Web Series To Explore The Impact Of The Internet On Heavy Metal
from the beyond-metallica dept
One thing I’ve always found especially fascinating about the topic of digital technology and its impact on creative industries is the way different artistic communities react. In music, this often plays out along genre lines: the hip-hop community, for example, has a very different view of internet and copyright issues than the classical music community. Thus it’s always interesting to hear genre-specific opinions on these topics, where broad debates get replicated in microcosm, and interesting parallels appear.
So I’m looking forward to a new five-part web series called On The Record from the heavy metal website Metal Injection (found through the Metalluminati blog). Among the handful of topics the episodes will explore is the question of how the internet has affected heavy metal, and based on the trailer it looks like this will feature heavily in the series:
The reactions from artists and journalists—or at least the ones highlighted there—are broadly positive, and will be familiar to Techdirt readers. The heavy metal world is an interesting venue for this conversation, since for many people the genre is best-known through Metallica, its pop ambassadors, who are famous for suing Napster and being one of the first bands to take a vocal anti-filesharing stance. It’s hardly surprising that their views aren’t representative of the broader metal world, but as someone who knows very little about that community, I look forward to hearing from its more progressive members.
Filed Under: heavy metal, music, technology
Comments on “Web Series To Explore The Impact Of The Internet On Heavy Metal”
The internet impacted so hard it left a crater.
Oh yeeeeah.
m/ I noticed Lars Ulrich’s name was not on the list, shame, it would have been fun.
Speaking of copyright progressive heavy metal artists, I guess you probably already know that Jono Bacon (known for his role in free software as the “Ubuntu Community Manager”) does death metal under the name “Severed Fifth”?
The internet is very good at one thing: getting small pockets of people all over the world together into meaningful communities.
It is (sadly) the same reason why the internet is so popular with pedophiles and other marginal types, because you can meet people with the same interests online that you would never have met otherwise, and get enough like minded people together to form a community.
Metal music waxes and wanes, it gets some popularity, it gets more mainstream, and then falls off the other side into relative obscurity for a while… then comes back again. During those waning moments, the internet is a good place for the smaller fan base to stay in touch.
As Alexei Sayle Described It...
?It was like the First World War! Of course, we had heavy metal back then, but it was called shrapnel in those days!?
Without the tubes half of the world wouldn’t know anything besides Metallica and AC/DC.
Without the tubes half of the world wouldn’t know anything besides Metallica and AC/DC.
I wouldn’t have known about either – except for the cassette tape copies I got back in the 80’s.
After that, I proceeded to buy everything both bands had ever done. Up until the Metallica Napster thing – after that, I didn’t buy anymore or their CD’s.
And man – I have: Kill them All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, And Justice for all on both Cassette (yes still) and CD. All the rest, except for the bootleg ‘alcoholica’ I have on one or the other.
Made me MAD that Metallica had the nerve to make MONEY off of their video that was ALMOST ALL BOOTLEG video – that the band profited off of – which I also bought.
Isn’t the RIAA concerned about the ‘artists’ in that bootleg video???? The ‘artists’ who illegally filmed the video and then gave it to Metallica who then in turn created a video and sold it….
Hypocrites.
Re: Re:
Then there’s bands like Nine Inch Nails who give HD video TO the fans to remix, and doesn’t try to make money on them but actually probably does make MORE money because the giving of some audio/video creates more fans in turn sells more albums and concert tickets.
Beastie Boys are another example, tons of free acapellas for remixing. And if you look at their last couple album releases, along with remaster releases, they were available as Vinyl/CD, high quality .MP3 or .Flac. Actually buying the physical copy gave you access to the digital copies. Then there were bundles with t-shirts, stickers, 7″ singles, etc etc. The added value that Mike’s always preaching about around here.
The Internet has been great for metal...
As a metal fan (but not necessarily a Metallica fan…), I think the internet has been great for metal. I have been able to share high quality recordings of my own band’s stuff for free (at least, it was fairly easy, back when we had megaupload), find all sorts of great bands (and I still buy CDs and music performance DVDs), and meet people who liked the same sort of bands I do — as well as finding out about shows within a 6-8 hour driving radius. The Internet has been fantastic for my own foray into heavy metal.
I have been able to share high quality recordings of my own band’s stuff for free (at least, it was fairly easy, back when we had megaupload), find all sorts of great bands