Somehow, Metallica’s Entire Catalog is Returning to Napster

November 16, 2016


If Slash and Axl can get back on the same stage, then Metallica and Napster can join hands once again as Billboard reports the metal kings will release their entire catalog to Napster 17 years after their infamous battle against the streaming service. 

Metallica will return with a new album Hardwired….To Self-Destruct on November 18 and in a statement Napster said, “The release of Metallica’s new album comes at an incredible time for streaming music with streaming subscriptions accounting for almost half of industry sales in the first half of 2016.” They added, “Today Napster is a legal, paid subscription service. We are thrilled to bring Metallica’s full catalog to Napster subscribers around the world.” 

Drummer Lars Ulrich recently spoke to Rolling Stone about the high-profile lawsuit against the then-popular file sharing network. “With Napster, we jumped straight down to ‘Fuck these guys! Let’s go after them!,” he said. “I underestimated what Napster mean to people in terms of the freedom it represented.” He expanded on the backlash the band received, saying, “It was between us and Napster, and then Napster made it between us and the fans, which was a really, really smart move. That was not the intention. Napster wasn’t about money. It was about commerce. It wasn’t about copyright. It was literally about choice. Whose choice is it to make your music available for free downloads? We were saying, ‘Hang on. It should be our choice.'”

Napster recently struggled with bankruptcy and changeover before bringing in CEO Mike Davis to run the streaming service. Napster currently boasts 3.5 million paying subscribers.

Preview one of those new tracks from Metallica, as they play “Master of Puppets” in Guatemala.