Metallica's co-manager Cliff Burnstein has defended the sound quality of the band's new album, 'Death Magnetic', after it was criticised by fans.
The album, which has sold over a million copies worldwide in less than two weeks, has been described as too loud on some Metallica forums.
Fans criticisms of the Rick Rubin produced effort have focussed mainly on the CD version, which they claim doesn't sound as clean as the edition that's available via the video game Guitar Hero.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Burnstein tried to dampen the criticism, claiming that 98% of listeners have voiced a an "overwhelmingly positive” response.
"There's something exciting about the sound of this record that people are responding to,” he added.
But Ted Jensen, who mastered the 'Death Magnetic', has already distanced himself from the album.
In a message to fans, he wrote: “I'm not proud to be associated with this one.”
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- Love the album...the songs are great, however, the sound quality is not. At first I thought that my headphones were just old and broken. Then I listened to the album through my studio headphones, and it was still there.
The album sounds distorted at times, which is a bit disappointing but not enough to ruin the album for me. I just listen to it at a lower volume and rock out. Plus, I’m sure that these songs are going to sound great live.
- I bought the CD the day it came out, and I love every second of it. I cant even look at the Metallica message boards anymore. Its just a bunch of fanboys who claim they hear clipping on the album. I havent picked up on any defects in my copy, and I havent stopped listening to it since. Death Magnetic is a masterpiece. Go out and buy it!
- Metallica has drop the H-Bomb in the Loudness War, it’s a nice contribution to kill music.
- My first experience with the strange sound quality was with the streams made available before the album release, which I assumed was a result of some sort of download deterrent to preserve record sales. After buying the CD, the quality is not improved. Track 8 @ 4:30 - perfect illustrated example of the garbled sound. Bass and low E palm mutes are distorted - horribly. The album is awesome, it just wasn’t recorded or mastered properly. Compression errors perhaps? Audio skips in places
- FANBOY??? Only REAL metallica Fans Care on how it sounds,and it’s BAD,so your the Fanboy you fly by night EMO metallica fan
» View all 14 comments~ by Funkywanderer 9/25/2008 Report
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~ by Matt the Metclub Member 9/25/2008 Report
~ by FIXTHE CD 9/25/2008 Report