They sold something like 100 million albums in the 1990s and angered a generation of Napster users by showing up at hearings and making it publicly known that they felt anybody sharing their music were thieves.
With the current crop of music rhythm games available on every platform, some might expect Metallica, the biggest metal band in the world and one of the biggest-selling acts of any genre, to be against their music showing up in places like "Rock Band," or "Guitar Hero."
The foursome has embraced the new music outlet (it took a little while) and the release of its newest disc, "Death Magnetic," (celebrated at the Dnews by our own critic Scott Iwasaki, read it here: Metallica is back) was released the same day on CD and on Xbox Live for the game "Guitar Hero III".
As far as I know that is a first but I am sure it will not be a last. Classic albums have been made available on the system from bands like The Cars and Rush but this one was available on its release.
The amazing thing about all of this is that after reading on the wire that a producer called the "Guitar Hero III" version superior in its production values to the CD version I thought I better give it a careful listen. Turns out he was right.
The GH3 version sounds clearly superior; it is definitively better. I don't know if Metallica wants to hear that, my friend Iwasaki might not even want to know that (and he is right, it is a great Metallica album) but it is clear.
I am not alone. Victor Godinez of the Dallas Morning News says that the downloadable version will become the definitive one over time and the band will release the GH3 version of the album for those who can't get it that way. There is even an audio comparison on YouTube that I am happy to link to. The only problem with this is a lot of desktop speakers aren't going to be good enough to highlight the differences that are obvious on a home system. Still, have a listen.
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