A lot of crazy shit happened in music in 2008, I think we can all agree. Much of it was good- hell, it could even be called great, but there were some unforgivably bad stumbles along the way. As usual, utter bullshit music saturated the mainstream last year, with sonic nightmares like Britney Spears selling hand over fist thanks to unprecedented promotional campaigns and, it seems, a total abandonment of album purchases by people with taste and musical sensibility.

Meanwhile, a select few have managed yet again to fool people with the same song and dance, while barely selling enough to touch the charts, much less earn a respectable position. They’re bullshit hype riders, most of them suck badly, and they deserve to be called out. With any luck, our collective disdain can outshine the billboards, bus benches, tabloids and trendy haircuts, and we can forget these losers once and for all.

At several occasions over the past few months, various people who I associate with, whom one could consider attached to the local LA music scene- but not too attached, because then they’d be far too weird for me to deal with- made reference to some sort of “Buddyhead” thing that they would “see me at.”

When people who talk a lot say things I don’t understand, such as “see you at the Buddyhead thing,” I tend to just kinda filter it out, reasoning that if it’s really that important or interesting, I’ll hear it again and again until I’m finally motivated to Google it or whatever. Social Darwinism. And this was the case with the Buddyhead thing.

Every single day I check the music news, and seriously every single fucking day, there’s something new about Metallica. We mocked Mission: Metallica and their overblown, over-hyped marketing bullshit, and I for one am pretty sick of hearing about them. But I have to admit, they’re getting it right for a change. They’re staying on the radar by serving substance, not just ads. They’re keeping it coming, giving it all away. They’re engaging the fans head-on.

There are three (and only three) simple truths, beyond which things get complicated: Fans consume art ruthlessly. Corporations make money ruthlessly. Artists make art ruthlessly.

Everything beyond these three truths can be picked apart and debated as the game evolves. But anyone who forgets any of these three truths is a fool, and anyone who fights them is asking for a Darwinian lightning bolt to wipe their useless genes off the planet. Today’s Metallica news brought one such waste of DNA to my attention: Per Sundin, President of Universal Music Sweden.

Hey Metallica, why hold a listening party for your new album if you don’t want people talking about the music? We all know you guys are all about embracing the internet now and stuff, but this latest listening-party fiasco adds a final, gleaming sheen of hypocrisy to your douchebag crowns.

See, Metallica held a listening session in London on Wednesday to preview all but four tracks from their hysterically anticipated, yet-unnamed ninth studio album (you know, the one where they’re supposed to get all shreddy and raw again, like they were twenty years ago). There weren’t any non-disclosure agreements guests had to sign beforehand, and no reference was made to keeping album details under wraps.

In 2000, Lars Ulrich and Metallica famously sued Napster, and published a 60,000 page printout of names of fans who had traded their music in MP3 format online. This established Metallica, and Lars particularly, as the king of backwards-thinking douchebags in the music industry. Of course they won by technicality- unfortunately, music fans generally don’t know who the fuck Doug Morris is- but Lars ran a very public, very bold campaign, and he was elected king douchebag by overwhelming majority.

In April, I caught wind of a rather interesting blurb in Wired. Ulrich said that Metallica could be planning a digital release “along the lines of what Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have done.” He said, “We’re looking at how we can embrace everything.”