Metallica News

Most Recent Happenings


New Free MP3's

Another concert has been added at MetallicaVault.com. This brings the total number of concerts available up to 17. You'll need the CD-key which come with St. Anger to download the songs.


Metallica Killer Executed

Some nut job who sang "No Remorse" while killing a man in 1984 was executed in Texas on January 25, 2005.
CNN has the full story.


Some Kind of Monster DVD

The DVD of the Metallica documentary, Some Kind of Monster, will be released on January 25, 2005.
Order it here.


Similarities Between Metallica and The Simpsons

At first they might not seem so similar, but they really are.
Check it out.


Some Kind of Monster CD

On 7/13/2004, Metallica is releasing a CD to help promote the "Some Kind of Monster" documentary. It contains 2 versions of "Some Kind of Monster" (from St. Anger) as well as 6 live tracks. The track list:
  1. Some Kind of Monster
  2. The Four Hoursmen (Live)
  3. Damage, Inc (Live)
  4. Leper Messiah (Live)
  5. Motorbreath (Live)
  6. Ride the Lightning (Live)
  7. Hit the Lights (Live)
  8. Some Kind of Monster (Edit)
You can buy the CD by itself for $10 or the CD & a shirt for $24 (large shirt or extra-large shirt).

This CD just seems like a complete rip-off to me. $10 for 6 live tracks that I already have plenty of versions of? No thanks. This will be one of the few official Metallica releases that I don't own. The other one is the DVD version of Binge & Purge since I already have the old VHS version. I'm going to save my money for something better; I'm sure plenty of "die-hard" fans won't.


Metallica's Final Betrayal

In the Metallica documentary, "Some Kind Of Monster," there is a scene of a conversation between Lars Ulrich and Dave Mustaine. Mustaine asked that the scene not be included, but Metallica decided to include it anyways. Mustaine has called this Metallica's "final betrayal."

I don't understand why he seems so surprised. I wouldn't expect anything else from such a greedy band; all they are concerned with is making more money. It does not matter if that means suing fans, releasing any old crap as an album, or refusing a request from an old friend.

It seems that every day Metallica becomes more and more hypocritical and more and more greedy. They now SELL every live concert as mp3s; this is from a band which used to encourage fans to record concerts and trade the tapes. They are even releasing a few songs from a concert as CD to promote "Some Kind of Monster."

Original article


20th Highest Earning Celebrity in 2004

According to Forbes, Metallica was #20 among celebrities in pay. They made $35 million dollars. More info can be gotten here and here.

Clearly they're not being hurt by mp3 file sharing. Just a whole lot of bitching about nothing; they still sell albums and still make more money from touring. Touring is where most bands make their money since they see such little money from CD sales; the record companies take the majority of that $9.99 - $13.99 that you're paying for CDs.

In related news, the RIAA sued 482 more people on 06/22/2004. This brings the total up to 3,429 since September 2003.


New MP3s

If you bought St. Anger, you can get the newest offering (added 06/03/2004) of free mp3s of live performances from here. This brings the total number of concerts available to 8. There are 115 mp3s totaling 833 MBs. For some reason, a few tracks are missing from the latest concerts.


Live MP3s from Tour

Metallica has a website with mp3s of every concert from the 2004 tour. These mp3s must be purchased and a full concert costs about $10. I don't recommend buying these mp3s unless there is a particular one that you want. For example, it might be worth paying for the mp3s from a concert that you attended.


Tour Dates

Get the 2004 tour dates. They are touring with Godsmack.


46th Grammys

At the 46th Grammys (February 8, 2004), Metallica won a Grammy for Best Metal Performance for St. Anger. The other nominees were: Out of all these songs, St. Anger probably is the best. Of course, the Grammy should've gone to Seven Dust or System of a Down (maybe not System of a Down b/c of when the album was released). Of course Seven Dust was completely left off the nominee list in favor of crap like mOBSCENE.


Manufactured Band

We all know that many pop bands are manufactured by producers in the studio. Most rock bands take pride in the fact that they write and perform all their own songs. Metallica is one of these bands which contributes to their being such a great live band. Unfortunately it seems that recently they have been spending a little too much time suing everyone instead of writing music:
So far on the tour, Metallica have only played two songs from their new album, St. Anger, the title track and "Frantic." There's a reason for that. The musical passages were recorded in segments during jam sessions and were later cut and pasted to form complete songs. Recreating many of them live will require time and practice.

"Everybody's like, 'Why don't you play more than two songs from the album?' " Ulrich said. "It's like, 'Uh, as soon as we learn them we will.' "

Uh...yeah. Why don't you guys go get started learning your own songs. Read the entire article here. So far, St. Anger has sold 2 million copies.


More news and information can be found on the old main page

Old Stuff


Metallica Ready to Sue the Government

For some reason, the US government thinks that a good form of torture to get info from Iraqi prisoners is forcing them to listen to Metallica. I don't understand the logic behind this; these people have been tortured in all sorts of gruesome ways for years by a brutal dictator and now they're supposed to be scared of metal music? Clearly this is a stupid idea but thats no reason for anyone to start crying like a little bitch. Well its not a reason for almost everyone. Lars has been whining about it. Read the article here.


New Album: St. Anger

Metallica's newest album, St. Anger, was released on June 5, 2003; it came out 5 days early because of something to do with the internet being evil. Producer Bob Rock played base in the recording studio but he will not be touring with the band since they have hired Rob Trujillo. Check out my review and the reviews of others. Plenty of good info included with the review.


St. Anger Video

Today (May 27, 2003), the video for St. Anger premiered on MTV/MTV2. Better catch it while you can; soon they'll be back to showing pop bands and pansy frat boys. I don't know why the video claims to take place on May 30. The video itself isn't anything impressive (its basically the same as Godsmack's video for Awake). There is also this lame "no hostage" part at the begining which is an attempt to make the band look tough. Despite this, the song sounds pretty good. I wouldn't say its as good as their old stuff, but its definitely looking better than Reload.

The song is about 5:40 long and it tends to get repetitive. There are no solos and I didn't notice a bridge of any sort but. Of course music is subjective, so listen and decide for yourself. Metallica has generously provided a 33 second clip of St. Anger to which you can listen.

Metallica has also posted a whole 31 second clip of Frantic on their site.

Metallica has posted the "truley unique" video for St Anger in its entirety: Windows High | Windows Low | Real Player


MTV Icons

On May 6th, MTV aired the Icons tribute to Metallica. There were several performance by other bands of Metallica songs. Some of the bands (Sum 41, Avril "Punk Princess" Lavigne) just tried to play them like Metallica. Other bands (Korn, Limp Bizkit) tried to put an original spin on the song; I thought Korn's verison of "One" was pretty good and Limp Bizkit's performance of "Sanitarium" was better than I would've expected. Jim Bruer was also there and made some funny jokes.

Metallica finished off the show by playing for about 10 minutes. They played a melody and were joined by new bassist Rob Trujillo. They also started to play one of the new songs, but MTV cuts them off so you only get to hear about a minute or two.

If you missed the show you should be able to catch the continous reruns on MTV and MTV2. It should also be coming to VH1 in a month or so.


Metallica Gets a New Bassist

Rob Trujillo has become Metallica's 3rd bassist. In the past, he played with Ozzy, Jerry Cantrell, and Suicidal Tendencies. As far as I know, he was not involved in the recording of St. Anger. Metallica has called him the 4th band member and a member of the family, so it is likely that he is a permanent addition to the band and not just joining the band for the tour. I hope they treat him better than they treated Jason when he first joined.


Summer Sanitarium Tour

This tour begins on July 4, 2003. Metallica will be touring with Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. In addition, Mudvayne and the Deftones will be opening. Only a limited amount of shows have been announced. Check out the offciial tour dates.


How Bad is Metallica Becoming

Latest word from Metallica is that they have recorded about 30 songs; however, not all of them are good enough to make the new album. Instead, Metallica will release the 10 to 20 best songs out of the ones they have recorded. This is different from in the past where everything they recorded was good enough to release. Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, ...And Justice For All, the Black Album: these albums contained all of the songs that they had recorded at the time. Not only that, but all of the songs were very good.

Seems to me that Metallica is not putting as much time into their music as they used. Clearly, the quality has gone down as seen on Load and especially on Reload. Now they have quickly written a bunch of sub-par songs and are going to chose the best ones to sell to us. I wouldn't expect too much from the new album due out in the Spring.


Live Shit: Binge & Purge on DVD

They are finally releasing Binge & Purge on DVD on November 12, 2002. I would be more excited about this except I don't really have $60 to drop on this (especially since I already have the VHS set). Instead of being 3 VHS and 3 CDs or tapes, it will be 2 DVDs (one for each show) and 3 CD's. The stencil and backstage pass will still be include; however, the booklet will only be included as a pdf file on one of the DVDs. If you have the $60 to update your copy or don't as yet have it, I would recomend buying this when it is released.


Metallica/Ja Rule Collaboration Released

For some reason, Metallica recorded with rapper Ja Rule a song entitled "We Did It Again." This song is on a hip-hop compilation album entitled G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories (release date of 12/10/2002). I've heard this song and I thought it was pretty bad; some rap-rock fans might like it. Ja Rule sings/raps while Metallica plays. James is not suposed to be in the song since he was in rehab when Lars and Kirk recorded it with Ja Rule. However, you can hear Jame's voice in some places so maybe he recorded his vocals later or they just mixed in vocals from older Metallica songs.


New Album and More Cover Songs

The band has recorded 4 new cover songs. All four are by The Ramones. These songs are "Commando," "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World," "53rd & 3rd" and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." "53rd & 3rd" will be included on a Ramones tribute album entitled We're a Happy Family. All 4 will likely be released as B-sides on some imports or singles.

Recently (June 2002), the band held a surprise concert and played a new song called "Dead Kennedy." This song will be on their new album; however there is still no word on what the album is called or when it will be released. Also, producer Bob Rock is still handling the duty of bass player in the studio. He isn't planning to tour with the band and there is still no word on who will be the permanent replacement for Jason.


Recording halted as James goes into Rehab

In July 2001, James Hetfield ended 20 years of denial and finally admitted that he is addicted to alcohol and other substances. He has checked into a rehab center. He checked out in December 2001.


Band goes into the Studio

Metallica reports that they are back into the studio to record another album. No word yet on when it is to be released. I wouldn't expect to see it until sometime next year. Right now, Producer Bob Rock is handling some of the bass playing.


New Black Album

Metallica is releasing on May 1st (2001) a DVD-Audio version of the Black Album. Might be cool - probably just a waste of money. I don't think DVD-Audio will add anything to the album. If you absolutly must have something on DVD-Audio, I recomend getting the DVD version of The Blue Man Group's Audio. The music is alright and they actually take advantage of DVD-Audio's 5.1 surround sound.


Jason Newsted Leaves Metallica

Well, it's happened once again: Metallica is without a bassist. Jason Newsted has decided to leave the band. In 1986, he joined Metallica as the replacement for the deceased Cliff Burton. Metallica plans on recording a new studio album in the spring to be released in late 2001 or early 2002. They will need to find a new bassist first. I would suggest Mike Inez, the former Ozzy and Alice in Chains bassist.


The music video for "I Disappear" has been nominated for 5 awards at the MTV Music Video Awards. Kind of surprising seeing as they rarely play the video on tv.

Also, James Hetfield injured his back (herniated disc) while jet-skiing and was unable to perform for 3 shows (Atlanta, Lexington, and Dallas). Unlike the Wherever I May Roam Tour, he was unable to even sing whie recovering so members from the other bands (Korn, Kid Rock) touring with Metallica filled in. Metallica went back to the locations where they were unable to perform and gave a free show to those who retained their ticket stubs.

MTV is going to stop playing the usual shit (TRL, Road Rules, etc) in order to show Metallica: All Access. This is a one hour behind the scenes show to be aired on July 22.

Metallica appears on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack which was released on May 9th. The name of the song is "I Disappear" and until you buy this CD, you can listen to a clip. I have this CD and it is great; I don't like Limp Bizkit, but their song from the soundtrack is great as is Metallica's song and virtually every other song on the soundtrack. Get this CD!