A jazz guitarist named Lucas Brar runs a series called “But It’s Jazz” on YouTube. The premise is simple. Someone interrupts him playing a jazz standard and demands he play something heavier. He obliges. Then he plays Metallica’s Master of Puppets in jazz chords. Smooth tone. Walking bass implied. Hat tilted. Limited edition merch in the description.
It is a comedy bit. And it is also one of the better pieces of riff analysis I have seen this year.
What The Joke Actually Reveals
Master of Puppets is in standard E tuning. Released March 3, 1986 on Elektra Records. The riff that opens the song is one of the most recognisable in metal history. Down-picked sixteenth notes. Tight palm muting. Hetfield’s right hand doing all the work the rest of the genre would copy for the next forty years.
Strip away the distortion. Strip away the tempo. Strip away the gallop. What is left? The chord movement underneath. And that is what Lucas Brar plays.
When he hits the jazz version, you can hear that the riff is not just a wall of palm-muted noise. It is a chord progression with internal logic. The intervals lock in. The descending pattern actually moves through harmonic territory that holds up when you take it out of metal context entirely. That is rare. Most thrash riffs depend on the production and the speed for their identity. Slow them down, change the tone, and they fall apart.
The Master of Puppets riff does not fall apart. It just becomes something else. Tense. Cinematic. Almost dignified. The fact that it works as elevator music and as the soundtrack to a moshpit at the same time tells you everything about how solid the underlying composition is.
Why It Matters
Hetfield, Ulrich, Burton and Hammett wrote this in 1985. They were in their early twenties. They were not thinking about jazz harmony. They were thinking about how to make the heaviest record they could after Ride the Lightning. But the reason this album is on every “greatest metal album” list four decades later is exactly what Brar’s bit accidentally exposes. The songwriting is real. Not just the riff. Not just the production. The bones underneath.
A weaker riff would not survive being played on a clean Telecaster with brushed snare timing. Master of Puppets survives anything. That is why people still play it. That is why a jazz guitarist can build a viral series out of treating it like Cole Porter and the joke still works.
Watch the video. Then go back to the original and listen for the chord movement under the gallop. You will hear it now.
