Metallica is completely on board with Stranger Things’ use of their heavy metal hit “Master of Puppets.”
The song, featured on the band’s 1986 album of the same name, is featured prominently during a pivotal scene in the season 4 finale of the sci-fi Netflix series, which aired on Friday — and Metallica is more than happy with how it turned out.
“The way the Duffer Brothers have incorporated music into Stranger Things has always been next level, so we were beyond psyched from them to not only include ‘Master of Puppets’ in the show, but to have such a pivotal scene built around it,” the band wrote on Instagram Tuesday.
The rockers said they were “all stoked to see the final result,” and “were totally blown away” by the scene, in which Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) uses the song and its hardcore guitar riff to distract murderous bats defending the lair of the evil villain Vecna so that his friends can enter undetected.
“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!!” the statement said. “How crazy cool is that?”
Metallica added: “It’s an incredible honor to be such a big part of Eddie’s journey and to once again be keeping company with all of the other amazing artists featured in the show.”
Dozens of comments on the Instagram post indicated that fans felt strongly about the song’s use, with one user writing, “That was the best scene in the whole season 🤘🏽” and another adding, “I was on my bed yelling during this whole scene!!!!!! Hell Yes!!! 🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼”
Just as Stranger Things sent Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” up the charts thanks to an earlier season 4 episode, “Master of Puppets” quickly became one of the most-played songs in the world.
Spotify’s Top 50 playlist of the most-played songs in the U.S. had the track at No. 10 on Tuesday afternoon, and it sat at No. 17 on the Global Top 50 playlist.
The show’s music supervisor Nora Felder told Variety that showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer had their hearts set on using the track, and it was part of the script even in pre-production.
“It was another one of those ‘it has to be this song,’ moments,” Felder said. “This part of the story was anticipated to be a pivotal and especially hair-raising scene in which Eddie heroically stood tall for the fight of his life. I believe the Duffer Brothers felt that playing ‘Master of Puppets’ throughout the extended scene was the clear choice. No other song was discussed further, and we jumped in to clear it straight away.”
His playing was, however, helped along by 17-year-old Tye Trujillo, the son of Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, who said the teen helped provide new guitar parts for the scene.
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“**Spoiler Alert** That’s my boy! Proud of ya Tye!” the proud dad shared on Instagram. “Stranger Things finale shredding it on ‘Master of Puppets.'”
Trujillo—who was not the band’s bassist when the song was released— added a “big thanks to [Kirk Hammett] on helping!” revealing that the Metallica lead guitarist had also worked on adapting the piece for the series.