At the very start of this year, having literally taken stock of their lives and career, Def Leppard launched their online Vault where they put all manner of artefacts from their career online for (for the most part) free. While Metallica are near-contemporaries of Def Leppard, they looked back even further – back to Neil Young – for the inspiration for their Metallica Black Box online museum (i.e. like the Neil Young Archives they are charging for big chunks of it).
The site is effectively an extension of the huge anniversary marketing push earlier this year around the 30th anniversary of their blockbusting self-titled album (aka The Black Album).
There are some free things for fans, such as memorabilia from the band members’ personal collections – including photos from tours, photos from the studio and scans of other assorted items (old flyers and posters, T-shirts, press itineraries, backstage passes, telegrams) and a whole section of fan-submitted photos, artwork, fanzines and letters).
The bigger push, however, is around selling streams of past shows that were pushed online in late November and early December. They cost a very reasonable $5.98 each and at the moment there were three shows available (two from 1991 and one from 1992).
There is a “retrospective” section and an art installation section on the site that are marked as, respectively, “coming soon” and “coming in 2022”, but it is unclear if this will be charged for or made available to everyone.
Finally – and inevitably – there is a link to a merchandise store where there are all manner of (expensive) limited-edition items on sale that are tied around the 1991 album and tour. There are photo prints (starting at $350 each), commemorative plaques (costing upwards of $750 each), old tour poster reproductions ($85 each) and art prints ($185).
None of these prices are for the faint-hearted, but is a new spin on D2C where this is a store that is distinct from their “normal” online store – and the prices reflect the premium positioning they want it to have. This is maybe a new type of D2C segmentation where fans with the biggest budgets get their own outlets.
We are just waiting for Metallica to add the jet black kitchen sink (RRP $459).
