Metallica Announces Launch of New Record Label

Metallica announced today that they have taken ownership of all their master recordings including all music and long form videos, a move almost unprecedented for musicians signed to recording contracts. Under provision of their renegotiated joint venture agreement with the Warner Music Group in 1994, all masters revert back to the band as of today, November 30, 2012.

"We would like to thank everyone at the Warner Music Group for 28 years of a fantastic relationship, particularly since 1994 where we truly felt we had partners in every aspect of our business in North America," said the band's James Hetfield.

Metallica also announced the launch of their new record label, Blackened Recordings. Blackened Recordings was created by the band as a home for all of their recordings, both audio and visual, and anything else that suits them. Blackened Recordings will handle all marketing and promotion duties and will enter into a deal with Rhino Entertainment, who will manufacture and distribute its releases in North America. Blackened Recordings will license their releases to the Universal Music Group internationally.

"It's always been about control for us as a band," said Metallica's Lars Ulrich. "Forming Blackened Recordings is the ultimate in independence, giving us 100% control and putting us in the driver's seat of our own creative destiny."

The first release from Blackened will be QUEBEC MAGNETIC on Monday, December 10, 2012. QUEBEC MAGNETIC is a live DVD capturing the two World Magnetic live shows from Quebec City in the fall of 2009. The set list for the DVD was voted on by over 35,000 fans at Metallica.com this past September. Fans can order it from the band's website: http://www.metallica.com

About Metallica
Formed in 1981 by drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist and vocalist James Hetfield, Metallica (www.metallica.com) have become one of the most influential and commercially successful rock bands in history, having sold 110 million albums worldwide and playing to millions of fans the world over. They have scored almost a dozen multi-platinum albums, including 1991's Metallica (commonly referred to as THE BLACK ALBUM), which is the best selling album in history of Soundscan, scanning almost 16 million albums in the United States alone, and nearly 30 million worldwide. In October 2008, their most recent album, Death Magnetic, debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart and in 27 additional countries around the world. Metallica have garnered numerous awards and accolades, including nine Grammy®Awards, two American Music Awards, and multiple MTV Video Music Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. In December 2011, Metallica celebrated its 30th anniversary, performing four shows at the Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco, CA, exclusively for members of their fan club, the Metallica Club. In 2012, they announced the launch of Orion Music+More, an annual two-day festival curated and headlined by the band. This past summer, Metallica unveiled a brand new stage in Mexico City that featured iconic elements that spanned its 30-year career. They played eight shows to nearly 180,000 fans at the Sports Arena in Mexico City. Later that month the band performed four shows on the same stage in Canada, two in Edmonton and two in Vancouver, during which they shot their upcoming Nimród Antal directed 3D Feature Film.

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