It seems as though Metallica has logged on to the Internet and finally witnessed what it can do for business — perhaps they saw Radiohead's success with its pretty-much-free In Rainbows and the exposure bands receive via streaming on sites like MySpace and Pandora? Or maybe they just wised up and realized that file sharing is not the death of the music business, as was so direly predicted in 2000. When Lars Ulrich mounted an attack on thousands of Napster users, he had no idea on what the future would bring.
Could he have known that this year, Metallica would release a program called "Mission: Metallica" utilizing the same kind of techniques they went to court against? The band is reaching out to fans with DRM-free downloads and unreleased material, but fans have not forgotten their Napster massacre.
Can you forgive and forget, or is it too little, too late?
Robert Clergerie
Herve Leger
Birkenstock
not my kind of music but i think all of those yahoos will have a come to jesus meeting sooner or later. you can't fight against the grain and stay relevant.
1There was a time when I liked Metallica, but I grew tired of them. The whole music sharing crusade just made me believe they were dinosaurs of rock, and kinda jerks really. I get the wanting to protect your property and I supposed its nice to see that they changed their minds now but they did a lot of damage to their street cred and I just don't think they can get it back now. Plus, their music just isn't what it once was. Time to throw in the towel.
2I don't think I will every forgive them because it was because of music sharing that made them big in the first place. When they first came out they never really got any big air play on the radio. If fans had not copied their music and shared it where would they be today???
3I will never forgive them for ruining Napster. I bought more music when I could wh*re songs for free and try new things than I've ever bought, before or since then.
4I find it so odd that people are still OK with stealing music. There was another post the other day and someone in the comments section said something along the lines of people being ill informed and actually buying music. What?? Is it OK if I come into your house and take a painting off the wall or grab some of your DVD's off the shelf? I believe what happened with Metallica was a knee jerk reaction to the thieving. I still believe that if I want to stand out in front of my house and give my stuff away it is different than people breaking into my house and taking stuff. It should be my choice what I want to give away and what I would charge for.
5totally love them, and have since i was a kid. im sorry. i sleep in metallica jammer jams
6Yaro beat me to it, I was gonna say the exact same thing. Geez. I didn't think I could be any more repulsed by these guys - until now.
7I didn't like them before and since then I think they are just repulsive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I hate metallica!!!!!!!!!!!
8So the sellouts realized that the Internets is where all the kids are getting their music these days, huh? Only took them, what, a decade? Lame.
9Yaro -- not true. Metallica was selling lots of albums WAY before the Napster thing. Just take a look at their sales from the Black Album. Or sales from Master of Puppets. You couldn't get away from "Enter Sandman" on MTV or the radio no matter how hard you tried. In fact, their album sales started tanking when they went to war against Sean Fanning.
I'm with BloodyFooFoo. I was once a huge fan of pre-2000 Metallica, but man they suck out loud these days. I'm not going to get their album even if they paid me for it. St. Anger was just terrible. And it upsets me a little that they're using a distribution media that they were very quick to label as bad. And I will never forgive them for being the reason that LOTS of college kids were fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for pretty harmless activities.
10Funny this was mentioned, I was just talking about this this weekend and the general concensus was that these guys need to give it up...They thought they were leading a revolution and all their noise led to was people being fined and hating on them as a band and individuals. There is not a time that I see Lars or any of the other guys and don't think "those morons!!"
Hope it was worth it
11In my mind, Metallica does nothing wrong ever because they are basically gods. They were trying to protect an investment just like everyone else.
12EvilDorkGirl I am talking about the stuff in the early eighties that made them big enough to get the sale off of Master of Puppets and The Black album. Like Ride the Lighting and Kill Em All those weren't get any radio play back in the early eighties or being played on Mtv before Head Bangers Ball. It was because of people sharing there music and coping it that they were able to get the sale in later albums and become popular!
13I have a husband who LOVED Metallica and got really PO'd when that whole Napster thing happened. He still listens to his CD's and will watch them if they are on TV but refuses to buy anything new from them at all. I could take them or leave them. I enjoy their old stuff (Enter Sandman, One).
14I love Metallica. Always have, always will. Their early stuff (Kill em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets) is still in heavy rotation in my car
15I'm with BloodyFuFu. The Napster thing was ridiculous, and their new music has sucked big time.
Stealing music is wrong, but fining a bunch of college kids is stupid. There are other ways to handle it. Look at Radiohead, who embraced what it could do. Metallica may have legally been in the right, but it seems to me that they turned off a lot of people, and it was a very bad PR move. Right or not, it still came off as big, rich rock stars whining and crying.
16No. NEVER. I still get irritated whenever I hear one of their songs. Lars Ulrich has always been a disgusting pompous ass.
17it doesnt matter anymore. Metallica sucks now. All their early stuff is bad a$$ but their st. anger crap and onward blows hard. Lars is an ass and he's always rubbed me the wrong way.
no one in rock got their panties in a twist like these guys did, most of them were just like "well what can ya do"
word of mouth is how most people get exposed to bands, I know I've turned people to certain bands by burning them a cd of their stuff.
long as people still buy tix to their shows i see no big whoop about downloading music.
18Never going to get past it. Metallica took their issues with file sharing to the extreme. Back in the day before online filing sharing was huge (yes, I'm that old), friends and I would trade albums, copy tracks from one cassette to another, or tape off the radio. Same concept, different medium/format. Metallica needs to get over themselves. They're just over the hill rockers now.
19Yes to Metallica, no to Lars.
20Never liked Napster, back then it was too slow and full of rubbish, so didn't care when they went after Napster.
21i think that they have always sucked. i hated what they did to napster! i also used it to preview music, before last.fm etc were around - and then i'd buy the album if it was good.
22what a bunch of tools.
23Yaro is totally right about the bootleg cassettes getting Metallica their fame. They seemed to conveniently forget that when it became an internet issue. Yeah, probably the volume was higher, but I had Ride the Lightning on cassette back in the day. Of course, I had LOTS of cassettes we'd made from each other's stuff. And we went to concerts. And we bought albums sometimes. We got t-shirts and swag.
MC Lars is totally right, it's the new artist model.
24Funny Lars story- actually met the guy at the MacDougal Street Ale House in New York in 2003. First, he walks in like he owns the place (it's nothing to necessarily be proud to own). The place is packed and you can't see him since he's a midget, he gets pissy that no one makes a big deal about him there.
My now- husband (who's a pretty big Metallic fan and about a foot taller than Lars) is in line for the men's room, and Lars tries to cut the line right where my husband is standing, conversation going something like, husband: "back of the line," Lars "don't you know who I am, I'm Lars," husband: "back of the line" so Lars goes to the back of the line.
When he leaves, my friend and I wave goodbye, kinda being silly fans, and he shoots us the death glare. Never a Metallica fan again. What a jerk.
25Lars irritates me. The rest of the band not so much.
26macgirl - I agree with you that stealing music is not ok however, then lower the price of the CD's and put better content on them. I will admit that when i was younger I did use Napster and whatever other peer to peer sharing app I could get my hands on. But it makes me mad that I have to pay $14 for a CD which may have one or two good songs.
That is why I use iTunes and Amazon MP3. I like that I can have control over the music I purchase and not have to buy the whole CD when I like one or two songs. Even if I do buy the whole CD, it is cheaper than at the store.
27missmarisol I hear ya. I still don't think I should go steal a Lexus just because I think their too expensive. I do the same thing as you though. I rarely buy a whole album, just tracks from iTunes.
28Metallica are a bit.... Spinal Tap now.
29I dropped Metallica with the "... and justice for all" album (for you kids here, that "old" album was quite a big seller; Back in the day (pre-Napster) Metallica was definitely the bomb).
Lars has always annoyed me though. I just can't stomach the look on his face when he's drumming. It always looks like someone is torturing him, or at least he wants you to believe it's really hard what he's doing ... tool. Look at Marduk's drummer (or god knows what metal band) and then complain with your "nothing else matters" crap!
30The Napster/Metallica thing was barely a blip to me. I was far more upset when they drove away Jason and for the ugliness of St. Anger.
31The point is NOBODY lost out on anything with Napster and other file sharing programs - they were just SCARED they were going to. Its not at all like letting people take pictures off your wall, its like taking a picture of your picture and passing it along to your friends to see if they like it and then their friends can take a picture of their picture. Does it really harm the original owner or the artist? NO! - Afterall, the quality of MP3 and especially Napster downloads was nowhere near CD quality. We just wanted to try out some new music. The industry screwed all of us and CDs are just as expensive as they ever were because musicians would complain about how we were taking money out of their pockets. Only they're standing there in thousand dollar dresses with money coming out of their asses. Metallica should be made an example of. No one should ever buy their music again. Screw them. They screwed us.
32I disagree with that m m m. If you take a picture of a painting on my wall, a painting I sell and make money from. Then you distribute the painting picture and that picture is all of a sudden everywhere for free- and a crappy reproduction at that. Now you've taken my art, given it away and made it look bad. That does hurt me. If I have expensive dresses and money flying out of my bum it's because I have a talent that made some people happy and profited from it. I think that's my right and there are laws to protect me. Maybe the Metallica thing is just a bad example because there seems to be some dislike for Lars and their music isn't what it was back in the late 80's/early 90's? Either way I really don't hold a grudge for people trying to protect themselves.
33I was a bit annoyed that they did that whole Napster thing. Perhaps Metallica has just figured out how to use todays technology.
I will agree to those who said MP3s won't beat CD quality. Totally right. Although I do download, I buy any CD I can get my hands on (and can afford ha).
34I am indifferent on this one
35Metallica is the greatest band ever with insane shredding guitar one of the best drummers of all time and an amazing metal vocalist and they have every right to get paid for their music and getting pissed off about people stealing it u ask if i have forgiven metallica? lol wtf is that u should be asking do u think metallica can forgive u for o idk STEALING THEIR FKIN MUSIC bcuz ur too fkin lazy to get a job and buy the cd at wal mart for 15 dollars DAM
36i agree metallica is awesome i love every cd from kill 'em all to death magnetic and if you can't identify with at least one metallica song then ur not human or u don't listen to the lyrics
37Post New Comment
Please share your opinion with our community, but make sure it is on topic and follows our Community Rules. We moderate comments and prohibit personal attacks, threats, spam, lewd images, or the promotion of your personal website.