Metallica's latest album 'Death Magnetic' In US

"Death Magnetic", Latest album for Metallica, was officially certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on June 28, 2010 for shipments in the United States in excess of two million copies.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told The Pulse of Radio in an October 2008 interview that he didn't understand the controversy that had broken out over the audio quality of "Death Magnetic" shortly after the LP's release. Some fans and publications had accused the group and producer Rick Rubin of mixing the album at such a loud volume that the music is distorted and difficult to listen to. But Ulrich said that he's more than glad with the way it turned out. "I listen to this record, and I listen to it every couple of days," he said. "And when I hear it, it puts a smile on my face and it blows me away, and I don't understand what people are talking about. Somebody told me the other day that there were 12,000 people that had signed a petition to remix the record. We've sold two and a half million copies (worldwide) of 'Death Magnetic'. You do the math yourself."
A number of fans said online that they prefer the versions of the CD's tracks prepared for the Guitar Hero video game, which are mixed differently.
Ted Jensen, the engineer who mastered the album at Sterling Sound in New York, responded to fan complaints that the CD is too loud and the audio is pushed to distortion levels by writing, "I'm certainly sympathetic to your reaction, I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case the mixes were already brick walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me, I'm not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else."
Mastering is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device, the "master," from which all copies will be produced.
Blame for the sound quality has been laid at the feet of the band itself, producer Rick Rubin and his recording engineer, Greg Fidelman.
Metallica will end the "Death Magnetic" world tour later this fall with shows in Australia and New Zealand before taking a break.

''Some Kind Of Monster' film was a stupid idea', Metallica's Lars Ulrich

Metallica's Lars Ulrich has said that in retrospect he thinks it was "stupid" of the band to allow themselves to be filmed for 2004 documentary Some Kind Of Monster. The drummer told the Sydney Herald Sun that the film, which followed the band during the making of their 2003 album 'St. Anger', was a "mindfuck". They were receiving group therapy at the time."Every time I see Noel Gallagher he quotes lines from that movie back to me," he said. "That thing has taken on a life of its own. I had to live that shit for three fucking years! The whole thing was a mindfuck."He added: "I am aware a lot of other musicians seem to have lived a lot of those moments. They weren't necessarily stupid enough to film them like we were and share them with the rest of the world."

Metallica: Announce 2nd Chch gig

A second Christchurch show Metallica have announced show before tickets for their first show officially go on sale yet.
Because of overwhelming demand from South Island fans during recent pre sale for Metallica's show on September 22, they have announced another show at the CBS Canterbury Arena for September 21.
The announcement comes after fierce online attempts by fans to purchase tickets. MetClub members found the site overloaded. All Visa pre sale tickets to the September 22 were snapped up in 15 minutes despite costing $179.90 plus a whopping $20 booking fee. The Press received dozens of calls from irate fans, unable to purchase tickets from the Ticketek site or by phone with both immediately overloaded when they went on sale at noon yesterday.
Tickets to both shows are available during the MyTicketek pre sale which is available now.
Tickets, limited to four per buyer, go on general sale at 9am on Thursday.
Owner of Real Groovy Christchurch, Paul Huggins, is pleased to hear of another show.
That will make a lot of people glad. We have had people in here who don't have credit cards or are young fans and they said they were going to start queuing outside the door from 3am on Thursday. Even then I didn't like their opportunities of getting tickets. Now it looks like they will.''
Perhaps inspired by the success of Metallica fan Andrea Grom's Facebook page Bring Metallica to Christchurch which has 21,556 members, other Facebook pages have emerged, including Bring 30 Seconds to Mars to Christchurch.
Metallica will now begin the first leg of their Australasian World Magnetic Tour in Melbourne on September 15 and 16, before heading onto Sydney on September 18, then to Christchurch.
The American heavy metal band will then continue on to Japan before returning to Australasia in October and November for their 15 sold out arena shows.
Performing for over two hours, Metallica will feature material drawn from throughout their career including their recent album Death Magnetic.

Metallica: Ulrich Delighted With Movie Debut

METALLICA star LARS ULRICH jumped at the opportunity to make his acting debut in new movie GET HIM TO THE GREEK - because he relished the challenge of relinquishing "control" on the movie set.
The Danish drummer stepped up to play himself in the new comedy alongside Russell Brand, Jonah Hill and Sean 'Diddy' Combs.
Ulrich admits acting in a film was a completely alien experience, but he enjoying being bossed around by the director.
He tells the Sonisphere festival web site, "I got a call from manager (sic) saying that the people who made Forgetting Sarah Marshall were making a new movie with some of the same people and they asked if I would be interested in playing myself. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is really one of my favourite movies from the last couple of years. I thought it was actually well written, actually well directed and the gang involved in it are all great people so I thought it would be interesting to be part of that...
"So I flew down to L.A. and did as I was told for two days. It's always fun to go into other areas and worlds that are unknown. The world of Metallica and the world of music we know so well and we control all the elements of it. You walk onto a movie set, you have to do as you're told and do it with a smile and just play along. It's fun to forfeit control and just be part of a ride like that."

Family Reunion to Metallica

Megadeth's David Ellefson comments on the Big Four of Thrash (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax) sharing the stage together and how it was a bit of a family reunion: "I've always got along well with them. I was never in Metallica so I like them. I think they're great. I've always liked them as guys, I thought they were cool, their band rocks, their records are great. They're just a ferocious live band," he tells Sonisphere.
"As far as the obvious with our whole band and all the bands, honestly, it's great. Metallica have risen to such huge success, it's very cool of them that they would move themselves off of their perch of iconic celebrity to just come back down to this scene of metal, which we've all created together. They've been able to move far away from this scene many years ago through the records they made and the songs that they wrote, which I always admired because most bands can't.
"All four of us have a very different sound even though we all came out of the same gene pool musically and to some degree we all kind of end up as a branch off the Metallica family tree. I mean Dave was in Metallica, I played with Dave, Kerry King played with Megadeth. We're all part of the Metallica fist in some shape or form. It's cool. It's sort of like a family reunion, which is very healthy and a lot of fun."

Another Big Four Show Metallica Announce With Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax

Another Big Show Metallica Announce With Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax was a top story in Feb. Here is the recap: Metallica announced on Thursday that even more fans will have the opportunity to look the Big Four of Thrash share the same stage this summer. Here is the announcement:
We're back . . . and as promised, more tour dates to tell you about with the addition of a Sonisphere show in Athens, Greece on June 24, 2010 at Terra Vibe Park.
We'll be there as part of the "Big Four" of 'Tallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax along with our friends from Mastodon and Bullet For My Valentine. Keep watching here as we'll have the remaining Sonisphere dates for you next week

At a cinema Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth

In quite possibly the heaviest of heavyweight meetings since Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met in Yalta in 1945 to re-draw Europe's map, the Big Four of Metal -- that'll be Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth -- are about to embark on an ear-splitting tour of Europe. From June through until August they will be featured on the Sonisphere touring festival and, as any self-respecting headbanger knows, this the first time the bands have shared a bill anywhere in the world. Ever.And while European fans will delight at the prospect of the touring levelling their locality, global fans have had to look on envy. But not anymore -- on June 22, Team Sonisphere are to redress the balance by broadcasting the four bands' performances from Bulgaria via satellite, live and in high definition into cinemas around the world. Clearly enthused by the prospect of reaching a global audience via the wonders of digital communication, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich gushed in a statement on CMU, "Who would have thought that more than 25 years after its inception, thrash metal's Big Four would not only still be around, be more popular than ever, playing shows together at stadiums all over Europe, and on top of that, coming to a movie theatre near you in high definition (for better or worse!)? Bring it on!"