Metal Insider tells us that brand new music streaming service MOG went live yesterday morning. MOG promises a deep library at a $5 monthly fee, and boasts a service “better than Rhapsody, iTunes and Pandora…combined.” [Full disclosure: MOG's advertising arm sells some ad space on this site.] With all four major labels signed on (those being Warner, EMI, Sony and Universal), a $5/month unlimited streaming service is a tantalizing proposition indeed. But the million dollar question on our minds (and undoubtedly yours as well) is: do they have metal?

Without having tested the service yet I’m inclined to say that, surprisingly, the answer is actually “yes.” Century Media, Nuclear Blast, Earache, Willowtip and a few other metal labels are distributed digitally through EMI, so those ought to be covered. Warner holds a majority stake in Roadrunner so that oughtta be a no-brainer. Relapse, Metal Blade and Victory releases are distributed by Red, which is owned by Sony. Those are all the labels at the proverbial metal big kids table right there. Obviously there are plenty of other smaller metal labels, but I’m guessing most of them also have major distribution.

This new MOG service is interesting indeed. If anyone here has tested it out, please let us know in the comments how it fares metal-wise. How does it stack up against the much simpler, sleeker Spotify? Watch a brief description of some of the service’s key features in the video below.

-VN

News of Nickelback’s all-encompassing deal with touring behemoths Live Nation is all over the Internet. “Fuck Nickelback,” I hear you say. Touche. But let’s read between the lines here: Nickelback, quite honestly, are a large part of the reason that Roadrunner Records is able to continue to release records by other, less-sucky acts. Simply put, Nickelback’s 7 million records sold fund every 100,000 to 200,000-selling release by other Roadrunner bands we like, such as Killswitch Engage, Machine Head, Opeth, Megadeth, Dream Theater, Biffy Clyro, Life of Agony, Trivium, Soufly, etc etc etc etc. Get it?

The fact of the matter is, Nickelback leaving Roadrunner is actually BAD news for the metal community, as hard as this is to believe. Love them or hate them, Roadrunner definitely sits atop the metal label throne, and what’s bad for Roadrunner is bad for metal. And this is most certainly bad for Roadrunner.

The good news is that Roadrunner still has Nickelback under contract for two more records, so we can reasonably expect these two albums and subsequent touring cycles to last approximately five years. Sweet. Wait, what the fuck… did I really just say that?

-VN

[Source: Billboard.com]