Metallica, Oh How You Have Redeemed Yourself
06.09.2003
Whether Metallica has redeemed themselves musically (or even needed to) with their newest album, "St. Anger," is a completely subjective topic for fans and ex-fans to determine on their own (I for one immensely like all their albums). Beauty is, afterall, in the ear of the listener.
The 'tallica boys have, however, redeemed themselves to me after the Napster debacle, caused at least in part by the (in my opinion, erroneous) suit by Metallica vs. Napster.
The debate brought about by their Napster suit produced two overarching suggestions from Metallica fans as well other music consumers. These consumers and Napster users said that if these two things were done, they wouldn't be tempted (or "justified") in trading Metallica's music via Napster or any other method. These two suggestions were:
- Lower cost.
- More value.
Well, like in so many instances before, Metallica has again proven that they are NOT out of touch with reality or their fans. They listened to these two suggestions and followed through with them with their newest album, St. Anger in a big way.
First, they lowered their prices. The most expensive price I've seen for this album has been $14, which even then is much less than most CDs - especially new releases - these days. Furthermore, as of this writing Best Buy has St. Anger for the insanely low price of $10. You read that right, $10. I don't normally promote a particular store, but I felt this was such an incredible price I had to mention it. Also of note is that they also have all of Metallica's previous studio albums on sale as well. (I'm sure these links and prices won't last, so I apologize in advance for the broken links that are sure to occur once this sale ends).
Second, they added value. And did they ever. In addition to the music audio CD, they included a full album length DVD of all the album songs recorded live. How cool is that?
In short, Metallica fans have no room to complain in terms of value, and file traders have NO excuses for trading Metallica's newest album. It's as if Metallica, with their 8th studio album, has said to the file trading community, be careful what you wish, you just might get it.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm full of it?
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