These two albums, I think, show the growth of a band and the mainstreaming of heavy metal.
Master of Puppets is raw and unforgiving. It's Metallica at its most angry, the most punk and the most hardcore. They punch you in the face only to get you on the ground and put their foot on your throat. It would have been a treat to be 17 and a Metallica fan.
As for the self-titled album, it launched this little metal band in the outermost stratosphere. It spanned from the metalheads to the preppy kids to the guitar nerds to the band geeks. It did more than rock. It was a production. Their first with Bob Rock -- Mr. Mega Rock Album Producer -- and it shows. It's slick and pretty. It's the opposite of Master of Puppets in some ways and yet completely better in quite a number of others.
Metallica is chockful of stuff. I'd forgotten just how jam packed it really is: "The Unforgiven," "Wherever I May Roam," "Enter Sandman," "Don't Tread On Me," "Nothing Else Matters" and "Sad But True." Insane songs all of them. It's thick and meaty. The manic punk urgency that is missing instead is exchanged for this heavy, pounding sounds of drum, bass and guitar.
The Metallica of Master of Puppets would never have foreseen the Metallica of Metallica. I don't know if the fans from 1986 could have imagined them in 1993 or the band that they would become: Spoiled, slick-haired old men still playing their electric guitars and making faux-scowling faces in the cameras. Suing kids illegally downloading their music.
The 1986 Metallica would've punched the 2011 Metallica.
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