METALLICAPP

I actually think that Metallica’s Live Metallica website is a cool idea. Even if James’ voice sounds like shit and I’m pretty sure Lars is literally confused about what those sticks some roadie just shoved into his hand are for, a high-quality recording of a show you recently attended is both a cooler and cheaper souvenir than, say, and $400,000 t-shirt (or whatever arena rawk bands charge for merch these days). And I fully support their recent decision to allow single-song downloads. Yes, it’s kind of ironic given the Napster mishegoss, but, y’know, whatever. Metallica aren’t the titans of metal that they once were, but every now and then they do something right.

Now Metal Insider tells us that they’ve launched an iPhone app version of the site, called – duh – Live Metallica:

While at any given time, the $0.99 app features the band’s latest concert streaming in its entirety, the app points back to the band’s Live Metallica website. The site has been selling concerts from 1982-present, but now users can buy single tracks. App users can stream samples of tracks, from the site, then buy them if they like what they hear.

All of which sounds a) pretty reasonable and b) already superior to pretty much any other metal app I’ve encountered thus far.

Now if only a band whose current concerts I appreciate more than Metallica’s would do something like this. Anyone got Joe Duplantier’s digits?

-AR