Let's face the facts: I'm a Metallica fanboy. On the face of it, I like Death Magentic, and I especially like how DM seems like an effort to put the Metal back in Metallica. Of course, there are a few things I can complain about, like the clipping issues and how the record seems to have been practically suffocated by the loudness wars.

Death Magnetic is a pretty good piece of metal. It's not as technically interesting as Master of Puppets or ...And Justice for All; however, it's satisfying to listen and bang your head to. That being said, there is a a bit of fatigue involved when I listen to Death Magnetic: it's loud. VERY loud. Death Magnetic is so loud, in fact, that several of the waveforms in the songs actually form a solid bar. For the uninitiated - that's loud. Sure, cranking it up to 11 is cool, but when you're producing a record, sometimes it's nice to turn the knob back a touch.

Case in point: Death Magnetic ripped from Guitar Hero World Tour. Before I get into a comparison of the two mixes, I would like to say that a lot of people hear things differently, and my interpretation may be different than yours. With that being said, I can hear quite a few nuanced sounds in the Guitar Hero rip that I either cannot make out or are so drowned out by the "volume" of CD as to be non existent. That can mean a couple of things:

1. The Guitar Hero mixing introduced some new effects that sound good
2. The tapes Guitar Hero received were actually different takes not used in the final product

Because I don't know either case to be true, I cannot assume there was a problem, therefore I can only express that I enjoy the guitar Hero mix more than the officially released CD. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Distinguishable sounds - I'm able to hear unique sounds that are either not present in the CD release, are clipped (ie: Lars' snare drum in The Day That Never Comes), or simply sound like one long note (ie: Kirk's wah-heavy solo in All Nightmare Long). Notes, especially fast notes, are much more distinguishable. For whatever reason, I find I enjoy this much more enjoyable.
2. Lars isn't kicking my ass - In some songs the drums mix is just too high up. Not that loud drums are a bad thing, but in some songs the drums are a bit too in your face, sometimes drowning out the guitars (which would be fine if Lars was performing a drum solo, but he's not)
3. Subtle sounds are back - There are a ton of effects that I can actually hear in the Guitar Hero mix that I enjoyed; for example, I loved the little laugh in Judas Kiss, and the echo effect in the refrain "Judas lives, recite this vow ..." I was also surprised to hear that Jaymz doesn't growl when he sings "Bow Down!" but it is, instead, layered vocal tracks. Overall, with all of the subtlety restored, the songs tend to sound more badass, rather than just a string of noise.

Now, I wrote that opinion because I wanted to discuss another more pressing opinion: Metallica really doesn't understand just how agile they have to be if they really want to close the gap with the Internet. If Lars' little blurb some months back about not signing a new record deal and doing things solo online still holds water, I'm here to say:

Metallica, you will be eaten alive.

This mini fiasco with Death Magnetic is just an example of how slow Metallica is to react to this kind of shit. On the Internet, a few days of unanswered questions is a shitstorm of rumors, accusations, and blame. So far, we've heard nothing, not even a "fuck you, it's what we wanted" from them.

Simply put: unless Metallica actually gets "Internet smart" - they actually start to trust the community instead of controlling it - they're better off signing a new record contract.