Metallica spent the first half of this decade at war with with download services such as Napster, but now they love, love, love the Internet, and as a measure of their affection, they're releasing their entire catalog as a digital box set.
On 31 March, The Complete Metallica, 163 tracks in all, will be available on iTunes, with other digital outlets selling the set 28 April.
It will include the band's nine studio albums - from 1983's Kill 'Em All to last year's Death Magnetic - plus 1998's covers album Garage Inc., the 1999 live set S&M, the 2004 EP Some Kind Of Monster, the 2007 live EP Live From Live Earth, along with the track I Disappear, which the group contributed to 2000's Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack.
The whole kit and kaboodle
In other words, you get the whole kit and kaboodle. And there's more: buyers will receive eight bonus Metallica live tracks: The Four Horseman, Whiplash, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Creeping Death, Battery, The Thing That Should Not Be, One and ...And Justice For All.
No price has been announced the the box set as of yet. Metallica may have kissed and made up with Napster, but even so, we're willing to wager that the word 'free' isn't exactly on the bands' lips.
“They're French. I would say it's a kind of techno prog band”: Elvis Costello reckons that the Brooklyn warehouse gig he saw Justice play was “one of the great shows I've ever been to”
"It has been a bit bewildering for us that Herb would so abruptly opt out": Primus left “in complete shock” by drummer’s sudden departure
