Metallica, whose leaked album Death Magnetic is slated for a September 12 release, launched a promotion on YouTube today featuring the band’s favorite Metallica cover songs on the site. Drummer Lars Ulrich introduces their selections in the video to the right.

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"It makes us feels alive and special that you guys can be out there doing that cool stuff that you guys do… we’re mighty proud of what you do out there." says Ulrich. Later, he explains one reason the band is doing this. "You’ve all seen enough versions of us playing Enter Sandman andMaster of Puppets on German MTV for the last ten years. Who needs that,

right? Let’s check out some really cool interpretations of all theMetallica songs that you guys out there are so cool to put up on thenet and share with everybody in the world."

Other reasons behind Metallica’s YouTube promotion are a bit more complicated. More than eight years have passed since Lars Ulrich took that fateful elevator ride up to Napster headquarters with the names of 300,000-plus Napster users who had shared Metallica songs through the network, and the band is trying to salvage its reputation by embracing, at long last, the realities of online music.

The band has continued to take a beating from some fans nonetheless, but Ulrich’s recent admission that he was unconcerned about the leakage of their upcoming album and this embrace of YouTube show they really are thinking about the internet differently (although it should be noted that they stand to make royalty money from their compositions being played as part of the promotion).

Below are the ten Metallica cover songs that Lars and other members of the band chose to be featured on the front page of YouTube.

Eight-year-old Robin busts out a respectable rendition of the solo from Metallica’s "One":

Scbene, t0ko and titovincenzo tackle "I Disappear" in four-way splits-screen:

Carmen Jiménez, Carmen Luzón and Elisabeth Derrac document theconnection between classical and heavy metal fans with theirinterpretation of "Nothing Else Matters" for violins and viola:

Sembaijo and friends rock ""Master of Puppets" in the top floor ofwhat looks like some sort of teenage rock academy (note the guitarcases lined up along the back wall):

Francisco Meza plays both parts of "My Apocalypse" in believable style:

Azuritereaction plays the drum part from "Enter Sandman" on Rock Band on expert mode, with an interesting hack: socks rubber banded on to the game’s drum heads "for increased sensitivity and lowered double-hits":

Scott D. Davis makes "Nothing Else Matters" sound sort of like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in this solo piano interpretation:

Stop animation brings Lego characters to life for an air-guitar version of "Whiplash":

Roozbeh067 and his Persian "tar"-playing friend play a precise, lilting version of "Nothing Else Matters":

Qlsuc1 solos along with various Metallica songs (what, was Guitar Center closed?):

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