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Metallica to Release New Album in Guitar Hero
15-Jul-2008
Written by: Ray Padgett
Hard rock veterans will release new album, “Death Magnetic,” as a video game download the same day it arrives in stores.
Ever since Metallica took the helm of the fight against Napster in 2000, the hard-rocking quartet has garnered a reputation as resistant to new technology. That might change, however, as they embrace the latest music-world trend: Guitar Hero.
Buzz has been building this year for new album Death Magnetic, their first since 2003’s poorly received St. Anger, but release details have so far been sketchy. At the annual E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles though, Activision, the company behind the Guitar Hero video game, made the formal announcement: Death Magnetic would be released via Guitar Hero III in September.
Though the band’s older songs have been in the video game before, this marks the first time any group has released a full album in the playable format.
“It's exciting, 27 years into your career, to be doing something first,” said Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. “In 5 to 10 years it'll be a normal thing to release an album to Guitar Hero the same day as the record.”
The decision to put out the gaming version the same day as the CD was partly informed by a recent surge in popularity as a result of their previous songs in the game.
“Dad's a little cooler than he was yesterday,” said Ulrich. “I now have a 7-year-old whose favorite band is Mountain, and a 9-year-old who's into Black Sabbath and Danzig” — all of whom have playable tracks in the game. “It's a great way for kids to be exposed to stuff that transcends generations.”
Metallica is not the first rock band to use the format to revive their career. In September 2007, the Sex Pistols reunited to re-record their classic “Anarchy in the U.K.” for the video game.
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