Can Metallica Do Anything Now Without Acting Like Little Brats?

I used to be a huge Metallica fan - HUGE.

Ask any of my friends from high school or any girl I dated between the years 1990 and 1998. It could almost have been classified as a mental defect at one point. I would eat, sleep, breath, memorize, and regurgitate any and everything associated with the band. But, like so many things in my life that tended to occupy far too much of my time, it faded away.

It wasn't until the NAPSTER episode in early 2000 that it was slowly becoming apparent that Metallica might just be more concerned with their bottom-line than their music earning them new fans.

Of course, I can see how piracy and music can be bad, but I can also see why people would do it inthe first place. But, that's old new now and i'm sure that Lars was able to get his pool accessories he wanted.

But now, it appears that Metallica is upset that someone said something nice about them.

Metallica held an album listening party for selected music journalists in London this Wednesday past," Quietus editor Luke Turner told Blinded by the Hype (via Idolator). "One of the writers was kind enough to write a piece about the album which, if you were lucky enough to read it before it was taken down, was full of praise about a return to form. At no point was the writer ask[ed] to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The Quietus and other websites ran pieces on the album, but were quickly contacted by Metallica's management via a third party and told to remove the articles.

It seems that Metallica doesn't seem to understand how PR really works. You invite music journalists to listen to your new album and there's a pretty good chance that they are going to write about it too. I mean, that's what they do.

And it's not like it was a review claiming that the album sounded horrible - it was a good review.

As an interesting aside to all this ( but mainly the NASPTER issue ) did you know that Lars Ulrigh stole the name Metallica from a friend of his? It was the title of a music 'zine in the San Fransisco area in the early 80's created by Lars' friend Ron Quintana.