Master of Puppets vs. Rust in Peace - Who's Better?

- Neil James

You’ve seen those Facebook posts. The one where a friend says something that appears to be innocuous, but just underneath, Facebook asks if you’d like to view the 46 subsequent comments. “What the hell happened here?” you think, as you quickly calculate whether you have enough time and interest to unfurl the conversation and digest the juicy gossip.

Such an event took place on my own Facebook page, and it was all started by a simple question by a friend: “Which album is better: Master of Puppets or Rust in Peace?”

Boom. Nearly fifty comments and close friends at throats later, it was clear that the passion that imbued these albums with their legendary statuses was as vibrant and lively today as it was in the 80s.

So which album is better? Master of Puppets or Rust in Peace?

Like any good opinion, your answer is ultimately determined by what you value in your headbanging, but let’s compare:

Songs:

MOP and RIP are packed with some of the top tracks in thrash metal history. Undebatable fact. But when you stack the two next to each other, what patterns emerge?

The high points: I don’t think anyone would debate that Holy Wars and Tornado of Souls are clearly RIPs high points, with Hangar 18 falling just a notch below. Depending on preference, Lucretia might also make the cut.

Meanwile, MOP gave us Battery, the incomparable title track, and Sanitarium. Again, depending on tastes, Damage Inc. might make the cut, but it’s clearly beneath those three.

A college thesis could likely be written as to which of these songs trumps the other. Again, this falls under the realm of value judgment. If memorable guitar riffs make the song, slight edge goes to Megadeth, as Holy Wars and Tornado of Souls feature some of the most powerful licks of all time.

But if memorable arrangements and vocals turn your crank, then you have to give the edge to MOP. Lyrically, MOP’s high points are definitively better than RIP. Vocally, not only is James Hetfield just flat out more talented, he crafted far more memorable, dynamic vocal lines. Consider this: if you’re singing a song to yourself, are you more likely to be cooing a Hetfield line under your breath or a Mustaine line? I thought so.

Unfortunately for RIP, in the genre of thrash metal, quality lyrics, songwriting and vocals are a far rarer commodity than high-quality riff-writing:

Very slight edge: Master of Puppets

The mid points: If Lucretia isn’t a high-point on the album, then it’s definitively in the album’s mid-tier. Same goes for Damage Inc on MOP.

On RIP, Rust In Peace….Polaris, and Take No Prisoners fall into the realm of “songs you wouldn’t skip on shuffle.” Orion and Disposable Heroes also fall into this category of tracks it would be nice to hear on your tenth time seeing the band in concertt as a surprise.

It’s at this point that a greater degree of separation begins to take place. While Lucretia is far and away the best of the mid-tier songs, slots two, three and four go to Damage Inc, Orion and Disposable Heroes in some order. Each of these tracks is more powerful, less hokey, and simply more memorable than Rust in Peace….Polaris and Take No Prisoners.

Slight edge: Master of Puppets

The low points: Yes, even legendary albums have their crappy tracks. Keep in mind that these crappy tracks are often superior to anything ever put out by Five Finger Death Punch or the Cavalera Conspiracy. That said, these are the tracks you sometimes have to make a tough decision on that grocery store run whether to skip to Battery or Holy Wars for a rockin’ ride home.

It’s at this point that the gap between the albums widens significantly. Few people would debate that Poison Was the Cure and Dawn Patrol are crap. Sometimes, you get people who swear by Five Magics, but at best, it’s marginally better than Poison and Dawn.

Yet on MOP, the album’s weakest cuts, Leper Messiah and The Thing That Should Not Be are still memorable, worthy of inclusion during a live set, and are several levels above Poison, Dawn and Five Magics. Many will argue that Leper and Thing are as powerful as the tracks I’ve ranked above them.

Herein is the one of the biggest differences: despite the fact that the top tracks Rust in Peace simply has more crap than Master of Puppets, which makes the whole album a slightly less pleasurable experience.

Definitive edge: Master of Puppets

Musicianship

No comparison between these two albums would be complete without an in-depth analysis of the musicianship.

RIP is generally considered to be the far more technical album of the two. This perception is largely based on the fact that, from an athletics and composition perspective, Marty Friedman and Dave Mustaine beat James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett like Casey versus the bully. Friedman in particular turned in one of the genre’s all-time best performances with his leads on the album.

Beyond just the sheer technicality of the solos, however, the riffs on RIP, in general, are more memorable than the riffs on MOP. The lead lines to Holy Wars and Tornado of Souls should be in every guitarist’s repertoire. The lead line to Lucretia is one of the most brilliant guitar compositions ever. The guitar-work on RIP is just flat out more well-thought out, planned, and conceived than MOP.

But once you get past the complete-domination by guitars. the gulf separating MOP from RIP in musicianship is smaller than you would think.

As a whole, the metal community tends to undervalue a good arrangement. One of the beauties of Rush is their ability to weave complex mechanisms into their songwriting – key changes, time changes, tempo changes – and do so in a way that the listener is not aware of the actual seismic music shift that took place. Frequently, these compositional elements are only valued for their arresting ability to punch listeners in the jaw, a la the Dillinger Escape Plan.

Such is the case when you compare the arrangements of RIP and MOP. The complexities in songwriting are handled far more gracefully on MOP than they are on RIP. The track Master of Puppets alone is far and away the most sophisticated track from an arrangement standpoint, and yet, your average listener is largely unaware of the massive compositional sweeps taking place. Not only does RIP dwell in the land of 4/4 chromatic E for far longer than MOP, its attempts at reaching a more sophisticated plane come across more clunky and forced (see the abrupt shift to the syncopated rhythm in Hangar 18, or the schizophrenic “I don’t really have a plan here” arrangement of Five Magics.)

As a result, Lars Ulrich’s drumming on MOP tends to be underrated. Yes, he’s still a world-class cock gobbler. Yes, it’s unfathomable that someone of his limited abilities steered the ship for the most influential metal band of all-time. At the same time, those complex arrangements don’t sound as silky smooth as they do without a drummer of measured proficiency. A lesser drummer could have easily made MOP songs sound like shit – Lars didn’t pull anything off the table. Nick Menza’s performance still wins because, well, he’s just a better drummer, but let’s acknowledge that he had a much lower degree of difficulty to execute.

From here on out, however, the musical edges go to Metallica.

No offense Dave Ellefson: nobody’s outdoing Cliff’s performance on MOP.

The real elephant in the room behind Metallica/Megadeth debates is the quality of vocals. Those of us who have listened to and enjoyed Megadeth music for years have forgotten how much acclimation is required to appreciate Dave Mustaine’s vocals. Mustaine is the bitter beer of heavy metal vocalists: nobody enjoys Killian’s if it’s the first beer they ever drank. They had to have a gateway to get them there first.

No such acclimation is required for Hetfield’s voice. Prior to blowing his voice and being forced to croon his material, Hetfield was undebatably one of the five best vocalists in heavy metal (Dio, John Bush, Bruce Dickinson and a general pick ‘em rounds out the top four in a debatable order.) It was his voice that made Metallica music ultimately accessible, enjoyable and memorable. Hetfield’s flat-out superior vocal talent allowed him to create timeless vocal melodies --- anybody can sing Lucretia or Tornado of Souls in a cover band, but a shitty vocalist will simply ruin Sanitarium, Battery, or Master of Puppets.

Further, and while it’s far less concrete and far more subjective, Hetfield was simply the superior lyricist. In virtually every means by which you might critique a lyricist: command of metaphor, ability to evoke mood and emotion, construction of meter and rhyme, Hetfield’s work on MOP revealed a musician at the peak of his powers. Mustaine doesn’t shit the bed on RIP with his lyrics (a tendency he displayed with unfortunate frequency throughout his career), nobody’s listening to RIP for the lyrics.

As a whole, however, the chasm between the guitars of Friedman and Mustaine versus Hetfield and Hammett is so great that, despite the stronger arrangements, vocals and lyrics of MOP, RIP is generally and accurately perceived to be the more technical album. We’re not comparing Cynic to the Sex Pistols here, however – as a whole, the difference is far more marginal.

Guitars – Definitive edge: Rust in Peace

Drums – Slight edge: Rust in Peace

Bass – Definitive edge: Master of Puppets

Vocals – Definitive edge: Master of Puppets

Lyrics – Definitive edge: Master of Puppets

Songwriting – Definitive edge: Master of Puppets

Technicality as a whole – Edge: Rust in Peace

Legacy

MOP and RIP were two of the most important albums in heavy metal, and along with Reign in Blood, the best thrash albums of all time. How you choose to view these albums two decades later, however, is dependent on which lens you choose to look through.

Most people would view Megadeth and RIP as the more re-listenable band and album of the two. This opinion, however, has more to do with the band’s subsequent work than any intrinsic qualities of the album however.

Despite having released three of thrash metal’s premier albums (Ride the Lightning, MOP and Justice), Metallica has been (entirely fairly) perceived as the Judas of their genre. Metallica’s output following Justice is perceived as less of an evolution to their sound and more a deliberate disavowal of what made them great. Unlike Iron Maiden, who gracefully evolved their sound over time, adding elements to their core strengths, Metallica’s post-Justice work was a tacit acknowledgement of the fact that the genre no longer held any interest for them, despite their undeniable command of it.

Metallica’s outright dismissal and borderline loathing of what their fans adored and subsequent bizarre behavior tainted their attempts to return to the genre with insincerity. Nobody goes to a Poison concert wanting to hear the new stuff, and the band knows it. They’re a nostalgia act and they’ve accepted for them that live music is no longer an artistic endeavor but a punch clock that is served each working day.

To an extent, Metallica’s attempts to reconcile with thrash fans have been motivated by factors outside of artistic desire. Whether that’s desire for money, prestige, adulation or fame is anyone’s guess. But what’s evident, even with the surprisingly enjoyable Death Magnetic, is that Metallica’s return to thrash is definitively not a labor of love but one of expectation and obligation - similar to Poison.

In contrast, Dave Mustaine (who himself is no stranger to bizarre behavior) has never and will never stray from the altar of thrash. He has always been and will always be a true believer, and as such, is revered as the more pure artist today – Megadeth fans have forgiven Risk, whereas Metallica fans will never forgive St. Anger. His commitment to thrash and unwillingness to evolve his sound is reminiscent of the zealotry of religious fanatics that are openly mocked in Megadeth songs.

As a result, despite the fact that Mustaine’s post RIP-output falls somewhere between “past his prime” and “outright pedestrian”, RIP will always be more re-listenable in that thrash metal fans know they are listening to the sermon of a true believer. It’s virtually impossible to listen to MOP today and separate the greatness of the art from the fall of the artist.

Beyond how listenable the albums are in 2012, however, the impact of the album on the genre, its legacy, cannot be neglected in any comparison between the two albums.

Through this prism, the superiority of MOP becomes evident. Whereas RIP defined the greatness of Megadeth, MOP defined the greatness of the genre as a whole. While RIP got metal fans into Megadeth, far fewer people got into metal music because of RIP than did because of MOP.

Ultimately, Mustaine’s abilities only affected the perception of his band by fans of the genre. Mustaine could never convert someone from Depeche Mode to Phrygian Mode. Hetfield’s superior vocal, lyrical and songwriting talent was able to break people from the shackles of MTV pop music and make thrash metal – a genre that by definition whose conventions should be wholly inaccessible to the masses – a legitimate form of art.

It is in this sense that, while not as listenable due to factors outside of the time-frozen recording’s control, MOP’s legacy and impact on the genre is and will be forever greater than RIPs.

Re-Listenability: Rust in Peace

Legacy: Master of Puppets

Verdict

Comparing these two albums is similar to comparing Larry Bird and Magic Johnson – two of the greatest basketball players who have ever played – each with a set of accomplishments that rivals the other, yet wholly differentiated talents that fueled their greatness. The ascription of one as superior should never serve as a means of diminishing the other.

But if we’re gonna pick, 2,000 words can be very easily condensed into 50: Rust in Peace features far better guitar work, and is far more listenable today, largely because Metallica have transitioned from artists to businessmen. But because MOP has fewer weak spots, is subsequently more enjoyable front-to-back, features superior vocal, lyrical and songwriting performances, and ultimately came to be the nom de plume of the thrash genre, it’s safe to say that Metallica's work is indeed the superior album.

Thoughts?