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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?"
No way in HELL! They made their bed, now they can lie in it.
Not only wouldn't I participate in a 'pay what you like' scenario with Metallica because of their previous position, but their music just flat out sucks now.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
I will never buy a Metallica album. I have never owned and never will own any Metallica song or album legally or illegally. The irony is that I've been in a few cover bands (in high school mostly) and can play "Enter Sandman" and all that crap. Like many artists, I'm not a big fan of their music. Unlike many artists, I do not agree with their views in regards to music distribution.
In 2002, Slashdot ran a story on what David Bowie saw in the future of music and the music industry. Now there's somebody who I both respect and love musically. His vision was no copyright, albums are free to download, very inexpensive to buy and the artists rake in mad cash through concerts and tours. Don't get me wrong, he used a tone that said it was going to be embraced by some artists and hated by others: "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."
"Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen." If Metallica wants me to listen to their music, they need to change their attitude toward music distribution. On top of that, they need to try to undo what they did. They need to apologize, speak out against the RIAA from now on, seek new channels of distribution, promote new bands other than themselves that use these channels and help out people who are being sued by the RIAA by providing legal fees so those people stand a chance. Asking a lot, I know, but Metallica did a lot to set us back in what Bowie was talking about as the inevitable end state.
Metallica will not atone for their actions and I will do everything in my power to dissuade those around me from listening to them. If I could say one thing to the band, it would be "You've always been on board the RIAA ship and now you'll ride that ship down to the bottom of the ocean with your career."
My work here is dung.
Why do I want to ruin the big record companies? In my view, it is one of the only ways to bring sanity back to the copyright picture. As long as these guys are around to pump money into congress, we little folks don't stand a chance. I fear we might have to do the same to Hollywood if they don't wise up.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Their new stuff actually sounds pretty good ( search youtube for it ). The band has acknowledged that what they've put out since the black album has been pretty weak. They claim the new stuff will be a fresh take on the RTL/MOP/AJFA sound ( and it is, so far so good, hopefully it's been polished up quite a bit since those youtube videos were made ). St Anger was an interesting piece of ... work. The book "This Monster Lives" describes what the band was going through when they wrote that album. It seems it mostly revolved around issues with James - his alcoholism and control issues with the band's creative direction. The conslusion appears to be that James needs to keep the drinking under control or he will destroy himself and the band can't make an album without James at the helm. The collaborative effort produced a POS ( see St. Anger ). Anyways, I think I'll buy the new album, hopefully I'll get to pay what I think it's worth.
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
More people drink Budweiser than Spaten. I suppose that means it's a better beer?
I bet N'Sync has hit #1, too.
Metallica jumped the shark around the era of the self-titled black album. There's little to no reason to listen to them now (Nostalgia, I guess.)
Of course, this is just personal preference. It's certainly OK for a band to grow and change. But let's face it, the majority of 'core Metallica fans dropped out at "Nothing Else Matters" and haven't looked back.
Personally, I think most Metallica was always boring, and I liked the self-title. But if I had been a "Kill 'em All" fan, I would have been mailing them bombs or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Metallica lost me with the Napster debacle. That said, PACs are a worse evil than what the RIAA/Metallica did. You don't fight napalm with napalm.
No way.
They were one of the first bands to bellyache about pirated music. Lars cried a river over the issue.
They fell from grace, and kept right on falling.
They can rot in hell for all I care. I'll never buy, download, or listen to another Metallica album again.
I don't think Metallica will be much help in this. The release for free and people will pay for it model is a fad, I think.
People pay becase NIN and Radiohead were the pioneers of this.
If everyone goes this way then people will take it for granted and they won't pay for it.
Some of them will, of course, but much fewer people than in the introductory phase of this business model.
Pepople pay now, because it makes them look cool, but will they do it in the long run?
The record companies are hurting bad, and their role is already diminished. It won't be long before they can't afford congress anymore (with any luck). All we need are their most successful artists to abandon ship, and hopefully that is what we are seeing here.
Hollywood is indeed a tougher nut to crack - part of my fear about having to crack them. Still, if TV almost killed them in the 50s, then the internet could certainly do it 50 years later - especially as connection speeds increase. Napster took off when people were downloading songs over a 56k modem and it took about 5 minutes. To get a decent quality movie in the same time, it would take a connection speed of about 25 Mbps.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I would just point out that they haven't said that. Instead they've done a sleight of hand -- "What? We never had a problem with downloading. Just some criminals. We got nothing wrong, so nothing to apologize for. Here, buy our album!"
Of course, they're really rewriting history when they try such stunts. Lars personally delivered a list of 300,000 "criminals" (fans) he wanted fined/booted. He was truly hostile. His label followed up with another 300,000. Some of the people here on /. may have been the ones who had to defend themselves against their crazy attacks.
I don't know if people will believe that Metallica is turning over a new leaf, but judging from the comments here, it looks like some will be happy to buy the new album. That disappoints me, as I feel Metallica may be manipulating the geek crowd to sell a few more copies. ("Hey, we're poster boys for the anti-RIAA now! Right? That's what is trendy now? OK! So buy our CD!") If they turned on their fans once, they can do it again.
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