My, how times have changed. It wasn't all that long ago that the heavy-metal band Metallica was known for its strident opposition to online music services such as Napster, which the group claimed were nothing more than a front for piracy.
Now, the band is not only streaming its own unreleased songs through its website - Mission Metallica - and offering fans the ability to download high-quality tracks before their new CD is actually released, but the boys don't even seem to mind that the entire album has leaked online already, apparently as a result of a French record store selling copies before the official release.
In an interview with a radio station in San Francisco on Tuesday, drummer Lars Ulrich - who was the front man for the group during its fight with Napster - seemed to be taking the whole event in stride. "Listen, we're 10 days from release," he said. "I mean, from here, we're golden. If this thing leaks all over the world today or tomorrow, happy days. Happy days. Trust me - 10 days out and it hasn't, quote unquote, fallen off the truck yet? Everybody's happy. It's 2008 and it's part of how it is these days, so it's fine. We're happy."
Ulrich is right about one thing: Leaks have become part of the record business in the digital age, whether bands and record labels like it or not. Artists such as Britney Spears and Gnarls Barkley have reportedly moved up the dates of their album releases because of early leaks, and some artists (such as rapper The Game) have even leaked their own albums online, under the assumption that someone else is going to do it anyway.
At least that way they get to control the quality of the music: In the case of the recently leaked tracks from Chinese Democracy - the long-awaited album from Guns N' Roses - both the band and its label were reportedly upset because the songs weren't finished and didn't sound that great.
For more details and links, please see the Ingram 2.0 blog at http://www.globetechnology.com.
