In a display of hypocrisy that seems like it could almost be taken directly out of a lyrical interpretation of a track from Metallica's own "...And Justice for All" album, the band's drummer and well-known music piracy combatant, Lars Ulrich, has now said that he doesn't care if Metallica's new album is pirated.
The metal gods tossed their management team under the proverbial bus after those managers demanded takedowns of positive reviews by bloggers of some rough takes of Metallica's newest project.
This may or not be taught in PR 101, perhaps because the general tenet is obvious: Don't screw up good PR with bad PR. We'll chalk this one up to Metallica's management and not to the band itself, just to be fair.
The old joke is that Metallica sold out in 45 minutes—not a concert, just sold out. The wicked bass and drums didn't score any points with purists when the band did a 180 and decided MTV was good for their career after all, nor were any points scored when they went after Napster. Those who know exactly what I'm talking about will also double-take when I tell you the band is cool with online music these days.That may be because Trent Reznor and Radiohead were able to prove the concept that downloads are good for business.
MTV has announced that players of its Rock band game have downloaded more than 2.5 million songs since its launch on November 20, 2007.A Metallica pack is currently the game's best selling music download, followed by three song packs from The Police, Queens of the Stone Age, David Bowie and a collection of Black Sabbath covers. Best selling singles are Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero", followed by Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son," Weezer's "Buddy Holly" and The Knack's "My Sharona."