Metallica Reissues?

Rock N’ Metal Blog 14 – Metallica Reissues?

                Welcome back to the Rock N’ Metal Blog, I’m Connor Rae, and thanks for reading. I really appreciate it. Some may remember that on the last post, I talked about how AC/DC’s catalogue is now available on iTunes. I knew they had all their albums, including the new live record, but what I didn’t know was that there were also the compilations included as well! These compilations are “Bonfire” a box set of material from the Bon Scott era of AC/DC, and “Backtracks”, a 3 disc set of rarities. Both of these are hard to find, and pretty expensive as well on CD, but now that they are finally on iTunes, I was able to get them both!

               Lately, there has been a lot going on in the world of Metallica! On November the 30^th, Metallica took ownership of the all the master tapes of their previous records, as well as visual releases. This was due to the terms of the record deal they re-negotiated back in 1994. Also, Metallica announced their new label, “Blackened Recordings”. They also have a manufacturing and distribution deal with Rhino Entertainment, who is also in charge of promotion and marketing in North America.

                All this is actually similar to something Mötley Crüe did several years ago. Basically, after they finished their contract with Elektra Records with the release of “Generation Swine” in 1998, the Crüe took possession of all their master tapes, making them one of the first bands to do so. Owning the master tapes puts them in complete control of the publishing of their music, and one of the first things they did was reissue their back catalogue, on their new label, “Mötley Records”. The reissues were dubbed “Crucial Crüe”, and had a ton of bonus material, demos, outtakes, even some live tunes recorded on the respective tours. It makes me hope we will see some Metallica reissues in the near future as well.

                The first release from “Blackened Recordings” is going to be a live DVD called “Quebec Magnetic”, which comes out on Monday, December the 10^th. The DVD is documentation of two shows in Quebec City on the “World Magnetic” tour, recorded in the fall of 2009. The track list was decided by a vote held on Metallica’s website (www.metallica.com) which over 35,000 fans voted on which songs they most wanted on the DVD.

Metallica also has a new record in the works. No release date, or title has been given at this point. Lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett has said that the band has begun recording, and that Rick Rubin’s name has come up many times, so we can probably assume he is, or will be producing. Lars has also said that the band has tons of ideas they are throwing around. I’m guessing this will come out mid-to-late 2013, though I wouldn’t write off early 2014 as a possibility. Which brings me back to reissues, when a band switches labels, their back catalogue is almost always reissued under the new label, so you would think Metallica would do this as well. There are many reasons for them to do so. First, some of their albums are very difficult to find on CD at this point, their classics, “Master of Puppets” and “Ride the Lightning” are available in almost every store that sells CD’s but some of their more obscure records, like “Load” and “Re-Load” are nearly impossible to find. Reissuing would not only fix that, but would also boost sales quite a bit. Sales would probably jump because when reissues come out, because the bonus materials usually get longtime fans to buy the record as well as new fans that don’t have the record yet to purchase the new re-release, giving the record a new lease on life.

 Personally, I have “Master of Puppets” and the “Black Album”, as well as most of the other definitive Metallica records, but if there were enough bonus tracks on the reissues I would consider buying them again, as I did with some of the Mötley Crüe reissues, and the 30^th anniversary editions of Ozzy’s first 2 records last year. I don’t have “Load”, “ReLoad” or “Kill ‘Em All”, so these are reissues I would definitely buy, bonus material or not.

After releasing the compilation record “Garage Inc.”, Metallica probably doesn’t have much in the way of B-sides and outtakes to offer, but there are still probably demos and live tunes in the vaults. The Dave Mustaine years are pretty unrepresented in official releases, but if they released a “Kill Em All” reissue, they could have a disc of Dave Mustaine demos, or live recordings, maybe even include the legendary “No Life Til Leather” demo as a bonus disc. Most of the songs on “No Life ‘til Leather” wound up on the debut record anyways, so it would flow really well as a bonus disc, in my opinion.

Keep in mind that all this talk on Metallica reissues is pure speculation; no word has been officially given about plans for reissuing the old records, though I still see a good chance of this happening. After all, it would be the perfect way to tide us over until the new record drops.  Plus, it could also introduce some fans of the classics to some of the more obscure releases.

That’s it for now, if you want to contact me, maybe to tell me what you think would be the perfect bonus material on Metallica reissues, I can be reached at IrishConnor94@gmail.com. If you like the blog, you can follow me on Twitter (@ConnorRae94) for updates on new blog posts, as they come out, or you could submit your email in the space at the top of the page for automatic notifications whenever something new comes out. As always, I’m Connor Rae, and thank you for reading!