Now...Metallica’s Master Of Puppets album, ya know...I mean I started thinking, logical question...who are they talking about? Who is the master of puppets?... Jim Henson?...Frank Oz?....some sort of other Wizard?....Merlin?

I mean on the cover ya know ya don’t see anybody - it’s just strings attached to almost invisible hands up in the sky - the Invisible Hand of Economics ya know...Adam Smith...Robert Smith....I mean The Cure and Metallica have sold a lot of records...

hands in the air...wave em like you don’t care...but I mean you gotta care to achieve the level of mastery in puppetry, in anything really...

It’s weird though ya know... Cameo’s Word Up.. also came out in 1986...same year as that album....I mean how amazing would that have been if Cameo did an actual Cameo...on...Metallica’s Master Of Puppets...ya know, funk it up...

Then there was that whole Genesis video, Land Of Confusion, with the Reagans and the members of the band all as puppets...I mean woah!!...came out in 86 too!...crazy...on the Invisible Touch album...Invisible Touch I mean that’s like the hands in the sky controlling the puppet strings!....were Genesis and Metallica... in cahouts?!....I mean for what we do not know...or even dare to tread...phoo!....I mean is this what In Too Deep was about?.... and like I mean if anything, if Genesis are gonna pick a thrash band to secretly work with, it’d have to be Exodus...But like they had I Can’t Dance off that album We Can’t Dance... and Exodus had The Toxic Waltz so maybe that’s where it all fell through

But then like off that album, in 1991 mind you, they had Dreaming While You Sleep, and also 91 Metallica’s Enter Sandman!....I can’t make this up!...coming together again 5 years later like that...not...10 Years After...that was a different band...but two years before Master Of Puppets ya know, Depeche Mode put out Master & Servant...and then two years after Enter Sandman, Nirvana put out Serve the Servants...I mean this is boggling my mind...I mean again, was Metallica considering an all-remix album of that Depeche Mode tune and then we get like Battery and Damage Inc...or maybe they just decided it was the Thing That Should Not Be...

but then like ya know they had Fade To Black off Ride The Lightning and then the next Depeche Mode album is called Black Celebration...I mean, what’s going on here?... to pre-date the KLF, 1986 What The F Is Going On? ...is this like some bizarre game of musical chairs? ...like Dave Gahan in the Enjoy The Silence video?...

And I don’t wanna lose sight of Genesis either ya know...cause like the last two songs on Black Celebration are Dressed In Black and New Dress...really laying it on thick with the dressing...just like over a salad you know...but Dressed In Black clearly states ‘she’s dressed in black....again’...

And like in that Genesis song, it’s ‘she seems to have an invisible touch’.. much like hands in the sky holding strings might have... Is this a clue? As to who this Master Of Puppets might be? That whole Merlin thang just a red herring? Much like merlot ya know...

So is it....Sharon Osbourne maybe? Metallica opened for Ozzy on that tour...

could it have been Madonna? Papa Don’t Preach, ya know... with all those crosses in the graveyard like that on the cover...

Whitney Houston, maybe? bringing it back to the KLF....Like ‘How Will I Know’ is a perfectly valid question about who is the true puppet master of them all...I mean, just like anything else the world of puppeteering has to be full of unscrupulous hacks trying to claim they’re the greatest...or like, in Getting Jiggy With It, when Will Smith says that Muhammad Ali told him that he was the greatest!...what if he’s talking about puppets?! “got the fever for the flavor of a crowd pleaser” I mean the Muppets were huge!...and I mean Jiggy is the perfect term for puppets, that little dance they do on the strings, you can’t keep em still...

Dionne Warwick, ya know Whitney’s cousin, did that version of I’m Your Puppet, that James and Bobby Purify tune...ya know, maybe trying to throw us off the scent, claiming she’s the puppet and not the puppet master while the exact opposite might be true!...heck Ms. Warwick did a Bond tune...Kiss Kiss Bang Bang....as we’ve discussed before...and I mean there must’ve been puppets with KISS make-up, I mean surely Gene Simmons would make those, they’d sell a million...but like if any puppets actually joined the band KISS, what would their make-up be? and what would their puppet master’s make up be?!

and then The Grateful Dead has puppets in the Touch Of Grey video!...and that song came out in 1987! year after the Metallica album... plenty of time for the beings in those tombs on the cover to be revived as deceased puppets and be grateful for it!

Grandmaster Flash?... it’s like a jungle sometimes...much more Guns N Roses than Metallica

Hawkwind had Master Of The Universe...I mean if it’s the whole universe, it will include all the puppets in it!....And Hawkwind...I mean hawks and wind will definitely destroy the strings attached to those puppets

But ya know who it’s gotta be?....Iron Maiden’s Eddie... dontcha think?...I mean Metallica gotta be refering to the Number Of The Beast album cover, right?...where The Devil’s got a little version of Eddie on strings like a puppet...but then a much bigger Eddie has The Devil on strings....I mean woo!....

and then Genesis ya know... Iron Maiden had that song Revelations off the next record Piece Of Mind...maybe trying to calm us down about what was to come...

and like to settle who is the master of puppets do all the puppeteers have like a battle royale...and are the puppets involved? I mean they gotta be...and like would Metallica’s master challenge Iron Maiden’s master to be the true Master Of Puppets? I mean there are only four members of Metallica but Maiden’s now got 6 with the three guitarists and woah no 7! including Eddie of course!...That’s like a four on four half court game with Maiden having 3 subs...I mean who’s to say they’re actually fighting, ya know? basketball game seems more civilized way to go about it...so we don’t injure our favourite bands...or like a chess match....but I mean puppets playing chess just seems extraneous you know....how you gonna sell tickets to that?