Metallica Monday

The Monday blues struck a certain chord with the folk on the square mile, but a stone's throw away from the O2 Arena in London.

If every free sheet, tabloid and broadsheet strewn across the tube was to be believed, it was Meltdown Monday, the day when banks burned, hedge funds shrivelled, grown men cried and we all ate our arms and blamed Labour for the world's current economic pickle.

In other news, Metallica put on a two hour fan club show for 20,000 people at £5 a pop to celebrate the release of their ninth LP Death Magnetic.

If that wasn't reason enough to cheer up in this climate, we really don't know what could. We are positively still quite deaf from the experience, so here's the rather gratifying set list:

That Was Just Your Life

The End Of The Line

The Thing That Should Not Be

Of Wolf And Man

One

Broken, Beat & Scarred

Cyanide

Frantic

Until It Sleeps

Wherever I May Roam

For Whom The Bell Tolls

The Day That Never Comes

Master Of Puppets

Blackened

Jump In The Fire

Seek & Destroy

If only all Mondays were made like this...

Richard Wright: RIP

We've just heard the sad news that Richard Wright, Pink Floyd's keyboard player, has died from cancer, aged 65.

He was a founder member of the Floyd and played at every one of their gigs since the band's inception. He also played in David Gilmour and Roger Waters' solo shows.

He released two solo albums; Wet Dream was released in 1978 and Broken China followed 18 years later.

This sad news also finally puts paid to any possible Pink Floyd reunion.

Metallica's Death Magnetic: the verdict

Like the biggest of big Hollywood blockbusters, Metallica's first album in five years, Death Magnetic, was set for a release date all of its own on Friday 12th September, instead of a normal Monday.

Despite what amounts to a military operation against Lars Ulrich's pet hate, music piracy, reports of a French record shop selling copies of the album a week ago, resulting in an inevitable internet leak, were followed today by industry rag Music Week reporting that "the band’s UK label Vertigo has now soft released the set after a number of retailers put it on sale earlier this week." They do point out that "representatives for the band... insist that the release date remains September 12."

We're sure all this isn't out of fear that Glasvegas will beat them to the top spot in the album chart. It's not like Metallica care about charts, is it?

Our four-star review of Death Magnetic is now live anyway.

None of this extra publicity will do the album any harm ahead of their £5-for-charidee jambouree at The 02 on Monday night - and the organisers are turning it into a proper event.

A pre-show party features Guitar Hero action all afternoon (from 2pm) at The O2's sister venue Indigo2, and a post-show party (they like their parties, these metalheads) runs from after the show, as post-show parties tend to, till about 1:30am. We're told that river taxis will continue to run till 2am - a decidedly lush way of getting home after a schoolnight on the lash.

So we're declaring Monday Metallica Day. Unless you live in Berlin, in which case you'll be heading to your own Metallica gathering this very night.

Mercury Prize: Elbow win it

I write this at a gig, not Grosvenor House Hotel, but who in music can ignore the Mercury?

Once again confounding the favourites predictions, this oddball award has proved that there's no point on betting, unless you follow your hunch.

Look at the panel's make-up. They were never going to go for Burial or Portico Quartet.

Elbow have released some stellar albums and subsequently been dumped through their career. The Seldom Seen Kid is a career highlight, supported to the hilt by Polydor's recently excellent press office. Hats off to them; they're doing everything right.

We at musicOMH are in all sorts of ways delighted for Guy Garvey and his crew - the Elbow frontman was a delightful interviewee earlier this year. And he's a dandy advert for black shirts. Three nights at London's Roundhouse later this autumn should prove even hotter for them.

The Mercury's raison d'etre is called into question every year, which provides useful column inches for some publications. But whatever one thinks of the selection process for the judges (only some of whom ever seem to want to be known), it's an excellent advert for the UK's music.

Whatever troubles happen to be facing some in the industry, the Mercury nominees give a useful cross-section of music talent from these isles to a world that loves what we do.

Does your music define you?

Widely reported across the news networks (and on BBC News) is a study by a Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University which claims musical taste and personality type are closely related.

Apparently people can be lumped in to genre categories, much like some music publications lump music. And it seems being a Metallica fan tells the admen lots about you. Over to the Prof: "If you know a person's music preference you can tell what kind of person they are, who to sell to."

This might be rather sinister were it not so obviously flawed. It presupposes that classical music fans would only ever listen to classical music; that Metallica fans would only ever dress in black and thrill to the sound of Kirk Hammett's axe.

At least he clarifies one thing: "The general public has held a stereotype of heavy metal fans being suicidally depressed and of being a danger to themselves and society in general. But they are quite delicate things."

The study claims that if you identify with whatever "indie" is these days (English boys strumming their way to major label Tesco success, perhaps) then you have low self-esteem, you are creative but not hard working and, most curiously, you're not gentle.

Yet I'm probably not alone in knowing of people who are as happy listening to a Philip Glass CD as they are throwing shapes to whatever Paul Oakenfold happens to be spinning. Depending on my mood I'm as happy with The Field's electronic dystopia as I am with the lonesome acoustica of Bon Iver.

Does the Prof understand the people he presumes to study? Do you define yourself by your music taste?

Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

The festival season is grinding to a halt, and we're now sat waiting for the inevitable avalanche of albums released in the run-up to Christmas. And nestling in amongst the big names is a little gem that I think could well be the finest album of 2008.

The vocalist of the cult 'Brechtian Punk' act Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer may not be a household name, but her debut solo record Who Killed Amanda Palmer is the most extraordinary 53 minutes I've heard all year. There's been some cracking albums released during 2008 - Bon Iver, Portishead, and Guillemots all spring to mind - but, for me, this eclipses them all.

Produced by Ben Folds, and featuring guest spots including Annie Clark of St Vincent and East Bay Ray of the Dead Kennedys, each song fizzles with an emotional intensity that proves incredibly addictive. Think Regina Spektor at her deranged best (who appears on Folds' upcoming album, funnily enough), or Tori Amos at her most confessional, and you're about halfway there.

Whether it be the opening pound of Astronaut, the wistful waltz of Ampersand or even a showstopping cover of the Carousel standard What's The Use Of Wond'rin (which features Annie Clark on lead vocals with Palmer apparently softly weeping in the background), each song reaches through the speakers and grabs you by the scruff of the neck.

The lyrics too are intriguing - Runs In The Family talks of fear of a hereditary disease, Guitar Hero looks at the addictive nature of videogames, while Oasis sounds positively perky until you realise it's about a girl who becomes pregnant after a date-rape and a letter from the Mancunians of the title is the only thing that's keeping her upbeat.

The highlight though is Leeds United  - a brass-band fuelled stomp with the glorious chorus of "who needs love when there's Law & Order, who needs love when there's Southern Comfort" - Palmer's rasping voice sounding almost at the point of collapse. Quite what the Elland Road team have to do with things is another matter entirely.

Some tracks are streaming at her MySpace page and a full review will obviously follow on the site, but this was the first album in a while that I've been genuinely excited to listen to. It's probably too quirky to be a big hit, but if you love the aforementioned Folds, Spektor or Clarke, it's well worth checking out.