[Infowarrior] - Metallica: Open Mouth, Insert Both Feet

[Richard Forno]

Metallica Kills Early Reviews of Upcoming Album
By Eliot Van Buskirk EmailJune 09, 2008 | 1:57:47 PM
Categories: Digital Music News

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/06/metallica-kills.html

Oh, Metallica, why can't you get it right? The band seemed to have  
learned somewhat from the dark days of the Napster debacle by offering  
fans online access to pre-release material and in-studio video  
footage, but now it has apparently unleashed another potentially  
damaging fiasco upon itself by forcing bloggers to take down reviews  
of their upcoming album.

Metallica representatives played the album for The Quietus contributor  
"Bob Mulhouse" in London last Wednesday, after he did what one would  
expect: he posted a review on his blog. They did, after all, invite  
him to listen to it, knowing that he reviewed music online. Soon  
thereafter, the band's management had the review expunged from the  
internet, along with other early reviews that were a result of the  
same listening party.

"Metallica held an album listening party for selected music  
journalists in London this Wednesday past," Quietus editor Luke Turner  
told Blinded by the Hype (via Idolator). "One of the writers was kind  
enough to write a piece about the album which, if you were lucky  
enough to read it before it was taken down, was full of praise about a  
return to form. At no point was the writer ask[ed] to sign a non- 
disclosure agreement. The Quietus and other websites ran pieces on the  
album, but were quickly contacted by Metallica's management via a  
third party and told to remove the articles."

Let me get this straight... Metallica held a listening party for music  
reviewers and was surprised when some of them wrote reviews? That has  
to be a public relations first.

Update: Some sources say that Metallica's representatives requested  
that the reviews were taken down because the listening party heard an  
early mix of the album. It's still unclear why Metallica's management  
didn't require the reviewers to sign non-disclosure agreements if they  
didn't want them to write about it.

"The Quietus kept our article up the longest and, as no non-disclosure  
agreement had been signed, [was] not prepared to remove it merely due  
to the demands of Metallica's management," Turner continued. "We only  
eventually removed the article earlier today to protect the  
professional interests of the writer concerned (the piece was written  
anonymously)."

Ironically, the offending review wasn't even negative: "This album  
could be good, or it could be mediocre – too much depends on the other  
four songs to make a call at this point."

Or, it won't matter because Metallica's foot is even bigger than its  
mouth.