In the year 2000, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich was fuming over the fact that an unfinished Metallica track had wound up on the Sean Parker-founded filesharing service Napster. That led to a famous lawsuit and the eventual demise of Napster as we knew it.
Now, in the year 2012, Lars Ulrich and Sean Parker are partners and apparent new buddies. Yesterday, Spotify announced that the entire Metallica catalog is now available on the streaming music platform. Now, if you so choose, you can listen to Ulrich’s drumming without paying a dime (you just have to listen to some ads). It’s just funny how things work.
Sean Parker has been tweeting about a meeting the two just had, and it serves as an odd bit of closure from a saga that we all remember so vividly (even the younger Napster users among us).
Lars just left my house in NYC. The litigation between us in 2000 is now a distant memory.
Looking back it’s hard to imagine how we were anything other than natural allies.
I had forgotten how much I love Metallica!!!!! http://t.co/UF0utknt
It’s not like Lars Ulrich just recently dropped the hostility toward the internet’s role in music distribution. Years ago, he pretty much said that he was cool with a Metallica album being shared. But there you have it. Napster co-founder Sean Parker listening to Metallica on a streaming music service that he invests in. Amazing.
[h/t All Things D]