He commented of that:
“We weren’t trying to make an album that 35 or so years on people would put on and think still sounded great. We didn’t set out to do anything, really. We were just trying to make the best album we possibly could and that’s what came out.
From a technical viewpoint, when I listen to the album I’m really surprised at how good it sounds so long after the fact. The recording of the album, the recording of the songs, the production… it all holds up still.”
He continued:
“A lot of the music from that time now sounds samey and similar. But there’s really nothing on ‘Master Of Puppets’ that dates it to any particular period – sound-wise, production-wise, recording-wise. ‘Master Of Puppets’ is my favorite of all the albums we’ve ever done.”
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