“ Sad But True ”: Why Metallica ’ s Fans Continue to Fail Them ( and Not Vice Versa ) Twenty Years After the Napster Lawsuit
1970s haven of heavy metal greats�KISS and Led Zeppelin . Like Metallica , both of these bands achieved sales of their albums , concerts , and merchandise to such a ludicrous extent that they were flying around in their own jet planes ( in the case of Led Zeppelin ) and amassing tens of thousands of dollars in side businesses , such as dolls , comic books , restaurants , and corny made-for- TV movies ( in the case of KISS ). Yet no KISS or Led Zeppelin fan ever turned their backs on their rock heroes in the same manner as Metallica fans did in the 1990s because they were perceived as sell-outs or corporate giants .
In fact , Susan Fast ’ s study of Led Zeppelin in 2001 reveals that several fans of the band who participated in interviews stated that the main reason they love them is because “ they [ are ] not commercially driven ” ( 181 ). This is true despite the fact that both bands were moving into producing non-traditional fan-based music that reached well beyond the confines of the then-defined cloistered metal scene . Led Zeppelin ’ s 1979 release of In Through the Out Door heralded the undeniable influence of the unfortunate upcoming new era of ’ 80s pop music , as Jimmy Page ’ s indelible and riveting guitar riffs that had been front-and-center in all previous Zep albums took a major back seat to John Paul Jones ’ very groovy ( yet highly un-metal ) keyboards in such songs as “ In the Evening ” and “ Carouselambra .” In a similar vein , old-school KISS fans had to endure the awkward unmasking and major commercialization of the “ Lick it Up ” single on MTV in 1983�an embarrassing video that is still very difficult for this fan to watch , to this day !
Nonetheless , while metalheads may have shaken their heads in disappointment with respect to these changes , neither KISS nor Led Zeppelin received the type of traitorous back-
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