Metallica don’t much care how you discover their music, whether you do it by digging out a crusty vinyl copy of their 1986 Master of Puppets album at your local indie record shop, or if your virgin ears are exposed via Netflix’s teenage monster-killing juggernaut Stranger Things.
In fact, when the title track was worked into a pivotal scene in the epic season 4 finale, the Bay Area metal legends wrote that they were “totally blown away.” They didn’t like it, they loved it when adorable metalhead/D&D fanatic Eddie Munson ripped the song on guitar to save his friends from the barrage of murderous creatures in the Upside Down.
That might explain why they had a pointed response when a commenter took a swing at their new school fans who’ve just now hopped on the band’s crazy train. “Heard any cool songs lately? ⚡️ #Metallica #MasterOfPuppets #StrangerThings #StrangerThings4 #EddieMunson #NotLiveInTheUpsideDown,” they captioned a video of a live performance of the song posted on TikTok on Wednesday (July 6).
When a snarky commenter replied, “I’m sorry Metallica for all the fake Stranger Things fans love ya,” the band was quick to smack that noise down. “Don’t be sorry. Everyone is welcome in the Metallica Family,” they wrote. “If they like ‘Puppets,’ chances are they’ll find plenty of other songs to get into,” later adding, “FYI – EVERYONE is welcome in the Metallica Family. Whether you’ve been a fan for 40 hours or 40 years, we all share a bond through music. All of you started at ground zero at one point in time.”
The song has had a major chart blow-up as well, with “Puppets” exploding on streaming platforms as it climbed into the top 10 on iTunes and Spotify’s U.S. daily chart. Daily on-demand U.S. audio streams have grown nearly 400% from 224,000 last Thursday (June 30), the day before the new Stranger Things episodes were released, to 1.11 million streams on Sunday (July 3), according to Luminate.
Check out the Metallica TikTok “Master of Puppets” video below.
