Metallica's Death Magnetic: DOUBLE PLATINUM
It was announced today by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), that Metallica's latest album titled "Death Magnetic" has gone double platinum for shipments in the United States of over 2 million copies. "Death Magnetic" was released on September 12, 2008, and it was considered by many the comeback everyone was eagerly waiting for. From the moment you start listening to this album, you know it's an instant classic.
Many Metallica fans were happy with the results, but some complained that the record was over-compressed and it sounded distorted. What many don't realize is that since the turn of the century, almost every single Heavy Metal album is over-compressed. If you grab all the Pantera albums for example and play them back to back, you will realize how much louder their last album "Reinventing the Steel" is compared to all their other records. This all happened once radio became a volume competition between bands, since not that many stations were playing Heavy Metal. So if a certain record wasn't loud enough, fans would not pay much attention to it since it lacked power compared to the other records. As we know Heavy Metal is all about power, so what was all the complaining about? I think people are always going to look for something to attack Metallica with.
We remember watching VH1's "That Metal Show" when they discussed the album, and the bottom line is that it is a great album full of amazing songs. We congratulate the Metallica clan for selling over 2.5 million copies in times when people are not buying music. Here are some quotes from Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich, during an interview with "The Pulse Radio" in October of 2008:
"I listen to this record, and I listen to it every couple of days," he said. "And when I hear it, it puts a smile on my face and it blows me away, and I don't understand what people are talking about. Somebody told me the other day that there were 12,000 people that had signed a petition to remix the record. We've sold two and a half million copies (Worldwide) of 'Death Magnetic'. You do the math yourself."
Related links:
Metallica's Official Site