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Metallica May Follow In Footsteps of Radiohead, NIN
fireheadca writes "Metallica, once strongly opposed to file-sharing, has hinted at going 'free' in the style of NIN and Radiohead. Having heard success stories about releasing music online, Metallica has decided it wants a piece of the action. Radiohead, as a pioneer of online 'pay what you want' music, has shown the world it is possible to profit by releasing music online, but would not post those profits. NIN, on the other hand, has reported at least $1.6 million in revenue. In hindsight, many people remember Metallica as the band that helped shutdown Napster. I purchased the NIN album, after many years of free downloads of the NIN collection, to help support the band. Would you buy a Metallica online album despite their former views?"
And besides, Metallica hasn't put out a decent album in the better part of 20 years. Why would anyone want to pay for their crap, or even listen to it for free?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In the documentary "some kind of monster", Lars was explaining that he wasn't against the whole file-sharing thing per se. What the lawsuit was about, was that someone leaked their album (or a song, don't remember) out of the recording studio before it came out AND distributed it through file-sharing. But suddenly, the story grew over their heads, and it became this big Metallica Vs. Napster thing, when it was really about Napster (or ppl through the Napster p2p network) distributing a song that they didn't release yet.
When Metallica promoted copying cassettes to get there album out. (Garage Days)
People only remember the Napster incident.
I suspect that the band will do what there finance advisers tell them to do.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Sorry, Cliff Burton is dead. Nothing is going to bring him back short of singularity.
"Will you buy a new Metallica album that is being offered like previous Radiohead and NIN albums?"
That begs the question of whether I even like Metallica or if I would have bought their album in other circumstances. They might try this experiment and find that it was a dismal failure; I'm sure that they would point to the experience as proof of their earlier (poor) opinions of the internet's effect on music production.
The thing about Metallica is that their music changed substantially right about the time that the internet was coming into its own as a distribution medium. Part of their low sales of albums since the black album or Load could be related to internet downloads, but I think it has much more to do with Metallica alienating their original fanbase.
When I was a kid, Metallica was practically its own genre. I though of music as metal, country, Metallica, Pantera, punk, etc. There were a few bands that stood out as archetypes. Now that metallica is 'competing' with a larger field of music, they will find that they don't have the same rabid fanbase that they once enjoyed. When you are competing for airtime with nickelback and staind, your music is no longer special. You are a commodity like reruns of old dharma and greg episodes and your listeners will treat you with about as much respect.
So will I buy the new Metallica album over the internets a la radiohead? No, but the reason has little to do with the internet and everything to do with Metallica's music. Music? Remember? 'Music' as in 'sounds', not as in 'financial investment'.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
However I wouldn't buy their album because their music sucks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster_Bad!
(Wikipedia links to the original website at Camp Chaos - then click on "old cartoons" at the right. A lot of the videos are also on YouTube.)
The way in which they're hypocritical is that band members have said in interviews and you can find in print admissions that they copied music without permission before you could download music from the 'net - on cassette tapes. Since they themselves breached copyright law in order to listen to music for which they had not paid, they are hypocrites for going after others for doing the same.
HTH, HAND.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Either you own your own credit card company (in which case may I recommend you get one of your minions to go pick up the album in physical format if you want it), or what you meant to say was "Metallica would be paying the credit card company for me to download their CD."
Metallica jumped the shark around the era of the self-titled black album.
Let me pinpoint this moment for all readers of this thread. I know when they jumped the shark because I watched as the daredevil feat was broadcast on television.... Music Television. Metallica jumped the shark with the release of their first music video- "One."
This jump-the-shark moment was created when Metallica embraced the corporate music marketing machine they had previously avoided. The content of the video was a rather strong message decrying the violence created by war. It's a bold statement, yet commercially un-risky at the time of its release. Contemporary Metallica songs and videos avoid such controversial stances (ala Master of Puppets) while the Iraq war drags on.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
No one has a right to profit from their labor. People have a right to profit from their labor if they agree before hand with someone that they will do X and get paid Y. People have a right to enter contracts. Now artists are part of a social contract called copyright, which grants them some control over reproduction of the results of their efforts to encourage them to undertake them. This benevolence on the part of society is being repeatedly abused by some artists and elements of the artistic industries.
I write crappy computer games in my spare time. I do not expect to be paid for it.
Note that "inTheLoo" and "gnutoo" are the same person. I have no idea why twitter feels the need to shill up his own posts, especially something as tepid as a joke about Metallica. Sorry for the offtopic post, but anyone posting in or moderating this thread should be aware of that.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Dammmit twitter, and you seemed to be doing so well for a while there. For a minute I thought you had actually taken my advice about being an actual contributing member of the slashdot.
You can still do it. Drop the shills and just be one of them (any one, you pick). Don't give up on your dreams. You can reach your goals, I'm living proof. (obligatory: Beefcake!)
Stop it twitter, the only thing you're doing for yourself is becoming the most-documented douche on slashdot EVER.
And what university chair do Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli have? Business people are not the same as scientists, even if the business is science.
"The problem with copyright infringement, is you have s situation where a perfect market would allow us to spend 10%, and get 10% worth of enjoyment from the resulting music, but in fact we only spend 1% (or whatever) and the difference is made up by copyright infringement."
It seems to me you are plucking these numbers out of thin air, and I've no idea why one clause here leads to another. I've no idea what effect abolishing copyright would have on the music industry, but I would guess that we would go back to a system of patronage. I do know that reducing the length of copyright to 14 years probably wouldn't have a big impact.
Why if we get the same amount of music produced would only paying 1% for it be a bad thing? You seem to be suggesting that the bad thing about copyright is that we get music for cheap. I would argue that is not the case, the bad thing about copyright is exactly the opposite.
If we need more bankers and plumbers and less musicians then a system that provides us with this is not a net loss to society. I don't think you understand what a free market is.
Bjork is cooler than you know, first getting her start in the early Iceland punk scene and playing with the post-punk group KUKL, touring with Crass and Flux of Pink Indians before switching to a more ethereal sound later in her career. She's no Britney, and would have no real problems with a Grindcore remix of her material.
(I'm actually not really a fan of her work, but she's in the category of people I really respect even if I don't get into their work that much. Almost wish I liked it more than I do.)
Trust me... it's not about them cutting their hair. Dude's in Slayer and Anthrax and even Jason Newsted cut their hair well before the Black Album. It was the music on th Black Album that pissed us off.
A band like U2 can change and evolve successfully because they go in wild new directions when the urge strikes them. Metallica devolved with the Black Album. They became "just another rock band" with it. If they released a truly original metal album, something that maybe incorporated elements of jazz arrangements and more intricate percussion or went more in a punk rock vein, the die hards would have stuck with them even if they sold 20 billion copies... if the music was good.
What pissed us off is that they took a step back and created an album of fairly uninspired music that was safe... teenage mall-going girls could listen to it. It lacked energy, it lacked life.
They didn't stretch themselves musically. The just watered down their sound and have stayed in that puddle ever since.
In a way it was a good thing. I no longer had to let them occupy much of my mental space. I could concentrate on new and exciting music like Nomeansno, Buckethead, Mr. Bungle, Primus, Faith No More, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Fishbone, Jane's Addiction, Ministry, Sepultura, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, The Melvins, Mudhoney, Praxis and others.
A lot of us just gave up any hope in real metal when Metallica gave up and found new bands doing new things that we had hoped Metallica would have the guts to do.
Pooty tweet