Banned by Metallica!!!
I was having lunch with the Erics today, and the discussion turned to the new Metallica album. Suddenly I remembered a screencap I took back in the day (8 years ago, actually).
It was summer 2000, and the Internet was a wild frontier: usernames couldn’t have @ symbols or spaces, Google was not a verb, people thought downloading music illegally was awesome, and Metallica set the tone for years to come.
Not with their music, but with their hot and fast legal action. It seemed an abstract thing to see Lars cart away crates of seized download records from Napster HQ on TV. But it hit closer to home to me when one Monday I came into work, booted up my computer, and was informed that my Napster account (Woody_the_Bear) was BANNED BY METALLICA. Sweet!
(Click image for larger version)
That just sounds so frickin’ cool, though, don’t it?
Ironically, I didn’t even download ANY Metallica at the time (nor have I ever), because I thought they sucked and sold out. And now I just encourage everyone to Bittorrent the new Metallica album and bootleg their concerts with their cellphone cameras (I would never do that myself, of course). Or, better yet, I encourage people to support and BUY music from some of these lesser-known, but quite deserving artists instead. (Not that they sound ANYTHING like Metallica, but whatever)
Some of the faves on my current iPhone playlist include:
- http://www.tvontheradio.com/
- http://www.amazon.com/Ruun-Enslaved/dp/B000F1HGW4
- http://www.oceansize.co.uk/
