One of the bonus tracks on Rihanna’s new album, Talk That Talk, utilizes the riff from Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam,” and while that album doesn’t come out until Tuesday, this is the 21st century, so it’s already on YouTube, and you can listen now. Only a little bit of the ‘Tallica tune is in the song, and, as Metal Insider notes, it’s still, like, a gajmillion times better than that shit Metallica did with Ja Rule and Swizz Beatz… but then again, so is cancer, so whatever I guess.

But I think it’s worth noting that between this and her association with Slash and Nuno Bettencourt, Rihanna is definitely 23 years old, as she claims. Y’know, in case anyone was worried that she was lying.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week, Anso DF suggested the Question of the Week; unfortunately, he did so before Slipknot announced that they’re headlining the Sonisphere Festival this year, so it doesn’t seem quite as relevant anymore. Still, it was a fun question to answer, so:

TO WHAT EXTENT WOULD A SLIPKNOT BREAK-UP BE BAD FOR METAL?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Slash allegedly plays on the new Rihanna single, “Rockstar 101.” I say “allegedly” because there’s barely any guitar in the damn song, and what guitar there is sounds like it could have been played by just about anyone with fingers and five free minutes to spend in the studio. But apparently the guitars are by Slash, and he was supposed to be in the video, too, but couldn’t make it ’cause I guess he afraid he was gonna make Fergie jealous. So Rihanna decided she was just gonna dress-up as Slash, which is, uh, an interesting solution.

Meanwhile, Nuno Bettencourt is part of Rihanna’s band now, and he’s in the video, but he never gets a close-up. In fact, most of the time he’s either in the background or out-of-focus.

So, to review: Rihanna would rather have a fake Slash in her video than a real Nuno.

Swell.

-AR

Someone on the SNL writing staff must like metal. Just a couple of weeks ago, Dave Matthews did a pretty killer Ozzy Osbourne impression; now, this past Saturday, the show, which is usually pretty terrible these days, did a spot-on satire of that infamous Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial. If every sketch on SNL were still this funny, I’d say the show was actually worth watching.

This same episode also saw the debut of Nuno Bettencourt as Rihanna’s new guitar player. I’m not going to post video of that here, though, because Nuno’s talenters were just as wasted as you’d imagine they’d be playing in Rihanna’s back-up band.

-AR

“Make love not war sounds so absurd to me.” But not as absurd as the idea of Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt touring with Rihanna, and trying to pass it off as “a high-energy experience” that really fits “‘my’ style.” Because “Umbrella-ella-ella” really requires someone who can shred. I’d almost have more respect for him if he just said “The Extreme reunion tour didn’t pay as well as I hoped and I got rent to pay.”

The announcement follows Bettencourt’s cameo on How I Met Your Mother, which is being called “the best show on television” by people who can’t find their remote and are too lazy to change the channel manually.

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