Tech

Metallica's discography now available on Napster

by Jeremy Mersereau

Yep, 17 years after Lars Ulrich’s biggest tantrum their high-profile legal battle, Metallica’s entire musical catalogue is coming back to the resurrected Napster, timed with today’s release of the metal legends’ 18th studio album, Hardwired…to Self-Destruct.

“We are thrilled to bring Metallica’s full catalog — including their latest new album — to Napster subscribers around the world,” the OG music downloading platform said in a statement this week.

A lot has changed for Sean Fanning’s peer-to-peer brainchild since its paradigm-shifting inception in 1999: now only the most dinosaur-headed of organizations continue to fight valiantly against the future, and the advent of streaming – paid or otherwise – has made for an uneasy state of affairs in an era of constantly shrinking profits for the music industry.

Now that the company’s has been fully rebranded post-Rhapsody merge as an above-board streaming service and music store with 3.5 million subscribers, heavy metal’s titans deign to allow their entire oeuvre on the service. Yes, even Re-Load.

Back in the heady days of Metallica v. Napster, Inc. – we were so innocent then! – ‘Tallica took Napster to court after discovering an unfinished mix of their Mission: Impossible II soundtrack song “I Disappear” on the service. That would lead to the first major instance of a band suing a peer-to-peer download platform for copyright infringement, which would eventually see Napster file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and be forced to undergo a few rebirths before becoming the Napster we know and love are fine with today. Kind of like Metallica, come to think of it, if the bankruptcy is of the creative sort and came complete with horrible snare tone.

[H/T Billboard]