The list of individual bands holding out on Spotify just got shorter by one earlier today. All of Metallica’s music is now available on the streaming service. It’s a bit ironic, considering Metallica’s stance on Spotify predecessor Napster, but Spotify, which now has 20 million users, is paying artists. And since Metallica own all of their own masters as Blackened Recordings, it makes sense that they get on board without a label being involved.
The announcement was made at a press event that Spotify held in New York City, with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich coming out and making the announcement. According to Techcrunch, Lars explained explained meeting his former enemy by saying “when [Sean Parker and I] saw each other a few months ago, we could see that we had been put as adversaries but we had much more in common and sitting down was long overdue. We were younger, maybe somewhat more ignorant to what was going on in the real world. When we sat down and had a heart to heart.” For his part, Parker, who was 19 when he co-founded Napster, said that “when the media began to mount this publicity campaign against Napster, we were taken aback.”
Read Metallica’s statement, which is on their website, after the jump.
We’re beyond excited to announce that music from every single Metallica album is now streaming on Spotify! In our never ending quest for total control of the way our music is presented, we always make it a point to be sure that we are offering you the very best service by partnering with ground-breaking technology companies. So with that said, we are extremely proud to be a part of Spotify, who not only has a proven track record, but is by far the best streaming service.
Spotifywas launched in Sweden in 2008 and has grown into a massive world-wide service with on-demand access to over 20 million songs. You can create and manage all your play-lists, share them with your friends and add to them by importing MP3’s you already own. Now you can also take Spotify with you through their new mobile app.
We’re always looking for more ways to get our music out to you, whether it’s streaming live videos through our tour page on this site or offering downloads of live shows through LiveMetallica.com. Connecting with Spotify was the next logical step and we can’t wait to see what the future brings!
[photo via Techcrunch]
