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Remember that Metallica band members played an active driving role in those lawsuits against their own underage fans. It wasn't just the RIAA / record company

Remember that Metallica band members played an active driving role in those lawsuits against their own underage fans. It wasn't just the RIAA / record company organizations behaving cruelly, it was Metallica themselves. Fuck Metallica.

reactordev 8mo ago
Killed Napster and forced them overseas to create one of the most toxic streaming platforms for music the world has ever seen. Spotify. Sean Parker used to be cool…
roegerle 8mo ago
how they were able to recover from that is beyond me.
- dotancohen 8mo ago
  They didn't. I haven't bought a Metallica album since the black album. That was a decade earlier, because everything since sucked, but as I got older I thought about maybe expanding my tastes. I avoided Metallica specifically for their disrespect of their fans.
  - DaSHacka 8mo ago
    Did they not? Seems like they're still quite popular, and I knew people in HS (for reference, late 2010s to early '20s) that were big into the band. Additionally, looking at Google Trends[0], it seems they peaked in 21st-century online popularity in 2008 and had another notable uptick in 2017. I think a lot of us want the assholes to have suffered real consequences for their behavior, but want is different from did. [0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F04rcr&hl=en-US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...
    - petre 8mo ago
      Yeah, they're popular like Ariana Grande is after the Manchester bombing. But just about everything they released after the Black album is kind of lame. The Budapest tickets sold out pretty fast, but they're still lame regardless if people go to their concerts. Compared to Depeche Mode and other bands that only get better with age, Metallica just play the same old songs or worse. And they're not a cult band like Death or The Sisters of Mercy either.
      - DiskoHexyl 8mo ago
        But they kind of are (a cult band). Most people in the world know Metalica while hardly anyone ever heard any of the Sisters Of Mercy's tracks. Normal people don't care- they just enjoy a ballad or two. I've long since learnt to separate an artist from their art- a fair share of the musicians, actors, directors etc aren't really a decent bunch
        petre 8mo ago
        Not really, they missed that chance when they released Load and Reload and who knows what they did after that. I got fed up with their foray into commercial music and moved on to prog metal and other more interesting stuff. If they had stopped after the black album or continued to release quality works, then things would be different, but they chose money, whining, lawyers and drunk teenagers as an audience. They became lame and popular, which excludes being a cult band. Cult bands are not very popular in fact, as you have yourself pointed out.
      - justsomehnguy 8mo ago
        >> Compared to Depeche Mode and other bands that only get better with age, Metallica just play the same old songs or worse Hah! COuple of years ago I was sipping beer in some local bar and there were some music video running on a TV. Aged angsty men with an "AMERICA YEAH bald eagle screech" vocals and visuals. "What a lame Metallica copycats" I thought. And then the title card shown up...
      - 10729287 8mo ago
  - brunoborges 8mo ago
    You clearly haven't watched Stranger Things
    - allarm 8mo ago
      I have and deeply regret the wasted time.
  - donkeybeer 8mo ago
    I appreciate Metallica but I don't know whats so special about them, that style of thrash metal was already being done on a much more advanced level by bands like Razor at that time, so if you had any personal disagreements with Metallica it seems historically it would have been quite easy to drop them.
    - mlrtime 8mo ago
      Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning are (IMO) classic full albums you listen cover to cover. Doesn't mean they aren't assholes but I'll still listen to them any time.
      - donkeybeer 8mo ago
        As I said I don't mind them, personally they are not in my list of favorite thrash bands, but they are also not in my list of sucky bands, they are competent and accomplished musicians. I just felt anyone shouldn't have felt much emotionality ditching Metallica for whatever reasons as at that time other bands were already playing far more advanced thrash metal.
      - K0balt 8mo ago
        I enjoy them ironically by playing the MP3’s have of their songs that I definitely only ever got from ripping physical media that I definitely did not pirate because fuck Metallica lol.
- iririririr 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - budsniffer95o 8mo ago
    Why are all forums inundated with this ridiculous nonsense? They are "MAGA"? How so? Are people who follow MAGA typically anti-piracy or something? Bizarre.
    - garyfirestorm 8mo ago
      The ideology has an inherent toxicity to it, along with a self own, doubling down on mistakes that would harm you and the others in longer run, embracing silly ideas and a general disregard for niceties. Would have been nice if they didn’t hurt their own fans like that could be simply phrased as ‘being MAGA’
    - throw10920 8mo ago
      It [calling anything you don't like "maga"] is political in-group signalling of a tribal ideology that also serves the dual purpose of destroying the meaning of language. Categorically inappropriate for HN - flag it and move on.
      - amanaplanacanal 8mo ago
        Similar to the way people use "woke".
        throw10920 8mo ago
        Yup, exactly.
        fc417fc802 8mo ago
        Quite similar. I guess serving largely the same purpose that "alt-right" used to. However it's important to note that "woke" at least has legitimate (if politically contentious) meaning outside of its broad misuse as a sort of slur. The other two terms don't have that AFAIK. The case of "maga" specifically strikes me as a spiteful attempt to misappropriate the descriptor (vaguely similar to winnie the pooh) whereas the rise of the other two seems organic.
- Arubis 8mo ago
  Most of their fans didn't know and probably still don't. In my admittedly limited exposure (N=3 or 4), folks I know that were informed on Metallica's behavior in the Napster age that have since purchased anything from Metallica is zero.
Hamuko 8mo ago
Not that surprising considering that James Hetfield has no qualms about his music being used for literal torture. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/19/usa.guantanamo https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/19/usa.guantanamo
- mistrial9 8mo ago
  consider the Virginia Tech football games too.. somehow, that is related?
wnevets 8mo ago
It's even more egregious after watching interviews of a young Lars bragging about trading bootleg cassette tapes.
- aduty 8mo ago
  Lars was always a scumbag.
  - Henchman21 8mo ago
    An insult to scumbags everywhere.
  - maplethorpe 8mo ago
    Probably the best drummer there ever was though.
    - y-curious 8mo ago
      The venn diagram is closer to a circle than you think
    - lazystar 8mo ago
      at the top there's Neil Pert, then a huge gap, then anyone else.
      - Henchman21 8mo ago
        And then, if we grant that Peart is the best of the best, the 100 names that would follow in any sane list, Lars is no where to be seen. I doubt he'd crack the top 250.
    - wnevets 8mo ago
      I doubt anyone in Metallica (even Lars) believes that.
mindslight 8mo ago
I still can't listen to a Metallica song on the radio without feeling a bit sour. I wasn't a die hard superfan or anything, but their songs were pretty good. It really didn't help that they had cultivated this tough guy image and then turned into total whiners about piracy.
- petre 8mo ago
  It all went downhill after Metallica '91. Cover for Whiskey in the Jar, come on. It's okay when everyone is drunk I guess, otherwise just litsten to the Dubliners' version or Thin Lizzy's.
- lovehashbrowns 8mo ago
  I became a super fan for a brief second during the Napster days, that’s literally what got me into metal in the first place. Decades later and I’m still soured on them too. Napster days were so good for music discovery. I mean, they’re better now with all these algos, obviously, but it was weirdly fun to download a track with tons of random strings in the name and end up with some parody Weird Al track and that’s how you discovered something new.
olivierestsage 8mo ago
Another person who I remember really coming out as a villain in that era was Gene Simmons from KISS: "Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars."[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/10/kiss-frontman-we-should-have-sued-them-all/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/10/kiss-frontman-we...
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- halJordan 8mo ago
  Man back when ars was good. Feels like you're pouring salt into a wound posting that link.
- tombert 8mo ago
  Wow, I already didn’t like him. Reading this feels validating.
tombert 8mo ago
IIRC, Dave Grohl actually gave a lot of shit to Metallica, claiming that it would be one thing if this were some indie band selling cassettes having their music stolen, but it's another when multi-millionaires are crying that they aren't getting extra money. Found it: https://youtu.be/Yy45qY9c49k https://youtu.be/Yy45qY9c49k
- codazoda 8mo ago
  His book (maybe he has several) is fantastic.
dostick 8mo ago
As if they are not allowed to make mistakes. If you watched more recent interviews, they understand that it was not cool on their part. Musically once per album they still have some interesting and somewhat innovative tracks still.

reactordev 8mo ago

Killed Napster and forced them overseas to create one of the most toxic streaming platforms for music the world has ever seen. Spotify. Sean Parker used to be cool…

roegerle 8mo ago

how they were able to recover from that is beyond me.

dotancohen 8mo ago
They didn't. I haven't bought a Metallica album since the black album. That was a decade earlier, because everything since sucked, but as I got older I thought about maybe expanding my tastes. I avoided Metallica specifically for their disrespect of their fans.
- DaSHacka 8mo ago
  Did they not? Seems like they're still quite popular, and I knew people in HS (for reference, late 2010s to early '20s) that were big into the band. Additionally, looking at Google Trends[0], it seems they peaked in 21st-century online popularity in 2008 and had another notable uptick in 2017. I think a lot of us want the assholes to have suffered real consequences for their behavior, but want is different from did. [0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F04rcr&hl=en-US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...
  - petre 8mo ago
    Yeah, they're popular like Ariana Grande is after the Manchester bombing. But just about everything they released after the Black album is kind of lame. The Budapest tickets sold out pretty fast, but they're still lame regardless if people go to their concerts. Compared to Depeche Mode and other bands that only get better with age, Metallica just play the same old songs or worse. And they're not a cult band like Death or The Sisters of Mercy either.
    - DiskoHexyl 8mo ago
      But they kind of are (a cult band). Most people in the world know Metalica while hardly anyone ever heard any of the Sisters Of Mercy's tracks. Normal people don't care- they just enjoy a ballad or two. I've long since learnt to separate an artist from their art- a fair share of the musicians, actors, directors etc aren't really a decent bunch
      - petre 8mo ago
        Not really, they missed that chance when they released Load and Reload and who knows what they did after that. I got fed up with their foray into commercial music and moved on to prog metal and other more interesting stuff. If they had stopped after the black album or continued to release quality works, then things would be different, but they chose money, whining, lawyers and drunk teenagers as an audience. They became lame and popular, which excludes being a cult band. Cult bands are not very popular in fact, as you have yourself pointed out.
    - justsomehnguy 8mo ago
      >> Compared to Depeche Mode and other bands that only get better with age, Metallica just play the same old songs or worse Hah! COuple of years ago I was sipping beer in some local bar and there were some music video running on a TV. Aged angsty men with an "AMERICA YEAH bald eagle screech" vocals and visuals. "What a lame Metallica copycats" I thought. And then the title card shown up...
    - 10729287 8mo ago
- brunoborges 8mo ago
  You clearly haven't watched Stranger Things
  - allarm 8mo ago
    I have and deeply regret the wasted time.
- donkeybeer 8mo ago
  I appreciate Metallica but I don't know whats so special about them, that style of thrash metal was already being done on a much more advanced level by bands like Razor at that time, so if you had any personal disagreements with Metallica it seems historically it would have been quite easy to drop them.
  - mlrtime 8mo ago
    Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning are (IMO) classic full albums you listen cover to cover. Doesn't mean they aren't assholes but I'll still listen to them any time.
    - donkeybeer 8mo ago
      As I said I don't mind them, personally they are not in my list of favorite thrash bands, but they are also not in my list of sucky bands, they are competent and accomplished musicians. I just felt anyone shouldn't have felt much emotionality ditching Metallica for whatever reasons as at that time other bands were already playing far more advanced thrash metal.
    - K0balt 8mo ago
      I enjoy them ironically by playing the MP3’s have of their songs that I definitely only ever got from ripping physical media that I definitely did not pirate because fuck Metallica lol.
iririririr 8mo ago
[flagged]
- budsniffer95o 8mo ago
  Why are all forums inundated with this ridiculous nonsense? They are "MAGA"? How so? Are people who follow MAGA typically anti-piracy or something? Bizarre.
  - garyfirestorm 8mo ago
    The ideology has an inherent toxicity to it, along with a self own, doubling down on mistakes that would harm you and the others in longer run, embracing silly ideas and a general disregard for niceties. Would have been nice if they didn’t hurt their own fans like that could be simply phrased as ‘being MAGA’
  - throw10920 8mo ago
    It [calling anything you don't like "maga"] is political in-group signalling of a tribal ideology that also serves the dual purpose of destroying the meaning of language. Categorically inappropriate for HN - flag it and move on.
    - amanaplanacanal 8mo ago
      Similar to the way people use "woke".
      - throw10920 8mo ago
        Yup, exactly.
      - fc417fc802 8mo ago
        Quite similar. I guess serving largely the same purpose that "alt-right" used to. However it's important to note that "woke" at least has legitimate (if politically contentious) meaning outside of its broad misuse as a sort of slur. The other two terms don't have that AFAIK. The case of "maga" specifically strikes me as a spiteful attempt to misappropriate the descriptor (vaguely similar to winnie the pooh) whereas the rise of the other two seems organic.
Arubis 8mo ago
Most of their fans didn't know and probably still don't. In my admittedly limited exposure (N=3 or 4), folks I know that were informed on Metallica's behavior in the Napster age that have since purchased anything from Metallica is zero.

Hamuko 8mo ago

Not that surprising considering that James Hetfield has no qualms about his music being used for literal torture. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/19/usa.guantanamo https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/19/usa.guantanamo

mistrial9 8mo ago
consider the Virginia Tech football games too.. somehow, that is related?

wnevets 8mo ago

It's even more egregious after watching interviews of a young Lars bragging about trading bootleg cassette tapes.

aduty 8mo ago
Lars was always a scumbag.
- Henchman21 8mo ago
  An insult to scumbags everywhere.
- maplethorpe 8mo ago
  Probably the best drummer there ever was though.
  - y-curious 8mo ago
    The venn diagram is closer to a circle than you think
  - lazystar 8mo ago
    at the top there's Neil Pert, then a huge gap, then anyone else.
    - Henchman21 8mo ago
      And then, if we grant that Peart is the best of the best, the 100 names that would follow in any sane list, Lars is no where to be seen. I doubt he'd crack the top 250.
  - wnevets 8mo ago
    I doubt anyone in Metallica (even Lars) believes that.

mindslight 8mo ago

I still can't listen to a Metallica song on the radio without feeling a bit sour. I wasn't a die hard superfan or anything, but their songs were pretty good. It really didn't help that they had cultivated this tough guy image and then turned into total whiners about piracy.

petre 8mo ago
It all went downhill after Metallica '91. Cover for Whiskey in the Jar, come on. It's okay when everyone is drunk I guess, otherwise just litsten to the Dubliners' version or Thin Lizzy's.
lovehashbrowns 8mo ago
I became a super fan for a brief second during the Napster days, that’s literally what got me into metal in the first place. Decades later and I’m still soured on them too. Napster days were so good for music discovery. I mean, they’re better now with all these algos, obviously, but it was weirdly fun to download a track with tons of random strings in the name and end up with some parody Weird Al track and that’s how you discovered something new.

olivierestsage 8mo ago

Another person who I remember really coming out as a villain in that era was Gene Simmons from KISS: "Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars."[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/10/kiss-frontman-we-should-have-sued-them-all/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/10/kiss-frontman-we...

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
halJordan 8mo ago
Man back when ars was good. Feels like you're pouring salt into a wound posting that link.
tombert 8mo ago
Wow, I already didn’t like him. Reading this feels validating.

tombert 8mo ago

IIRC, Dave Grohl actually gave a lot of shit to Metallica, claiming that it would be one thing if this were some indie band selling cassettes having their music stolen, but it's another when multi-millionaires are crying that they aren't getting extra money. Found it: https://youtu.be/Yy45qY9c49k https://youtu.be/Yy45qY9c49k

codazoda 8mo ago
His book (maybe he has several) is fantastic.

dostick 8mo ago

As if they are not allowed to make mistakes. If you watched more recent interviews, they understand that it was not cool on their part. Musically once per album they still have some interesting and somewhat innovative tracks still.