Metallica is riding a Kate Bush-esque wave thanks to “Master of Puppets” being used in the season four finale of Netflix’s Stranger Things, which has led to an influx of new, younger people starting to explore the Metallica catalog. However, this has also led to some more seasoned fans to show gatekeeping tendencies, and Metallica is not here for it.
On the band’s TikTok, someone left a comment on a recently shared clip of a live performance of “Master of Puppets,” “I’m sorry Metallica for all the fake Stranger Things fans love ya.” Metallica responded to said fan with, “Don’t be sorry. Everyone is welcome in the Metallica Family. If they like Puppets, chances are they’ll find plenty of other songs to get into.”
The band went further with a remark that’s now pinned to the top of the clip’s comment section that reads, “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.”
Heard any cool songs lately? #Metallica #MasterOfPuppets #StrangerThings #StrangerThings4 #EddieMunson #NotLiveInTheUpsideDown
For those curious just how much of a bump “Master of Puppets” has received since being featured on Stranger Things, Billboard referenced Luminate’s data reporting, “[The song] has exploded on streaming platforms as a result — it’s climbed into the top 10 on iTunes and Spotify’s U.S. daily chart — and its 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.)”
Time will tell if “Master of Puppets” re-enters the Billboard Hot 100 chart the same way Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God” has after being featured in Stranger Things. On the latest Hot 100 chart for the week of July 9, the track from Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love sits at number six on the chart one notch above Beyonce’s latest single “Break My Soul.”
