Metallica's cowardly silence on Palestine shows that “And Justice For All” was a hoax
As Antonio Gramsci argued, ruling groups maintain power partly by making their ideas seem like common sense. This helps explain the political significance of Metallica’s call for disengagement at a time when Israel’s genocide in Palestine demands urgent international attention. Hetfield’s vague agenda of “love, energy and heavy music” ultimately amounts to a refusal to stand for anything meaningful. And that refusal is itself deeply political.
105 replies
Ride The Fence
The shitty Metallica members don't fall far from the Lars...
ba dum tshhh
(out of tempo)
I’ve said it before. Metallica are the old prejudiced white guys of metal. They’re rich and fly around in private jets. They had all kinds of anti-establishment and anti-war lean in their early music and they have walked back those lyrics to “not really mean what they say” these days. Their concert parking lot tailgaters fly Trump flags, thin blue line flags, Gadsden flags, and and firearms flags. Just like the concert attendees wearing clothes featuring Grunt Style, raggedy flags and punisher logos. Then they tour with performative military rock bands like Five Finger douche punch.
They were anti-authority metal that grew up, made money, and decided to be the ones holding the batons and riot guns instead. And they sued fans, ruining lives over money that didn’t affect their rich asses one bit.
Fuck Metallica.
They also love to make a big thing about donating money thats not even theirs.
was like 6 years or so ago, tthey made a big deal about donating 250 grand to a romanian childrens hospital.
I said that was a bullshit amount that was perfectly calculated to sound like a lot of money to poor people, without being an actual lot of money, and that it was little more than them buying publicity and advertising, because that 250k was a fuckload cheaper than actual advertising cost, but it got them wall to wall coverage.
and people ripped my ass open in all 8 cardinal directions for it
and it ended up the money didnt even come from them, it came from mastercard it was just funneled through some charity they supposedly control. So they got all the fame for it, without costing themselves one single goddamn cent.
What's a thin blue line flag?
Support the police flag and I don't mean the band.
Got it, thanks.
Metallica stop being relevant when they started suing everyone proving that their lyrics had no bearing on reality and their greed knew no end.
Sad but true
Metallica lost me with the Napster shit. No moves on their part since then have corrected that course.
You mean Metallicock.
They have always been awful people (even if I do enjoy their earliest albums)
Their documentary is a painful two hours of the whiniest, most insufferable, overprivileged, man babies. If you ever think the Napster bullshit was a temporary blip, there’s ample evidence that the rot goes all the way through:
https://youtu.be/eTeat_IN0SU?is=lPkgJq-_WWxE-gtH
there is an unintentional trilogy out there :
They don't even know how to treat their own members with dignity and respect.
Fire, bad!
Beer, goooood!
I got that reference
Did anyone expect Metallica to be principled? They're copyright trolls for decades, something tells me moral backbone isn't their strong suit.
Olivia Rodrigo is more metal than Metallica
Been a metalhead my whole life and fully agree with this statement.
Metallica is the Walmart of metal.
Her music isn't my cup of tea, but I absolutely love everything she stands up for and what she does. Metallica knows a lot of their base are probably MAGA and I bet most of the band vote MAGA. Fuck those assholes.
Would say the same, maybe because of the age gap. Yet many of her songs are earworms which I enjoy. And I love this collab with Robert Smith from her recent album: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8cXUpBguRTA
Have you heard Vampire? I agree completely otherwise, but her vocals in that are AMAZING!
For me it was the lyrics in Brutal
Vampire was an instant earworm for me when it came out, because I'm a sucker for the Creep chord progression. That, and her energy in the song.
So it makes the occasional appearance in my otherwise mostly metal-dominated song rotation.
Ironically(?) her cover of Creep a while ago was the first time I heard her voice. It did make me go, "Huh. Not bad at all."
They have always been posers. Less metal than a BYU Glee Club.
I grew up in the 80s, and this is just not true, they were metal AF. However, in the 90s they decided to become Bon Jovi, and these days they belong musically in "classic rock", and their mentality belongs in "out of touch millionaires".
I'd agree, except I'm guessing glee clubs aren't allowed at BYU because happiness and music are considered sinful.
Music in general isn't sinful. There's acceptable music - the church's own song books and anything deemed "wholesome." Lindsy Stirling or whatever flavorless trend is on tap.
So, a small group of lily white return missionaries performing their "new" and "unique" a capella version of "I'm a Believer" would be put on a pedestal and promoted to death.
The music I enjoy is definitely on their "no play list."
They also have a pretty famous choir…
But fuck their weirdo religion and the damage it does around the world.
Had James just not brought it up, it wouldn't be a problem. I don't think that bands are required to bring up politics and defend a side. Sheeran had his hand forced and at that point had to pick a side, and he fucked up. The only reason Metallica is getting scrutinized is because Jamie boy had to make some dumbass comments about not getting political while taking a shot at Macklemore. I was at a concert last weekend, and no bands said anything to draw themselves into a political discussion, and they're not in the headlines now. It's simple.
Exactly. Silence was an option.
They just had to go be the musical version of a pick-me, not like other bands! "We don't do politics" he said, doing politics.
It is not even political to be anti genocide
I'm an anarcho-communist and with the current state of the discourse around the word "political" I think I could fairly claim communism isn't political.
Communism is an economical system. The way to achieve is is what is political. Same with Palestine saying free Palestine or i do not want palestinian to be killed is humanitarian, now if you say I support a one state or a two state that's the political side
Palestine is a political group. All nations are. All cultures are.
But if "political" just means "whatever I think should be controversial", then communism is apolitical.
Politics is the inevitable outcome of humans interacting with each other in groups. Once you get past the 2 person mark politics start to form, mind you it's not the grand systems one may think of but it is politics.
Free Palestinians mean free it's people which is humanitarian not political
And I just wanna protect people from the evils of capitalism. It's humanitarian, not political.
For sure. I don't think that the conversation has to take place in every setting though. Like I don't bring up Palestine in every conversation I have. If someone else brings it up, they get to hear my thoughts. If Metallica didn't want to be associated with the topic, don't bring it up politics at all. I don't agree with Sheeran's response at all, but I do have some level some sympathy that he was forced into the conversation, but that's it. If he were a better person, he could have garnered insane amounts of support, but he's not, so he didn't. Hell, he could have even shielded himself to some extent by just saying that he disagrees with the actions taken against Macklemore and left it at that, even if he carries shitty views. He doubled fucked up by not supporting his friend and by siding with Israel.
In case of Ed, he said to Mac privately that free Palestine hurt genocidal people feeling. That the disgusting thing about Ed. He didn't have to say that
Metallica died with Cliff Burton
Ot is not cowardness to bring the topic. He is simply a genocide supporter
it should have been Lars
Posers
This is so disappointing...is it ok to still listen to their old stuff and just pretend that they broke up after Master of Puppets?
Personally, this situation would fall into issues I have with other bands/authors/popular figures and how I handle their material. If I own copies of their media, whether on CD or downloaded files or physical books, I will continue to listen to or read it if I do enjoy it. I will no longer purchase anything new, stream on any platform, or borrow anything from the library as a way to show my non-support.
An example: I loved Coraline by Gaiman. That guy is a gross creep, but I already own a copy of the book and the Blu-ray, so I keep my copies and do not purchase anything I do not already own.
Edit: fixed some grammar because I’m a dork
Is it actually true about gaiman though? Such a bummer if so. I love his writing.
Yeah, like Soggy said, it’s really bad and he hides behind kink, which as a person who is into kink, it really grosses me out because consent is so important in that space. Any seriously problematic author or musician that is that bad, I just can’t support.
That said, if I saw something at the thrift store by a problematic creator, I would consider purchasing it because they don’t get money for it. My favorite thrift store supports the animal rescue where I adopted my rabbits from. They have books and CDs for a dollar so I’m ok buying from them if it’s a piece of media I truly want to absorb and the money would go to a good cause.
Paying my bunny tax
The accounts about Gaiman are truly reprehensible. Nauseating, even. Dude's a rapist hiding behind kink and non-traditional relationships. (Amanda Palmer is also revealed to be a predatory sociopath at best)
Gaiman didn't do any of the real work on teh film, so feel free to enjoy it
The Sandman is what hurts me, but again, he just wrote the words and made the story. There were lots of other people involved and they arn't creepy assholes
Yeah, but at least for streaming it, I worry about any royalties that may go to him, so I just avoid that risk since I have it on disc. I feel your pain 💚
I still have disturbed on my lifting playlist, but I’ve dumped gaiman and die antwoord. Regardless, it was pirated anyways
I do miss Die Antwoord and haven't found anything else that hits quite the same. Wish I had known the depths of their shittiness before buying a couple vinyls.
What did Disturbed do?
David Draiman (lead singer) did a photo op signing IDF missiles with a sharpie.
In June 2024. Well into the genocide.
That's disturbing.
Very much so.
Jesus fucking christ.
I really liked some of his covers, but that was beyond grotesque to see.
100% get it
I think it's a bad idea to let later knowledge ruin music.. usually (yes there are some exceptions..don't read about the band Lostprophets...). Metallica is a band of idiots with bad selfish opinions. That doesn't mean they didn't make good art decades ago.
You can, but you should know deep down that most of their lyrics are just “bandwagon rides” and pretentious.
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🦜
Let it happen naturally: all you have to do is pay more attention to the things Hetfield and Ulrich say and do, then their music will become nauseating. Or don't and continue to enjoy them, who cares.
Lucky for me I was a Megadeth fan and ignored Metallica over the Mustaine drama when I was a teenager, so when they went mask-off over Napster I locked in my opinion that they suck.
Mustaine is a rightwing douchebag, so its all shit
He sure is. I still enjoy the old Megadeth though.
he was great when he drank a lot
lol
Maybe he was drunk when he wrote "Sweating Bullets". No matter what that guy does (within reason) that song remains awesome to me
Yeah I stopped paying attention to him and Megadeth when he went all super-christian.
I liked both but as others said, both bands have bad political opinions. I think you can still enjoy music while knowing the creators are not great people. As long as they're not murderers or rapists or something awful like that.
I didn't say not to enjoy music if the artists are idiots, just saying you naturally won't miss the music after finding out enough that's intolerable about the artist. What is intolerable is up to you, and the opinions of others is what I meant by 'who cares', I should have finished the sentence: "... who cares what others think."
i never give a shit about if an artist is a terrible person. im just listening to music
Music is a core part of culture, and a large part of how one’s worldview is created and normalized. Listening to music made by assholes has potential to make you a bigger asshole.
And justice for some
Specifically, the rich white folks.
Who's getting their political takes from celebs or artists? Stop.
Getting them from random anonymous weirdos in the internet = much better
🤨🫸 "getting political takes from celebrities"
😎👉 "choosing artists for their political takes"
Art has been political since the invention of art. You cannot separate the two.
Who's still convinced in 2026 that celebs and artists are all as politically knowledgeable and insightful as the most ignorant and superficial ones?
Stop.
Rage against the machine is very popular for their political takes, so i guess a lot.
Plenty of apolitical people do. Is it a good idea? Prolly not. Has that stopped them before?
Ever spoken out loud to another human? Probably most do.
fuck em Dethklok > Metallica
Seems kinda weird to pick on Metallica. None of their music strikes me as anti-colonial or revolutionary. I suspect that if the band wanted to air their politics, they'd do it on FOX news anyway. Their fans are all genX white men; they'd be fools to "come out" as liberal, much less revolutionary.
And who cares about Metallica? They only have one good album and it was released in 1984.
It is self-inflicted because Hetfield chose to be a massive hypocrite on stage by giving a little speech about not being political while shitting on Macklemore for being political.
If he had taken the apolitical option to keep his mouth shut and just play the music, then I'd agree it's weird to randomly single out Metallica. They've always been bootlicking hypocrites, it's nothing new.
I think he was more targeting Haley Williams from Paramore wasn't he?
Metallica infamously got Napster (the original music download site) shut down, which empowered the RIAA (and later the MPAA) to go on an anti-piracy crusade, which locked down access to a lot of media.
Granted, the RIAA has been fighting that fight for decades, but it was the legal justification they needed (and public support from one particular band) to start targeting individual people to make examples of. I remember they sued some grandma who didn't know how computers work because her teen grandchild downloaded an MP3 to her computer. They put her in debt for the rest of her life. They went after children too.
And this was around the time that torrenting started, which was a convenient way to download data on the Internet without over-taxing a singular computer. But because media pirates were using the new format to share music and movies, the RIAA and MPAA targeted torrenting itself as a tool of piracy, which limited its use professionally. To this day, thanks to them, torrenting is pretty much exclusively viewed as a way to pirate illegal content.
Fuck Metallica.
You don't need to have “anti colonial” tag to speak about Palestinian children being slaughtered live on front of your eyes.
Also i disagree that all their fans are white men (whatever the fuck that means), i think Metallica is or maybe was a big global band that have enormous fanbase all over the world (literally).
The message the article tries to deliver is basically calling out fuckface Hetfield, as he is going political (in a negative way) with his recent pesudo-love and anti-politics rhetoric.
Also, they come across as tools. They’re the last band I’d want to hear politics from.
Though I will disagree, their music is fantastic. Even short hair Metallica has great songs.
Everything post-Mustaine has been extremely mid at best
If you said everything post-black album, I'd agree. I kinda liked Load and Reload even, though.
I’d argue that’s a loud but unpopular opinion
I stand by it idgaf
It'd be weird if you backed down from an internet fight in 30 minutes
It’s how I expect all my internet fights to go.
📠
Why bringing the topic to begin with ? He clearly threw shade on Mac for no reason
At most they were an anti-cold war, anti-nuke band, not so much with modern politics.
Gotta take the heat off of Sheeran.