Master of Puppets (S&M version)

I was somewhat lukewarm to the idea of Metallica committing their songs to this format, more because I was weary of the two poor excuses for studio albums that they put out beforehand. In some respect, the experience of “S&M” was an uplifting one that saw me enjoying most of what I heard. Granted, the only part that the band really plays is that of performer, as all of these various orchestral interplaying going on wasn’t composed by them, but in most cases this format seemed to work fairly well. One of the exceptions being this unfortunate bastardization of what I consider a decent, though definitely overrated song in “Master Of Puppets”.

There is a really blatant wall of division between what Metallica is doing and what the orchestra is doing that makes this sound like two radios playing different albums by different artists in sync with each other. It’s difficult to ascertain whether this is just the song not being conducive to this format because of how involved the riffs are, or simply that the person doing the orchestration didn’t get it right, but the result is something that sounds completely at odds with itself, right from the first chord hit in sync with the orchestra. A lot of the time the horns will completely drown out the guitars, make what your listening to sound like a movie soundtrack score with someone playing a drum beat along with it.

On top of this, the actual performance by Metallica themselves is hit or miss depending on the individual musician in question. The guitar sound is fairly weak and James’ riffs occasionally hit a few bumps while he’s mouthing off into the microphone, but the primary issue here is the vocals. They have almost no power to them at all, sounding like a ballad is being sung with electric guitars going at some points, and when he does decide to occasionally grow he is completely out of tune. I also have to mention that the lead guitar harmony part during the quiet section before the solo is completely botched, which all but completely destroys the song for me as it’s my favorite part.

The propaganda of MTV and the RIAA must be powerful stuff if it can fool an audience of so-called metal fans, young or old, to applause after hearing this. It literally seems like all of the cheering and euphoria that is being heard in the crowd is coming simply from the fact that it’s Metallica, rather than it being a good performance, let alone a good Metallica performance. Then again, people who go to Metallica shows constantly just to hear the same classics over and over were probably also excited to experience something different that wasn’t alternative rock. But regardless of why anyone else liked this version of this song, I don’t, and neither should anyone else who is looking for a quality performance of a well respected song by a once well respected band.