In honor of Cliff Burton's 50th birthday today, I will review one of the greatest speed metal albums ever written. Cliff was killed in a bus accident while touring to promote the album. As mentioned in an earlier review, I cut my metal teeth on this album. I heard the title track for the first time and I remember saying to myself 'this is it'. This was my gateway drug into the heavy metal scene. Growing up in southwest Iowa and listening to Z-92, I was never exposed to this type of music and never knew it existed. The same day I bought my first CD player, I went to the nearest music store and bougth this disc. After that, the flood gates opened and 26 years later, here I am. I listen to damn near every genre of music and can't live without it. As Frank Zappa said, 'Music is the best'.
So, back to the album.....This put Metallica on the map. Track list: Battery, Master of Puppets, The Thing That Sould Not Be, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heros, Leper Messiah, Orion, and Damage Inc. There is not one disappointing song on this record with each song lasting over 5 minutes and some going as long as 8 minutes. Almost 4.5 million copies have been sold and no videos for MTV were required to increase sales. I search a lot of used record and CD bins and this one is rare to find used. It's just that damn good. If you do find it, check the quality, it's probably beat to shit. Extra info: All tracks but Leper Messiah and Damage Inc. are present on the Guitar Hero games. Anyone that likes metal already owns this and those who don't like metal won't give a damn anyway. Again, happy birthday Cliff.
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