Metallica Launch "Mission: Metallica"

Nearly a decade after lashing out at Napster because their music was getting out there too early, Metallica will put material from their forthcoming album online on their own terms today with the launch of "Mission: Metallica." The site currently features a trailer for what's to come and the option to sign up for e-mail alerts, but the band promises that users will be able to watch footage of the band in the studio, hear riffs as they are written and enter to win backstage passes for concerts this summer. The band is also advertising something called "Mission: Metallica Platinum," which will provide downloads of live shows and delivery of the physical album the day it comes out, though there is no indication of how much this service will cost. The band promises even more content concepts will premiere on the site in the coming weeks, all of which will lead up to the release of Metallica's still-untitled new studio album, expected in September.

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Song Stories

“Weird”

Hanson | 1997

Accomplished tunesmith Desmond Child co-wrote "Weird" with the three brothers that make up Hanson. Credited for dozens of cuts, including songs by Kiss, Cher, Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, Child told Rolling Stone that "Weird" holds a special place in his heart, "because it's about being different--and I grew up poor, I grew up being Latin, I grew up being gay, and now I'm fat!" The song was included on Hanson's 1997 album Middle of Nowhere, which sold more than ten million units.

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