0170. Metallica
Master Of Puppets
For the third time on the list it's one of the big four in thrash metal, and this time it's perhaps the greatest of the quartet at the time - Metallica.
Less extreme than Slayer and showing more skill with their music than Anthrax they built a fanbase that wouldn't start to crumble until that unfortunate Napster-business.
Though the general themes of Master Of Puppets is lack of control and helplessness, it's an album filled with headbanging classics, from the starting Battery, via the title track through Disposable Heroes to Damage Inc. But there's also slower (I almost wrote "softer") parts, like Welcome Home (Sanitarium) and the instrumental eight-minute epic Orion. All in all it sold five hundred thousand copies on it's release and has this far sold about six million in the US alone.
The supporting tour, though, wrought tragedy on the band as their tour-bus skidded off a Swedish road, crushing bassist Cliff Burton to death.
