Metallica Music

Death Magnetic

To understate the issue, the 2000s were quite a decade for Metallica.

Metallica signed off the 1990s with their S&M performances with the San Fransisco Symphony Orchestra (conducted by the late Michael Kamen). The album of the show entered the Billboard 200 at number 2. Not a bad way to end a decade.

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Mustaine and HetfieldThere was a really interesting interview on Blabbermouth the other day with Dave Mustaine. He was lead guitarist of Metallica from 1981 to 1983 when he was kicked out of the band. He went on to a successful career with Megadeth as a skilled front man but they never reached the heights that Metallica achieved. Well there has clearly been a bit of a feud raging over the years and the outspoken Lars Ulrich has sparred with Mustaine in the press. The whole thing came to a head with the Some Kind of Monster documentary when they met up and talked about what had happened with disastrous results. Read more

Metallica iPhoneMetallica seem to have embraced the idea of digital music downloads now with the release of their dedicated iPhone application. The app is called Live Metallica and it costs $0.99. Once you have it installed on your iPhone you can stream remixed recordings of live Metallica shows from around the world. The latest show is provided for free and you can also access samples from their archive and then buy the ones you like directly through the app. Read more

Well it has been a busy summer so far for Metallica so let's take a look at what they've been up to lately. Most recently they played at the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth. The long tradition of rock at Knebworth continues and Metallica closed the show in front of 80,000 fans. They last played here back in 1986 and this time around they declared it the highlight of their European Tour. They fired through an energetic 2 hour set and even paid tribute to Queen who played their last ever gig at Knebworth alongside Metallica back in 1986.
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There haven’t been any posts in a while so here is an update on the latest Metallica news in a compact round up fashion for your convenience.

Hetfield Ill Cancels Stockholm Gig
The band was due to perform at the Stockholm Globe Arena but just minutes before the gig was due to kick off fans were told it was cancelled. Front man James Hetfield was taken to hospital with a stomach bug and dehydration. A message from him was later posted on their official site saying it was either a 24 hour bug or bad oyster. The gig is rescheduled for May 4th.

Rumoured Surprise Show
There are rumours that the band will play a surprise gig in Texas on the 20th to promote the release of their branded Guitar Hero title. Supposedly the gig will be at Stubb’s in Austin which only holds just over 2000 people.

Slayer Slag Off Death Magnetic
The singer and bassist in Slayer, Tom Araya did an interview with MTV recently and had time to slag off Death Magnetic. He laughed about the songs being too long with too many riffs and bad arrangements. Read more

Metallica got a number of nominations at the Grammy Awards last night and they won a couple of them. They won Best Metal Performance for My Apocalypse and Best Recording Package for Death Magnetic.

Producer on Death Magnetic, Rick Rubin also picked up the award for Producer of the Year and in addition to Metallica he worked with an eclectic bunch including Neil Diamond, Jakob Dylan, Dancing For The Death Of An Imaginary Enemy and Weezer. He has been credited with working his revitalizing magic on the band and contributing to their best album for years.

They also got nominated for Best Rock Instrumental with Suicide and Redemption but missed out to Peaches En Regalia by Zappa Plays Zappa Featuring Steve Vai and Napoleon Murphy Brock. Their other nomination was for Best Rock Album with Death Magnetic but in the end the award went to Viva La Vida by Coldplay.

Metallica have won a number of Grammies over the years but their last award came back in 2004 and it was Best Metal Performance for St. Anger. Read more

In 1991 the band released an album entitled simply Metallica which is commonly known as the Black Album. It went straight to number one and stayed there for four weeks, selling millions of copies worldwide and over 15 million in the US alone. This album marked a new direction for Metallica and the radio friendly tracks were hugely popular with the mainstream public. The album got terrific reviews from critics and Metallica’s fan base grew dramatically over night.

The cover of the album is black with the Metallica logo top left and the coiled snake from the Gadsden flag bottom right, the Gadsden flag was one of the first US flags ever created and it was used during the American revolution, the original flag was bright yellow with the snake motif and emblazoned with the motto “Don’t Tread On Me”.

The album was produced by Bob Rock and came in at just over 62 minutes with an array of popular tracks. Read more

Some Kind of Monster is essential viewing for Metallica fans. It is a gripping documentary which was released in 2004 and it offers a behind the scenes insight into the relationships within the band and their struggle to record the St. Anger album.

A camera crew followed them around from 2001 until 2003 and, while the documentary was originally meant to be a straight forward look at how they recorded the St. Anger album, it proved to be a much deeper project which revealed the inner workings of Metallica warts and all. Read more

Metallica embarked on their World Magnetic Tour back in October 2008 and after over 30 gigs across the United States they are continuing with several concerts across Europe until the end of July 2009. They’ve always been a great live band and so it should come as no surprise that virtually all their gigs have sold out. In fact if you are desperate to see them on this tour and you haven’t got a ticket yet you are running out of time. The only remaining dates which haven’t yet sold out are the Novarock festival in Austria on June the 19th and Rock Werchter in Belgium on July the 5th.

If you are looking for tickets then check these links Novarock Festival and Rock Werchter. By the way the Rock Werchter tickets don’t go on sale until February the 14th.

Reports from the US gigs suggest that the aging band can still put on a great show and as usual they have impressive stage props and all sorts of pyrotechnic effects. Read more

…And Justice For All was released in 1988 and evidence that Metallica were now a huge band came in the form of a number 6 position on the US Billboard top 200 and a number 4 position in the UK album chart. The album would go on to sell over 8 million copies in the US alone and it propelled Metallica to a new level of fame.

This was Metallica’s first album with new bassist Jason Newsted and despite being a fantastic attack on injustice and war with thought provoking lyrics and tight skilful musical performances it did receive some criticism because of the dull production and the fact that Newsted’s bass track was deliberately turned down. The band was slow to accept Newsted as a replacement for Cliff Burton and they wouldn’t let him forget it. Read more