• Artist: Metallica
• Title: Master of Puppets
• Year: 1986
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 10
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1986 – Probably when I worked at Mother’s Records
• Keeper: Yes

The great one from the great ones. Some, people smarter than me that is, consider this the greatest heavy metal album of all time. I wouldn’t argue with that.

I was listening to Rodrigo y Gabriela‘s version of Metallica’s “Orion” this Saturday and decided I should play the original, which ended up turning into a Metallica history lesson for my son Mars. Then, coincidentally on Sunday I got another, and unexpected, dose of Master of Puppets. We were at our kids’ music recital where most of the tunes were seasonally-correct holiday stuff. But then this one middle-school-age-looking youngster came up to play the title track, “Master of Puppets.” He was even wearing the t-shirt. He has the same cool teacher as my kids, and his teacher accompanied him on bass. There is nothing simple about this music. It’s intense in every way, but the kid did a solid job getting pretty far through the song then stopped somewhat abruptly before the pretty bridge and solos.

I was looking around the room at the faces of the parents and relatives wondering if anyone else in the room was getting it. As great as this music is, it’s not for everyone. And even for metal aficionados it takes some adaptation just to digest what’s going on. I’ve played “Master” more than you can imagine and I was still surprised how fast, intense and sophisticated it is when I spun it again this week. I was talking to the kids’ teacher yesterday and as he put it, “it still holds up.” Indeed. Side one alone qualifies it as a “10″ in my book.

Check it out:
“Battery”
“Master of Puppets”
“The Thing That Should Not Be” (for you fans of H.P. Lovecraft)
“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”

Also worth mentioning about “Master” is that it was the last album with bassist Cliff Burton. He would die in a bus accident while on tour. OK, everybody knows that. But do you know this? Tipper Gore’s PMRC had it in for the title tack, which they apparently said was about “getting kids hooked on drugs.” Any moron could read the lyric sheet and see that the song was about the nightmare of drug addiction. I remember reading an interview with James Hetfield some time after the flare up. He might have even had to testify at a Senate hearing, can’t remember for sure. When he was asked about the whole thing he just said “people are going to believe what they want.” He didn’t need to explain anything.

Smashing through boundaries
Lunacy has found me
Cannot stop the Battery!

Lemme see those horns people!

More at Wikipedia:
Metallica
Master of Puppets

• Artist: Scatterbrain
• Title: Here Comes Trouble
• Year: 1990
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 5
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1990 – Promo at a store I owned with my brother.
• Keeper: No

I love metal and comedy, just not combined. At least that’s true when the comedy is not so subtle, which is the case here. Scatterbrain are a group of tremendous musicians, and I’m sure their live shows were pretty fun. Here Comes Trouble is full of intricately arranged songs that no lazy bunch of slackers could ever produce, but the over-the-top jokes end up making it all seem trivial. Take a look at the liner pic below of the guys in Groucho Marx glasses. That pretty much sums up this album.

Possibly the most noteworthy thing here is the Robert Williams painting as cover art.

More about Scatterbrain.

• Artist: SGM
• Title: Aggression
• Year: 1988
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 1
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1988 – We got this as a promo at our store RIP Records in Norfolk, VA.
• Keeper: No

Updated November 14, 2006

SGM, not to be confused with the prog-metal band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The latter makes some pretty interesting and sophisticated music. This album is so bad I considered not even documenting it. The only thing that changed my mind is that the cover art is a painting by Robert Williams. This is a lame metal/punk “crossover” album with moronic lyrics.

For another opinion on SGM’s Aggression see this interview at the metal site RockEzine.net. An excerpt is below:

What is the most embarrassing album in your own private album collection. (How/why did you get it?)
It is an LP of SGM called aggression. I think I heard it just once! I bought it by mailorder because of the description of the music style. So, this is a good example for listen to the music before buying it. I never had disappointment like that again.