Metallica Backs Bloggers, Lectures Management

This, is an old story but I’m bringing it up for very good reasons.  Awhile back, Metallica had to lecture their management for doing something that could have been online suicide for the band:  they deleted and removed early reviews of their stuff from the blogosphere.  Oops!  At any rate, the band did something rather unprecedented for them, and even apologized to the bloggers that had been wronged.  Wow.  The Metallica I remember is the same Metallica that went straight after Napster all gun’s blazin’ and even pointed some nasty fingers at online music, NOT the type of guys to yell at their own management for being too harsh on some bloggers that reviewed their early demos of their newest material.  Turns out, Metallica of new, is not the Metallica of old and I’m pleased as punch to see that.

That’s right, the heavy metal rockers backed their blogger fans and the reviews they posted after their management demanded that the bloggers/critics take down the posts.  The silliest part of the managements decision to have the posts removed was that the early rough cut tracks that the bloggers were reviewing were given TO them and invited to review BY the band.  Oops.  Here is the statement Metallica offered up after they caught wind of the unfortunate censorship:

“Once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites,” they wrote. “Our response was ‘WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record… that makes no sense to us!’”

There you have it, Kudos Metallica, I like what I see here.  So basically, they gave their management a good lecture, reposted the links to the reviews and all was happy in Heavy Metal Land.  What this all means to me is, do you think this is a trend that will be continuing?  Do you think early, rough demos or rough cuts will be “leaked” to certain bloggers and online critics early to help the band, any band, gauge how it might go over?  I know Nine Inch Nails have done some pretty progressive things when it comes to online marketing, who will be next?

Sound off, what do YOU think the “future” of this will be?  Will music bloggers be reviewing things that is motnhs away from launch?  What do you think?

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