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The best album ever recorded in Denmark just turned 30

The Local Denmark
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The best album ever recorded in Denmark just turned 30
Metallica's 'Master of Puppets' is widely considered one of the best heavy metal albums of all time. Photo: Elektra Records

Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ was recorded in Copenhagen and released on March 3, 1986.

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The heavy metal masterpiece ‘Master of Puppets’ celebrates its 30th anniversary on Thursday. Widely regarded as not only Metallica’s finest work but also one of the greatest metal albums of all time, it was recorded in Copenhagen’s now-shuttered Sweet Silence Studios.
 
There, Danish drummer Lars Ulrich and his three American band mates – James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton – worked with Danish producer Flemming Rasmussen, who had also produced the band’s 1984 predecessor, ‘Ride the Lightning’. 
 
 
To commemorate the milestone, Ulrich, Hammett and Rasmussen sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone about the 1986 recording sessions, the album’s lasting impact and Burton’s tragic death in a bus accident in southern Sweden later that year. 
 
In the interview, Hammett recalls the band’s time in the Danish capital. 
 
"We would stay up 24 hours at a time and just go out walking around Copenhagen kind of drunk, doing whatever we could to bide the time. I remember at one point, we found a beach on a map. So we went there but it was so cold and there was absolutely no wave action or anything. Cliff and I were just bundled up on this weird beach in Copenhagen saying, 'God, this place is driving us crazy!’,” the guitarist told Rolling Stone. 
 
Flemming also recalls how the band's all-night recording sessions were timed so that they could get more bang for the buck at the Scandinavia Hotel.
 
"The hotel they were at included a free breakfast buffet, so they more or less got back in time to eat," Rasmussen said.
 
Read the whole interview here and watch a 1986 of the band performing the album’s title track below. 
 

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