Metallica's Master of Puppets named most influential metal album

Metallica's classic 1986 record Master of Puppets has been selected as the most influential heavy metal album of all time by pop culture web site IGN Music. The editors explained their choice by saying that the band's third effort "built upon and perfected everything they had experimented with prior. It's the album where all the pieces come together in glorious cohesion and it's the album that finally woke the general public up to the power and the glory that Metallica was born to spread." Two other Metallica discs also made the Top 10, more than any other act.

The band itself seemed to recognize the status of Master of Puppets last summer when it played the album in its entirety on a European tour. Drummer Lars Ulrich told us that playing the entire set live has also influenced the direction of the next Metallica effort: "It was a great thing having to revisit Master of Puppets because it kind of forced us to step it up a little. You know, a lot of the fans, I think, recognized that we were kind of maybe firing on more cylinders last summer when we played the European run and so on, and I think we've got some of that same energy going now. There's a lot of attitude and it's pretty high energy."

The band is currently recording its ninth studio album with producer Rick Rubin for release later this year.

IGN's Top 10 most influential heavy metal albums of all time were:
1. Metallica - Master of Puppets
2. Black Sabbath - Paranoid
3. Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
4. Megadeth- Rust In Peace
5. Metallica - Ride The Lightning
6. Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
7. Slayer - Reign In Blood
8. Dio - Holy Diver
9. Metallica - ...And Justice For All
10. Motorhead - Ace of Spades

The extended Top 25 included albums from Pantera, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Deep Purple, Scorpions and others.