Lars - Solo's are Back and Downloading is ok with me...

[Awake_In_Animosity]

theage.com.au Metallica may join the free music movement

Asher Moses
April 28, 2008 - 3:15PM
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich.
Photo: Reuters
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Metallica, among the most ardent crusaders against online music file sharing, have indicated they might follow Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead in releasing tracks for free over the internet.

Metallica were one of the first bands to sue people for copyright infringement and attracted scorn from internet users for helping shut down the peer-to-peer downloading tool Napster.

Before Napster's demise the band was among the most vocal critics of file sharing. Its drummer, Lars Ulrich, famously showed up at Napster's headquarters in 2000 brandishing the screen names of 335,000 people the band said had been illegally downloading its songs, demanding the company block those users.

But the music industry has changed tremendously in the past eight years.

Bands and record labels long ignored the threat of the internet and for a time refused to experiment with online distribution. But with physical CD sales in persistent decline and legal music downloads only partly making up for the lost revenue, the music industry is frantically searching for a new business model.

Artists including Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead both ditched their record labels, opting to sell their music directly to fans over the internet.

Radiohead's In Rainbows was offered on the band's website for two months before launching in stores and fans could download it for free or for whatever price they were willing to pay.

Nine Inch Nails are selling their latest four-volume album, Ghosts I-IV, through their website and the first nine tracks are offered for free, including on BitTorrent websites that also house reams of pirated music.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Ulrich said Metallica's contract with Warner Music expired after their next album.

"We want to be as free a player as possible," he said.

"We've been observing Radiohead and [Nine Inch Nails frontman] Trent Reznor and in 27 years or however long it takes for the next record, we'll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the internet."

Ulrich said eight years ago the band was a fierce critic of sharing music over the web because the members thought that sharing should be on the artists' terms.

"Back in the day there was a much bigger question about 'On whose terms?' " Ulrich said.

"We said, 'Wait a minute, it should be about the artist.' Then all hell broke loose and we sat on the sidelines for a while."

For their part, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have accepted that it is virtually impossible to stop music piracy. Instead of trying to fight back the tide, both bands have embraced the internet and, by giving some songs away for free, have been able to harness the web's viral marketing power.

While many, even most, users will be content with the freebies, even if a small percentage go on to buy the music, the bands, thanks to the low overheads of online distribution, can turn a tidy profit.

Nine Inch Nails announced that Ghosts I-IV, released via NIN.com, earned the band $US1.6 million ($1.7 million). Official sales figures for Radiohead's In Rainbows haven't been released but when the album was released on CD in stores, after already spreading virally online, it hit No.1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.

Discuss.

[Rick]

Looks like Lars has realised he can make money off something he hated. In my opinion, no amount of solos will turn Metallicas new album into something listenable. I could be wrong though.

[sadisticsatyr]

Wow! Even though it is spanned over a long period of time, he has just contradicted himself and the band in such a big way it makes him look stupid! "We're suing Napster" "Now free downloading is ok" i guess he's seen the light, or given up the fight...Metallica need the solos, but more than that....get rid of that snare sound, and ditch that bass player too....and grow your hair long again! These just seem to be indicators of Metallica's demise over the years.

[Acey Jendell]

In all honesty, it wouldn't be that hard for Metallica to make an awesome album. Think about it, all they have to do is tune to E standard, fuck with time signatures, downpick, and solo. Really Fast. They just choose not to do it, and it's their choice at the end of the day, but they must realise that they haven't made anything good since the black album.

[Winmar]

Or anything awesome since 1986.

[DirTh]

...AJFA was good, but i'd have to agree with Acey.

[Winmar]

Yeah it was good, just not quite awesome. If they recorded an album as good as AJFA again I'd be happy.

[bsercombe]

Top Aussie Acts get together over music theft (SMH Article today)

I originally had this article reproduced here but thought that perhaps if you visit the site and hence download their advertising it won't be an "illegal copy". Print media has had problems making the transition to the digital world too.

You know, way back... half my life ago, before the WWW came to my little country university I tabbed out (from the book) and posted a copy of Skid Rows' Quicksand Jesus to a usenet news group. Now if you search my name on the internet you'll come up with about 5,000 hits for it. An act for which I remain profoundly embarrassed today. So perhaps it hasn't made much difference to the Skids revenue, but it was still wrong on three counts: firstly because I didn't ask permission, secondly because I'm the copyright notices on the tab book probably say "don't communicate or transmit" and thirdly (most importantly) because by doing so I effectively reduce the incentive for a customer to buy the tab book and hence provide some revenue to the Skids...

Did I know it was wrong at the time? No I don't think so. But ignorance is no excuse for the law as they say. At least now with all of the RIAA and MPAA and BSA coverage most people do realize that it is wrong and why.

Moral of the story: don't put anything on the net that you don't want to be remembered by... even if you have an obscure handle and avatar the more stuff you post the more likely a data-mining tool will be able to identify you. In the future people will probably be paid for that kind of detective work. People will want to see what Grandpa got up to when he was a kid.

[Rick]

They would be able to write a great album if they could spend all their money on a time machine instead of sueing people, and went back to when they weren't douches.;... wait, that could be a challenge too.

[TheDenimRager]

I paid $49 for a book of Crowded House sheet music the other day which was lazily arranged and less than half a centimeter thick. I paid $48 for it. I could buy a fucking encyclopedia for that money. Its such a sickening ripoff nowadays I don't even know where to start.

[sadisticsatyr]

How the hell can a Crowded House song book be so thin??? They have soooo many great songs! Whole albums in fact where each song is awesome!

On the topic: Metallica really did die after Black...everything before then is awesome. I wouldnt even waste bandwidth downloading the rest.... In fact, by Lars stating he is ok with downloading, i am guessing it is a hint that this album wont be worth buying...maybe.

[Goreripper]

They're just fat and old and rich and couldn't care less anymore. I appreciate the fact that as artists they feel some desire to continue creating, but they will never match anything they did in the 80s even remotely and they know it even if they won't admit it. But I think they have to concede that it has to be preferable to offer tracks for download and make some money off them than to have them on Bit Torrent where they're not making anything.

[TheDenimRager]

Originally Posted by TheDenimRager

I paid $49 for a book of Crowded House sheet music ... I paid $48 for it.

Wtf Am I on drugs?

My point in general was that everything remotely connected to the music industry is a tremendous fucking ripoff and it just disappoints me when people as eminent as Jimmy Barnes go on record in the paper (yesterday) and hassle people for downloading when, as cliched as it sounds, the people who are filthy thieving bastards are the ones who Barnes et al signed their contracts with.

[cro4eva]

Solos didn't make Metallica.Take a look at St. Anger songs live they had solos and still sucked. They arn't really that great at them in the first place, when I was into Metallica I thought they were but after a while you realise they are nothing special. It was the attitude and the aggression that made Metallica what they were.

They just don't have that anymore. So no matter if they put solos or not they will never make another album just as good as the ones from the 80's. I don't feel they have the technically ability to make good music that doesn't sound like there 80's stuff.

[Goreripper]

Originally Posted by TheDenimRager

Wtf Am I on drugs?

My point in general was that everything remotely connected to the music industry is a tremendous fucking ripoff and it just disappoints me when people as eminent as Jimmy Barnes go on record in the paper (yesterday) and hassle people for downloading when, as cliched as it sounds, the people who are filthy thieving bastards are the ones who Barnes et al signed their contracts with.

Maybe, but the point that Barnes and the others were making is that the mug punter is under the impression that rock stars are rich, therefore it doesn't matter if you steal their music, and also that making, writing and recording music somehow doesn't cost anything and it's all some kind of free ride. The "Money for Nothing" mentality. That's just not the case as most of us here would appreciate. The record companies will always find a way to adapt to shifts in the market but it's the artists that really suffer, especially the smaller less established ones. People like Barnes and Metallica don't need to ever record another thing, or if they do they can virtually give away what they make, but most bands floating around on airplay lists and record charts still have massive debts to pay off and the ones that haven't quite made it yet are even more up the shit chute if their songs are being downloaded for free. The record labels can get their money from somewhere else; the bands can't.

[TheDenimRager]

Yeah, you've got some good points there Brian. Furthering what you said, though, Barnes and Metallica made their pile in an era when there was a shitload more money in the industry.

Still, I don't care if its Jimmy Barnes or Gyroscope (who were also interviewed in that story), I'm not prepared to line the wallets of the arseholes who run the record companies. When I pay $30 for a CD, and I know that 96.5% of that money is going to prop up the profit margins of Vivendi or AOL Time Warner, who didn't write the song, pen the lyrics, sing the words, or play the drums or keyboards or whatever, then they can get fucked. Seriously, there has never been a market of any kind of fine art in history for which the people who created the art were less appreciated or rewarded.
Yeah, I buy some CDs occasionally, but not very many at all - if anything, I'm more interested in buying second hand vinyl nowadays.

[Goreripper]

That's a valid point also. But most of the big labels are already recouping their losses from the music side of the business through other arms of entertainment. When you consider that the cost of CDs has hardly changed at all for more than a decade (and even dropped in some cases) it's pretty obvious that the major conglomerates must be off-setting expenses in other ways. If they weren't, recorded music would be prohibitively expensive by now: CDs would probably cost $70 - 80 or more and tracks on iTunes would be more than $1.25 or whatever they are.

[Goreripper]

Actually, come to think of it, it's probably the proliferation of small and boutique labels that's keeping music prices down, more than anything else. So if anything, we should be supporting the little guys as much as we can.

[Rick]

But then it turns out that "little old label" is owned by parent, whos parents own its sisters parents father who owns Sony, who owns Sonys far-removed brothers dog.

[cowboy]

Anyone checked out the snippets of new stuff on http://www.missionmetallica.com ?

I'm keeping my expectations for the new album incredibly low, but what I've heard thusfar doesn't sound too bad!

[Awake_In_Animosity]

Dare I say it, but the "snippets" from that sounded good to my ears. My little danish friend might come up with the goods again...might...maybe...possibly...perhaps...

[Nebulous]

Not a fan TBH. I really doubt I'll be picking this one up. If it's streamed on Myspace I might listen in, but I doubt I'll hear anything that I like.

[cowboy]

"Death Magnetic" due September

[Rick]

Well if the music isn't any good, i'm sure they will be up for an award for 'dumbest album title' at least.

[TheDenimRager]

Hahhahahahah

First thing that came to mind...





I'd be interested to hear others' first reactions.