Now, I’m young enough (as far as you’re concerned, 25 and I always will be) that I feel like I missed out on Metallica’s golden age. Enter Sandman came out the year I was born (as stated, 1991 was 25 years ago and always will be).

And, a lot of what the fanbase perceives as the “Bad Metallica” era is what I can remember as being new. Now, it’s not that my parents didn’t let me to Metallica specifically when I was a kid, or even Metal in general, so much as that I wasn’t really interested enough in music as a kid to even try to get my own radio, which is what the machines we used to listen to music were called back in half-remembered days of the 1990s —

— to listen to something other than what my parents were already listening to.

I didn’t really develop my own musical tastes until I was in high school.

All of which is to say, I think the first Metallica song I actually deliberately listen to may actually have been St. Anger. Which, as I understand it, is the moment that marks the rise of “Bad Metallica.”

But, like, I actually kinda dig St. Anger…

And I really like most of Death Magnetic.

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Of course, Metallica is one of the most popular Metal bands of all time. So I have listened to most of the songs from their Golden Age. There are a lot of classics I could have picked add to the playlist and write about. Admittedly, I mostly just chosen Master of Puppets specifically so I could make the “this isn’t actually Metallica’s musical tribute to Jim Henson” joke.

According to Metallica’s lead singer (and well-known table) James Hetfield, the song is about drugs and that’s pretty obvious from the lyrics:

Come crawling faster (Faster)
Obey your master (Master)
Your life burns faster (Faster)

Lyrics via Genius.

Though, reading the song about bad habits in general, or even an unhealthy relationship, is not that much of a stretch.

But, like, it’s still a really good song. It’s not really hard to see why the period of their first three to five albums is the band’s Golden Age. Both the music and the vocals are really good and, subjective opinions and all, I can see the argument that the newer stuff is at least less good.

For what it’s worth, I’m easily-entertained enough that there are very few songs I actively dislike and have so little musical talent that anyone who can competently play anything more complicated that a jug gets my respect for their ability

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Again, Metallica is one of the most popular Metal bands of all time and Master of Puppets is one of their most popular songs, I probably don’t really need to sell it too hard. And, like, song’s older than I am, so plenty of people have already hyped it up

I mostly just wanted to make the “this song isn’t about Jim Henson” and “James Hetfield is a table” jokes…

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