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

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry | 1984

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.

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