Metallica's latest WTF moment comes from a Listening Party they hosted in London where they invited journalists to come and listen to a few rough tracks off their upcoming album. Journalism is apparently a new concept to them, because after at least one of these folks posted a review ( a mostly positive one to boot); they were requested to remove the article. Or maybe the page was just a figment of our collective imagination in the first place.
Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, I figured maybe they're just too old (Hetfield turns 45 this year) and simply don't get the web. It's possible, some people just don't grok the whole interweb thing; how to use it, what it's for and the implications of working with it. No matter how much you try and explain it to them, their cranium will simply never absorb how this whole thing works and how to embrace it to make things click.
As it turns out, this wasn't Metallica's WTF moment at all, it was the jack-wit managers of theirs, Q Prime. Take a look at their website and then tell me that it all just doesn't make sense? These guys have an impressive list of artists, but they are the ones who lack the technical grok-how to fully implement a webs trategy for anyone – even themselves. I usually will say any website is better than no website – but not in this case. These guys are with no doubt pullin' back some serious scratch, and yet they have a 1991 style frontpage website? WTF?!
I'll be interested to see if the review ever comes back, and what they have to say about the upcoming album. I hope it's better than the last one, or I might come to the conclusion that the Metallica goodness left along with Jason.
**Update: The reviews are back up before I could even double check the post…. check em out at The Quietus. And I have to say it's an excellent review and while I can see why some would say take it down, what they should be saying is "is it true?" While I don't agree that St. Anger was complete and utter shite, i would say it is by far the worst Metallica album, with Reload coming in a close second.
Mr. Mulhouse you are right sir;
Staying loyal to them after this many years isn’t easy….