10 Times Metallica Attempted Career Suicide

8. Napster

Metallica was commissioned to record a song (I Disappear) for inclusion on the soundtrack for Mission: Impossible 2. But before it was finished, demo tracks of the song popped up on a file-sharing website called Napster. While it was completely understandable that many music artists were vocally opposed to their music being made available for free, Metallica (mostly Lars Ulrich) led the charge to put a stop to it, threatening to present a list before a grand jury of thousands of Napster users who illegally downloaded their music. The move alienated a lot of fans, who countered that Metallica first built their own career through illegal tape-trading. This controversy destroyed any so-called 'street-cred' Metallica once had. A common response (mostly made by those who regularly download music for free) was that Metallica were already rich, and were now greedy money-grabbers. During this debacle, the media portrayed the band as spoiled and paranoid, terrified of their empire crumbling. As the band's unofficial spokesman, Ulrich himself was singled-out as an arrogant, self-righteous jerk (not entirely unwarranted, considering how badly he presented himself during the proceedings). On the other hand, look what€™s happened since. File-sharing and free downloading have all but destroyed the music business. Ironically, Metallica is one of the only remaining rock acts who haven€™t yet been affected. Their albums continue to sell in the millions, while most artists can no longer make a living on music sales alone. Turns out Lars was right all along. Speaking of which...