'Master of Puppets' voted best Metallica song ever

64 songs were on the shortlist

Metallica's Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield in 1986
Author: Scott ColothanPublished 24th Jun 2020
Last updated 24th Jun 2020

Metallica fans have hailed ‘Master of Puppets’ as the greatest ‘Tallica song ever after four weeks of voting.

Back at the end of May, Metallica shared a shortlist of 64 songs from their 39-year back catalogue and asked fans to vote for their favourites via Facebook and Instagram Stories in a knockout competition they dubbed ‘Some Kind of Bracket’.

According to the band, the initial 64 tracks were seeded based on Spotify plays multiplied by how many times a song’s been played live.

With songs grouped into pairs, a series of knockout rounds whittled down the list until ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘One’ went head-to-head in the final at the start of this week. They previously beat ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘Enter Sandman’ in their respective semi-finals.

Eventually metal masterpiece ‘Master of Puppets’ prevailed and took the crown of the greatest Metallica song ever.

The seminal 1986 track beat ‘Dyers Eve’, ‘Atlas, Rise!’, ‘Ride The Lightning’, ‘Sad But True’, ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘One’ in head-to-head match-ups along the way.

Unveiling the result, Metallica wrote: “The people have spoken and single song stands alone above the rest. Your champion is ~ drum roll please ~ "MASTER OF PUPPETS!"… no wonder that thing is in the Library of Congress! Thanks for playing along with us!”

In 2015, the ‘Master of Puppets’ album was immortalised in the National Recording Registry in the US after the Library of Congress deemed it "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant.”

Watch Metallica perform ‘Master of Puppets’ in the lashing Manchester rain

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