Metallica Scolds its Own Management for Having Censored Reviews

The last couple of days Metallica (already made notorious by its stance against Napster some time ago which cost it a great number of fans back then) was targeted again in the news as a result of what seemed another highly uninspired move from the band with regards to its relationship with the Internet.

The heavy metal band that once wrote history on the rock scene invited critics in London to attend the audition of six new songs from the band's forthcoming album. After the “listening party” those critics/bloggers wrote reviews on the material that they had listen to. In spite of the fact that a non-disclosure agreement hadn’t been stipulated the band’s management asked the blogs to remove the reviews about the new album.

The irony is that almost all the reviews in question were favorable!

Luke Turner the editor of The Quietus made a statement to the music blog Blinded by the Hype. "The Quietus kept our article up the longest and, as no nondisclosure agreement had been signed," he wrote, "[we were] not prepared to remove it merely due to the demands of Metallica's management. We only removed the article earlier today to protect the professional interests of the writer concerned."

But just when everybody was sure Metallica had gone insane the story took a turn – the band had no idea what was going on as it had been on a few weeks European tour. Their blog reads:

While we occasionally enjoy reading the various comments, rumors, speculation, reviews, gossip and all the good that the internet brings, rarely do we feel the desire/need to respond to the "blogosphere" . . . hey, everyone is entitled to have their thoughts and opinions, right? However, once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites. Our response was "WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record. . . that makes no sense to us!”" So after a few rounds of managerial ear spank and sentencing everyone at Q Prime to 20 push-ups each, we figured why not take matters into our own hands and just post the links here on our site. Kerrang, Metal Hammer, The Quietus.

You see, we have maintained an "in the press" section here on Metallica.com for many years now, posting links to reviews of shows, album and DVD releases, and various other tidbits we've come across while surfing around. Some good, some not so good, but we put 'em all up . . . sort of the same way we treat our message boards on this site . . . welcoming all feedback.

So in the spirit of keeping this section current, we've put as many of the reviews of the rough mixes of the new record up here as we could find. If we missed any, let us know . . . and in the meantime, we're always adding, so peruse at your leisure.

The Quietus, welcomed the news and was comforted by how the things turned out "Because of their magnanimous behaviour we'd like to apologize for suggesting that they were insane and for claiming that they hadn't done a good album since the tragic death of Cliff Burton—arrant nonsense by anyone's standards, let alone our own."

So, now that we can rest assured Metallica is still paying attention that a certain normality is kept with all the management’s blunders, we’re waiting to see what the The Four Horsemen will treat us with on the upcoming album.