Metallica Befriends Internet
Published June 04, 2003
The irony never ends: Metallica is offering exclusive Internet downloads of songs from their website to buyers of their new album St. Anger:
- Three years after suing Napster, Metallica is offering songs from its new album exclusively on the Internet.
The heavy metal band, whose first album in six years is scheduled for release Thursday, is making some tracks available online as well through a partnership with Speakeasy, the Seattle-based high-speed Internet access provider said.
Customers who buy Metallica's new compact disc, "St. Anger," will find a code inside the packaging allowing them to view, listen to and download exclusive, unreleased music tracks from a Metallica Web site.
...."We've always wanted our fans to experience our music online," drummer Lars Ulrich said. "But up until now, the existing distribution methods have not passed the kind of 'quality' standards our fans have come to expect from us." [AP]
- Metallica Befriends Internet
- Published: June 04, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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Don't see the irony here. Metallica wants to distribute its own music on the web. Metallica doesn't want other people to illegally distribute their music on the web. Makes sense to me.
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Lars is at least consistent: "I don't have a problem with any artist voluntarily distributing his or her songs through any means the artist elects-- at no cost to the consumer, if that's what the artist wants. But just like a carpenter who crafts a table gets to decide whether to keep it, sell it or give it away , shouldn't we have the same options?" and "Make no mistake, Metallica is not anti-technology.... If the next format is a form of digital downloading from the Internet with distribution and manufacturing savings passed on to the American consumer, then, of course, we will embrace that format too."
And this isn't Ulrich first venture into online distribution, either.
I originally started typing "Liar, liar, pants on fire" in here, but then I realized that while I don't agree with Lars on lots of things, he isn't lying here. If it has always been about control, he's just exercising the choice he has demanding that he have.