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"Management argued the songs previewed were early mixes and not ready for public scrutiny, which explains succinctly why music journalists were invited to a party to listen to it." - ok, here is an explaination i think might help - the journalists were invited to listen to unfinished songs as they were writing features to appear in their magazines which will be published around the release of the album.  In the UK at least, magazines have very long lead times and the album wouldn't be ready in time for them to hear prior to going to press.  Pretty hard for them to write a piece without having any idea of what the album sounds like - right?  so they  were invited to a private listening session at the label's offices.    NO known bloggers were invited.  Just representatives from the magazines who were writing the featues.

Metallica keeps shooting themselves, and idiots keep throwing them money.  I stopped listening to them 8 years ago, after the first go round that proved they are a bunch of greedy, money grubbing b#^%@3$. There are plenty of bands, and plenty of good music, where the artists actually WANT you to listen to them.  Look around people.  FInd something new to listen to, something that is not overworked hype sold to the masses to put even more money in the coffers so they can tell people what they can and cannot say about them.  (and yes, I was a fan before the sellout)