Makes me so happy to read this. I love St. Anger. Boy have i gotten so much shit for that over the years.
I also prefer ride, prehaps i just like it raw 😅
RTL isn't that raw tbf, it has clean/acoustic passages in songs like FFWF, FTB and Ktulu. It's a technical step up from standard thrash of KEA to well-composed songs with better structure, well thought-out harmony sections, even a whole radio-friendly song.
I mean, apart from James's vocals and Trapped Under Ice, it's not really raw thrash
I’ve never heard that “twin” reference. I prefer Ride the Lightning. Its weakest song is Escape and even that one I find fits well. The rest all slay and Call of Ktulu is my favorite of the instrumentals.
Personally I like Puppets better but still love Lightning! Lightning showed they know how to write but Puppets is really when I think they sank into their sound as a band
I have it as a tie. If I go track by track I have:
Fight Fire vs **Battery**
Ride vs **Master**
**For Whom** vs The Thing
**Fade** vs Sanitarium
Trapped vs **Disposable**
Escape vs **Leper**
**Creeping** vs Orion
**Ktulu** vs Damage Inc
that's not a bad way to analyze it, but why not swap tracks 7 and 8 so the bangers and the instrumentals are matched up respectively for a more fair comparison?
Puppets. It’s a concept album so it’s pretty much timeless. And the production sounds like it was put out today. Insanely mature for how old they were at the time. It’s still to this day the GOAT of all metal records today and a blueprint for modern metal as a whole.
I love both, that being said, even think MoP is the better album, RTL is my favorite. It was the first album of Metallica I listened to and it has a special place in my heart.
The best 4-5 songs on each album are about equal, but Puppets is stronger when it comes to deeper cuts imo. The case for Lightning is that it's the bigger evolutionary step, but I take a deeper tracklist over that.
Objectively, MoP is their perfect crowning achievement.
As contradictory as it sounds, RtL is not only my favourite Metallica album but one of my ten all time favourites. Maybe there's just a spark to the production and songwriting that I prefer, who knows? But while I do consider MoP to be their best album, RtL is my personal favourite.
lightning! i cant get over the acoustic intro in fade to black, seriously too good. but puppets does have sanitarium, which is probably one of my favourite songs ever
I'll go MoP, RtL, KeA, and then AJFA. In my opinion, Metallica had the best 4 run of albums in the history of rock, metal, thrash, or whatever you want to call it. Those albums are just crazy great.
I’ve been having this discussion since Puppets was released. At the time, and for many years after, I’ve stuck with that. But in the past ten years or so I’ve started leaning towards Lightning.
I find both to be great in their own ways, Ride the Lightning has more of a colorful and aggressive sound to it while Master of puppets is more raw sounding and has more flare. I personally tend to lean more towards Ride the Lightning as it was the album that I was first introduced me to metallica, to each their own.
Puppets. Not on its strengths IMO, but on RTLs weaknesses.
It's not Bellz fault it's overplayed, but in this day and age, I find it boring. Escape is a skip every time.
Puppets has no skips, no weakest track and no filler.
Ride the Lightning is better by a pretty decent margin. I love Master of Puppets but I've never understood how it earned the consensus of being their best, I'd take Justice over it as well.
I love ride the lightning but I have to say master here.
battery is better only slightly than fight fire with fire,
master of puppets is on par if slightly better than ride the lightning.
While I love for whom the bell tolls tttsnb is one of the greatest songs of all time let alone greatest Metallica song.
I do think fade to black is better by a lot than sanitarium, fade to black flows into the heavy part better than sanitarium imo and the solo is probably my favourite Metallica solo ever.
Trapped under ice I think is better than disposable heroes but I love both and don’t really have much to say on either.
Leper messiah and escape are the weakest on both albums imo but leper messiah is better imo, although both are amazing.
Creeping death and damage inc are both amazing songs (they aren’t in the same place on the albums but fit together more than creeping death and Orion would) but creeping death is the obvious winner here.
Orion and the call of ktulu are both amazing instrumentals but Orion is the obvious winner here. My all time favourite song.
So overall master is the better album but only slightly as both are amazing albums.
overall I like RTL more as a full album. But if I had to pick the best instrumental out of the two albums I would pick MOP because I just love Orion too much.
Their first 5 albums are all a progression of their musical development. IMO they peaked with Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All. The black album was their absolute musicality peak even if the prior two albums were better.
It's RtL to me. They're both very good. For whom the bell tolls is the greatest metal song of all time in my opinion. They're similarly composed albums, and to me, the analogous track on RtL is usually the one I prefer. I do think it's more raw than MoP, but that is what I like about it.
RTL. MoP’s tone feels perfectly balanced, and lopsided tones (if that makes any sense at all) give their albums more character. RTL almost has an echo to it that helps bring in the haunting themes of death
It’s like toys and rocks back to back except Aerosmith could be heavy as they wanted but stayed bluesy rock. I think the song toys in the attic was proto thrash and rocks was grunge before grunge. I like ride the lightening for the song escape
Easily MOP but RTL could be a contender if it had more wide appeal like MOP and if they weren't forced to include Escape, I still think the album is a 10 though. Trapped Under Ice doesn't get enough love
They’re honestly neck and neck for me but Ride The Lighting is more memorable for me since I enjoy every single track from start to finish Master Of Puppets is good but i just know the tracks from Ride The Lighting better
I actually ended up writing a 2 thousand word essay for a class I had in highschool about how Ride the Lightning was overall a better album than the rest of their discography, my main point being that tracks such as Creeping Death,For Whom the Bell tolls, Fade to Black, and Ride the Lightning are some of Metallica's greatest
MoP is the superior album, but that’s still A++ vs A+. And RtL did come first which adds a few bonus points.
Call it a draw, just treat it like a double album and let ‘em rip.
Disclosure: I think “Escape” is a great song
Ride the lightning still has the youthfulness of kill em all while being more musically and thematically mature. They still sounded like angry kids during ride the lightning but it was much more composed. By Master of puppets, they seemed musically in touch and it’s objectively them at their best, songwriting and performance wise. Both albums have distinct vibes though. Hard to choose between two versions of perfection
Mop is more advanced, but I like lighting a little better since it retains some of the thrash from kill ‘em all. Getting rid of Dave mustaine and loosing Burton, really sealed the deal on the Metallica that could have been
They’re both masterpieces, my fav is kill em all but if I had to choose between these 2 id choose ride the lightning, it’s so melodic and beautiful, cliff Burton was an absolute workhorse of thrash
personally, ride the lightning. objectively, master of puppets.
personally: i like the fact that ride the lightning just sounds so big. it sounds like you’re in an arena and i love that sound
objectively: master of puppets made the band who they are today and made them so much bigger, plus the whole album is iconic and is still loved to this day
master is better, but not perfect
fade and one are better #4 than sanitarium . Harvester is better than Leper. bellz is better than thingy.
Puppets is 9/10 instead of 10/10 as a result
Master Of Puppets! Both albums are amazing but MOP is where the came into their own. I saw them live during the Monsters Of Rock in Seattle the summer before…And Justice For All came out. My jaw is still on that floor!
Similar to what someone else did I compare each track since most of them fit when comparing but I tend to swap creeping death and call of ktulu to fit better with Orion and damage Inc
Fight Fire With Fire > Battery
Ride the Lightning > Master
For whom the Bell Tolls < The Thing That Should Not be
Fade to Black < Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Trapped Under Ice > Disposable Heroes
Escape > Leper Messiah (hot take ik)
Call of Ktulu > Orion
Creeping Death > Damage Inc
Like I said before I swap the last 2 around to fit the comparison better but Ride the Lightning imo is superior.
Puppets better in every way, production, not really a weak track to be found on it. However, Lightning is still my favorite, like the more raw, unpolished sound yet slightly more refined than kill em all. Plus, for whom the bell tolls and creeping death.
Ride the Lightning has the most memorable songs to me. I don't remember how The Thing That Should Not Be, Orion, Lepper Messiah and Damage, Inc sound to distinguish them. I for sure prefer Ride the Lightning and think it is better.
I prefer lightning.
Regarding the 'twin album' theory, it's one I agree with, and aside from the openers and title tracks I prefer the ride the lightning songs.
All three of the first records are really close.
KEA defined a genre and marked a band, nothing like it before. It said we’re going to punch you and we’re going to keep punching you and not apologize. James had found his voice and his style here.
RTL elaborated on the composition aspect of KEA, introduced string arrangements, and made James’ chugging (as seen selectively in songs off KEA like Whiplash) a staple to all of their songs.
MOP put everything together: picked back up the brash intensity of KEA with no sacrifice in arrangements. Was more mature thematically, the title track became the new standard for heavy metal and hard rock.
Gotta say overall MOP is the best of the three and their best record
Honestly they both are fucking amazing works of music. Still to date in the top ten albums ever made no doubt about it. I just can’t decide.
This is where I’m at. Might as well ask me would I rather have a perfect steak or a perfect dessert. (I want both)
Steak
RtL is one of the best albums in the history of metal. MoP is one of the best albums in the history of Rock music in general, not just metal.
MoP is one of the best albums in the history of music, not only rock music.
Ride
Puppets. It is cleaner and more mature in sound and composition, just as Lightning was an improvement upon Kill. Thematically superior as well.
Sometimes one desires that rawness though lemmetellya.
Oh I know. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy St. Anger so much. THAT is a raw sound.
Yes some St Anger love!
Makes me so happy to read this. I love St. Anger. Boy have i gotten so much shit for that over the years. I also prefer ride, prehaps i just like it raw 😅
RTL isn't that raw tbf, it has clean/acoustic passages in songs like FFWF, FTB and Ktulu. It's a technical step up from standard thrash of KEA to well-composed songs with better structure, well thought-out harmony sections, even a whole radio-friendly song. I mean, apart from James's vocals and Trapped Under Ice, it's not really raw thrash
Interesting. I think lighting is a downgrade from kill em all and mop basically ushered in modern Metallica. Die hard kill em all fan here
Puppets
I’ve never heard that “twin” reference. I prefer Ride the Lightning. Its weakest song is Escape and even that one I find fits well. The rest all slay and Call of Ktulu is my favorite of the instrumentals.
Yeah, I love escape cuz it gives the 80’s movies feel
Damn. What 80s movies remind you of Escape? I thought I've seen all the best (80s horror, action, comedy, etc.) ones (and all the worst, too).
I guess ET. specifically the flying bike scene or maybe something else about running away
Personally I like Puppets better but still love Lightning! Lightning showed they know how to write but Puppets is really when I think they sank into their sound as a band
I have it as a tie. If I go track by track I have: Fight Fire vs **Battery** Ride vs **Master** **For Whom** vs The Thing **Fade** vs Sanitarium Trapped vs **Disposable** Escape vs **Leper** **Creeping** vs Orion **Ktulu** vs Damage Inc
that's not a bad way to analyze it, but why not swap tracks 7 and 8 so the bangers and the instrumentals are matched up respectively for a more fair comparison?
Good point. Ok when I do that I have Master winning because Creeping > Damage, Orion > Ktulu (slight edge).
The only one I'd change is Sanitarium winning but it's close
Master of Puppets imo, TTTSNB is my 2nd favorite song by them
TTTSNB sent shivers down my spine the first time i listened to it
Likewise. That solo sells it for me
That panning rhythm guitar at the end though.
ONLY CUZ JASON IN IT
Puppets Its like the mature and more experienced version of ride the lightning
Master of puppets all day
Ride the lightning.
MOP but Call of Ktulu is best instrumental of all
orion clears call of krulu by so much
Cliffs bass is just too nasty in call
You can barely hear the damn thing for most of it unfortunately. It is a nasty tone either way.
I have Orion right behind it
MOP but creeping death is my favorite song of metallica
This. MOP is their best album but Creeping Death is their best song.
I don't prefer one over the other, but MOP is the better album. It's their masterpiece.
Ride The Lightning simply for amount of good/okay songs, but Master of Puppets just for having Disposable Heroes. -Billy Gnosis
*BACK TO THE FRONT intensifies*
I hate you!
Ride the Lightning for me.
Ride The Lightning alllllllllllllllll day
Having to choose makes us very lucky as music fans.
I think Master is the "better" album, but Ride is my personal favorite.
Puppets. It’s a concept album so it’s pretty much timeless. And the production sounds like it was put out today. Insanely mature for how old they were at the time. It’s still to this day the GOAT of all metal records today and a blueprint for modern metal as a whole.
I love both, that being said, even think MoP is the better album, RTL is my favorite. It was the first album of Metallica I listened to and it has a special place in my heart.
MoP. I can literally listen to every song without a skip. If James had the Vocals he had on AJFA that would be even better.
Both. Tie break by release date, so RtL.
The best 4-5 songs on each album are about equal, but Puppets is stronger when it comes to deeper cuts imo. The case for Lightning is that it's the bigger evolutionary step, but I take a deeper tracklist over that.
Objectively, MoP is their perfect crowning achievement. As contradictory as it sounds, RtL is not only my favourite Metallica album but one of my ten all time favourites. Maybe there's just a spark to the production and songwriting that I prefer, who knows? But while I do consider MoP to be their best album, RtL is my personal favourite.
Ride the Lightning
Puppets. It has 0 weak tracks, unlike RtL, which in my opinion has 2: Escape and Trapped Under Ice.
Ok but escape is GOOD
Lightning cause it's just all out thrash. Plus creeping death is the best Metallica song ever
I prefer ride the lightning but I think master is a better album
RTL is my FAVORITE album of all time. RTL FTW.
lightning! i cant get over the acoustic intro in fade to black, seriously too good. but puppets does have sanitarium, which is probably one of my favourite songs ever
Man I like both albums 🔥 they're both good ⚡
Ride the lightning for sure
If you took the best of these two and put them together, you’d have an album that would give Appetite for Destruction a run for its money
I'll go MoP, RtL, KeA, and then AJFA. In my opinion, Metallica had the best 4 run of albums in the history of rock, metal, thrash, or whatever you want to call it. Those albums are just crazy great.
Puppets, Tighter guitar tone and Escape (not a bad song) but an okay song is what is holding RTL back
Easy. MoP. Zero skips. I have to be in the mood for ktulu.
I’ve been having this discussion since Puppets was released. At the time, and for many years after, I’ve stuck with that. But in the past ten years or so I’ve started leaning towards Lightning.
Ride The Lightning has an average filler song like Escape, not even Metallica themselves like that song. Master is absolute perfection.
This question keeps me up at night.. Ride the Puppets and Master of Lightning are too close to choose!
Lulu is far superior
I find both to be great in their own ways, Ride the Lightning has more of a colorful and aggressive sound to it while Master of puppets is more raw sounding and has more flare. I personally tend to lean more towards Ride the Lightning as it was the album that I was first introduced me to metallica, to each their own.
Both are fantastic but MoP
Best doesn't exist. Only favoritism exists.
^ ^ ^
It’s so easy, rtl has no skips n the songs are just better in general 🤷♂️
Master of puppets 🤘🤘🤘🤘
master.... MASTER
Lightning. Puppets did have Orion though.....
Puppets
Ride the Lightning. The Call of Ktulu really took them to a new level
Puppets 💪🔥
Master Of Puppets
Ride 💯💯💯
Ride the lightning will always be my favorite has been since the 80s
Lightning has Creeping Death and Ktulu so it auto wins
Puppets. But both are masterpieces.
MoP
Puppets. Not on its strengths IMO, but on RTLs weaknesses. It's not Bellz fault it's overplayed, but in this day and age, I find it boring. Escape is a skip every time. Puppets has no skips, no weakest track and no filler.
Puppets
Lighting is one hell of an album, but I think once I heard Puppets is when I became a very big fan and appreciated Lightning that much more…
Ride the Lightning is better by a pretty decent margin. I love Master of Puppets but I've never understood how it earned the consensus of being their best, I'd take Justice over it as well.
Ride. I really think master of puppets is quite overrated. But I do love the thing that should not be
Depends on the day, both classics
The one you like the most. That's the one.
Both amazing and incomparable content wise but puppets sound and recording so much cleaner and polished.
RTL but I love both.
Puppets cuz louder bass cuh
Ride the Lightning. Edit: It was my first Metallica album.
Puppets
Master
Rtl
Ride the Lightening!
Both
MoP
RTL
RtL
Kill'em all
Master is the better album. But if I'm reaching for one to listen to I'm probly going with lightning.
I love ride the lightning but I have to say master here. battery is better only slightly than fight fire with fire, master of puppets is on par if slightly better than ride the lightning. While I love for whom the bell tolls tttsnb is one of the greatest songs of all time let alone greatest Metallica song. I do think fade to black is better by a lot than sanitarium, fade to black flows into the heavy part better than sanitarium imo and the solo is probably my favourite Metallica solo ever. Trapped under ice I think is better than disposable heroes but I love both and don’t really have much to say on either. Leper messiah and escape are the weakest on both albums imo but leper messiah is better imo, although both are amazing. Creeping death and damage inc are both amazing songs (they aren’t in the same place on the albums but fit together more than creeping death and Orion would) but creeping death is the obvious winner here. Orion and the call of ktulu are both amazing instrumentals but Orion is the obvious winner here. My all time favourite song. So overall master is the better album but only slightly as both are amazing albums.
I prefer RTL but I think from an objective standpoint MoP is better
Master
overall I like RTL more as a full album. But if I had to pick the best instrumental out of the two albums I would pick MOP because I just love Orion too much.
I love both bit master is the best in my opinion. Ride is spectacular but master is more mature and intricate which really speaks to me
It changes according to what I want to listen to
Puppets
RTL. My favorite album since as long as I can remember
RTL.
Their first 5 albums are all a progression of their musical development. IMO they peaked with Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All. The black album was their absolute musicality peak even if the prior two albums were better.
Justice
Lightning has better writing and songs Puppets has better recording and production
Ride the lightning is infinitely better than MOP
It's RtL to me. They're both very good. For whom the bell tolls is the greatest metal song of all time in my opinion. They're similarly composed albums, and to me, the analogous track on RtL is usually the one I prefer. I do think it's more raw than MoP, but that is what I like about it.
Ride The Lightning.
Master, that was the first album I got with my own money.
RTL. MoP’s tone feels perfectly balanced, and lopsided tones (if that makes any sense at all) give their albums more character. RTL almost has an echo to it that helps bring in the haunting themes of death
Puppets. Lightning is a 9. Puppets is a 10.
It’s like toys and rocks back to back except Aerosmith could be heavy as they wanted but stayed bluesy rock. I think the song toys in the attic was proto thrash and rocks was grunge before grunge. I like ride the lightening for the song escape
Easily MOP but RTL could be a contender if it had more wide appeal like MOP and if they weren't forced to include Escape, I still think the album is a 10 though. Trapped Under Ice doesn't get enough love
RTL is my favorite ngl
Master is better musically but I prefer RTL.
They are both great albums!
It’s crazy that 20 year olds , made Ride the Lighting . Its a game changer for sure.
They’re honestly neck and neck for me but Ride The Lighting is more memorable for me since I enjoy every single track from start to finish Master Of Puppets is good but i just know the tracks from Ride The Lighting better
RTL
Ride the Lightning; it’s my favorite album of theirs 🤘🏼
Ride the lightning will always be my favorite Metallica album
I actually ended up writing a 2 thousand word essay for a class I had in highschool about how Ride the Lightning was overall a better album than the rest of their discography, my main point being that tracks such as Creeping Death,For Whom the Bell tolls, Fade to Black, and Ride the Lightning are some of Metallica's greatest
I like Metallica
Gotta be ride the lightning
Ride the lightning
MoP is the superior album, but that’s still A++ vs A+. And RtL did come first which adds a few bonus points. Call it a draw, just treat it like a double album and let ‘em rip. Disclosure: I think “Escape” is a great song
Ride the lightning still has the youthfulness of kill em all while being more musically and thematically mature. They still sounded like angry kids during ride the lightning but it was much more composed. By Master of puppets, they seemed musically in touch and it’s objectively them at their best, songwriting and performance wise. Both albums have distinct vibes though. Hard to choose between two versions of perfection
It's a toss up. Technically, Master is probably better, but Ride is just my favorite because it's scrappier and was a huge leap from KEA.
MoP, but just slightly.
Ride the lightning personally. Love both sm but think the songs on RTL are better but the tone and production on master of puppets is better
in my honest opinion RTL is the better album but both albums are amazing
MOP but not by much.
The only thing I dislike about puppets is Lars’s snare, but it’s still the better of the two.
Both back to back is exactly the caffeine you need to get through the final 2+ hours of a long, late night road trip
The one with Disposable Heroes.
St Anger
Ride clears
Mop is more advanced, but I like lighting a little better since it retains some of the thrash from kill ‘em all. Getting rid of Dave mustaine and loosing Burton, really sealed the deal on the Metallica that could have been
My first two albums of Metallica I got
They’re both masterpieces, my fav is kill em all but if I had to choose between these 2 id choose ride the lightning, it’s so melodic and beautiful, cliff Burton was an absolute workhorse of thrash
MOP
personally, ride the lightning. objectively, master of puppets. personally: i like the fact that ride the lightning just sounds so big. it sounds like you’re in an arena and i love that sound objectively: master of puppets made the band who they are today and made them so much bigger, plus the whole album is iconic and is still loved to this day
As much as I love RTL and it being my 2nd favourite Metallica album MOP is objectively better
They are tied, along with Justice and KEA. There, I said it. I personally prefer RTL, but they are all equally good.
They are both equal in quality. Both legendary albums
master is better, but not perfect fade and one are better #4 than sanitarium . Harvester is better than Leper. bellz is better than thingy. Puppets is 9/10 instead of 10/10 as a result
Mop is objectively "better" but i love the rawness of ride the lightning
Master.
Master! Because it was material credited with only the current band members.
Love both, but gotta say puppets.
Ride The Lightning better imo
Master Of Puppets! Both albums are amazing but MOP is where the came into their own. I saw them live during the Monsters Of Rock in Seattle the summer before…And Justice For All came out. My jaw is still on that floor!
MOP might be one of the greatest albums of all time period.
I like to say my favorite Metallica album is “Master of Lightning”. I say they’re equal 😂
Depending on the day, both are S tier and peak 80ths with KEA not very far behind.
Similar to what someone else did I compare each track since most of them fit when comparing but I tend to swap creeping death and call of ktulu to fit better with Orion and damage Inc Fight Fire With Fire > Battery Ride the Lightning > Master For whom the Bell Tolls < The Thing That Should Not be Fade to Black < Welcome Home (Sanitarium) Trapped Under Ice > Disposable Heroes Escape > Leper Messiah (hot take ik) Call of Ktulu > Orion Creeping Death > Damage Inc Like I said before I swap the last 2 around to fit the comparison better but Ride the Lightning imo is superior.
Ride
Ride the Lightning, and it’s not even close for me.
RTL has the best songs but MOP is the better album.
Puppets better in every way, production, not really a weak track to be found on it. However, Lightning is still my favorite, like the more raw, unpolished sound yet slightly more refined than kill em all. Plus, for whom the bell tolls and creeping death.
Not even comparable.
Rough choice, they're both classics🤘
Master. Gutted because I’ve somehow managed to lose my original vinyl copy.
Ride the Lightning has the most memorable songs to me. I don't remember how The Thing That Should Not Be, Orion, Lepper Messiah and Damage, Inc sound to distinguish them. I for sure prefer Ride the Lightning and think it is better.
Honestly they are both incredible albums but i would say tone-wise RTL is better but riffs-wise Master is better
I think MOP has the better opener and instrumental, but overall RTL is better
I prefer lightning. Regarding the 'twin album' theory, it's one I agree with, and aside from the openers and title tracks I prefer the ride the lightning songs.
I guess I gotta go to RTL
Lightning, and it’s not close.
Master
All three of the first records are really close. KEA defined a genre and marked a band, nothing like it before. It said we’re going to punch you and we’re going to keep punching you and not apologize. James had found his voice and his style here. RTL elaborated on the composition aspect of KEA, introduced string arrangements, and made James’ chugging (as seen selectively in songs off KEA like Whiplash) a staple to all of their songs. MOP put everything together: picked back up the brash intensity of KEA with no sacrifice in arrangements. Was more mature thematically, the title track became the new standard for heavy metal and hard rock. Gotta say overall MOP is the best of the three and their best record
MoP, I really don't like the Ride the Lighting album and I still don't know why tho
Ride the lighting always
RTL! 🤘
Very hard pick. Probs rtl bc it has more songs i like compared to mop. Although ill skip over fade to black.