Metallica’s ‘Master Of Puppets’ enters Billboard Hot 100 charts due to Stranger Things

Metallica‘s classic ‘Master Of Puppets’ has entered the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time after being featured in the finale of Netflix hit show Stranger Things.

Originally released in 1986 as the title track of the American heavy metal band's third studio album, the song recently made its debut entry at Number 40 in the Billboard Hot 100. It also hit number one on the iTunes rock charts.

This comes following a feature in the Stranger Things 4 finale, titled 'The Piggyback', which premiered on July 1, 2022. In the episode, the "lovable freak" Eddie Munson (played by Joseph Quinn) performed the song on the guitar.

“Are you ready for the most metal concert in the history of the world?” he says before playing the heavy metal anthem to help his friends defeat the sinister villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).

Following the episode’s release, Metallica praised the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, in an Instagram post: "The way The Duffer Brothers have incorporated music into Stranger Things has always been next level, so we were beyond psyched for them to not only include “Master of Puppets” in the show, but to have such a pivotal scene built around it," they wrote.

"We were all stoked to see the final result and when we did we were totally blown away... it’s so extremely well done, so much so, that some folks were able to guess the song just by seeing a few seconds of Joseph Quinn’s hands in the trailer!! How crazy cool is that?"

The band called it "an incredible honor" to be featured in this way, alongside other "amazing artists".

 

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Actor Joseph Quinn, who portrays Eddie in the show, spoke about the scene in a recent interview with The LA Times: "It's insane. It's doing so many things. I think this is the only world in which something like that can happen and it doesn't feel like a pastiche. It doesn't feel forced.

"And hilariously, it doesn't feel melodramatic. It just feels right. And more than anything, it just feels fun. It's that energy through that whole kind of ridiculous sequence that brings all of these storylines together. That crescendo was just so inventive and ultimately so entertaining," he continued.

The British actor said he practiced the guitar before shooting his episodes.

"I remember Skyping with the [creators the Duffer] brothers before I signed on, and they weren't giving away very much. They sent me a couple emails asking if I played guitar and I said yes I did. Then they sent the script over and I kind of imploded and went to go buy a guitar as soon as I could and started practicing."

Stranger Things. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

The surge in popularity of Metallica's ‘Master Of Puppets’ comes after Kate Bush's track ‘Running Up That Hill’, which was featured in season 4: episode 4, hit No 1 on the UK singles chart - and reportedly earned the singer an estimated $2.3million (£1.9million) in streaming revenue.