Coolio. I'm going to have a ponder about the question over the next couple of days and get something written down in that case!

did you get my entry, was having problems with the message sending.. sorry if you got 2,3 messages with the same one it in

ya got it ok

2 days left guys, get those entries in!

when can we expect to see the results?? (cant wait!!)

contest closed thanx to all who entered winners will be announced soon

Whats my chances of winning if I didn't enter?

Very high.

I haven't received an email telling me I've won this yet

yeah me neither

That's because I'm going to win!

sorry guys, we are just going thru the entires now plus the fact that the boxsets have been delayed in their shipments...winners will be announced very soon

winners have been announced - scorpio is the winner of the death magnetic boxset! congratulations!
runner-ups go to simexo and metagreg


here are the winning entries

SCORPIO - RIDE THE LIGHTNING
I've kept my song analysis simple and to the point, much like Death is.

It took me a while to figure out which song could encompass Death completely, and I still cant put my finger on any one song.
Metallica has written many songs directly about Death,(Creeping Death,Blackened) or with references to it, or wishing for death (Fade To Black).
I've come to the conclusion that based off the songs we have available right now, Ride The Lightning comes the closest to covering all the ground.
Reason being, Ride The Lightning, not only talks about an imminent death like many Metallica songs do, it also takes you inside
the head of a person who knows when and where his life is going to end. And to me, Death is a very personal thing. An atomic bomb can wipe out
millions of people, and anyone not affected directly will end up archiving that event as another large chunk of humans dying, like any other bombing,
plague, or natural disaster that has come before it. Writing about such events does not truly encompass actual Death, which is any one persons experience
of leaving this life to go wherever you go when your body stops pumping blood. People do die in many different ways, sometimes unexpected, and sometimes known in
advance as in the case of someone sent to Death Row. But Ride The Lightning takes you inside one persons experience with Death, knowing its coming. The desparity of it,
the fears, the anger, and the lack of understanding to how someone ends up in this position. This could be the same situation a terminal cancer patient experiences, or
a POW who realizes he isnt going to be released,a person trapped under rubble in an earthquake whos slowly bleeding to death. This is the reality of Death, that every last one of us must face its existence and its guaranteed finality no matter what the situation is.

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SIMEXO - CREEPING DEATH
I chose this song because I like the way ‘they’ (METALLICA) have used something from a movie which has strong references to religion and God (me being religious) and turned aspects of that movie into something greater and more beautiful not to mention insightful into what they can create into a song.

I love how it also revolves around the death of Cliff Burton in a sense that whist watching the movie Cliff is said to of said “Whoa-it’s like Creeping Death”. It’s sadly ironic that he says that and a great and memorable song is formed from those very words and I feel that after his death they play it live so very often because they love the song and they love Cliff. It’s very beautiful to have that song thought of in that sense.

The song has the essence of death within it when it’s sung by James and its lyrics “To kill the first born pharaoh's son I'm creeping death” Just revolve around death and it feels to me as though he could be trying to say that death comes upon us slowly but without our knowledge.

The lyrics “I will be with thee, bush of fire” speaks to me and says that although the bush is engulfed in flames it does not wither or die which is much like me not wanting to die even though it is inevitable.

“Die by my hand I creep across the land Killing first-born man” I mean these lyrics aren’t meant to be interpreted as James killing them obviously but it speaks to me as ‘The spirit” that has such great power that it freely kills the first born without question.

“Lambs blood painted door, I shall pass” this part of the song speaks to me that if I kill something and smear its blood on the door of my home then my family and first born shall be spared. (I do not take it quite so literally that if I kill something and actually smear it blood on my door that I’ll be spared or something like that) But I take it in more of a sense of a sacrifice for life elsewhere gives death in the form of more of a good thing.

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METAGREG - THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE
This song best brings to me the feel and sense of death, both musically and lyrically. Here are my reasons:

Well, this song is not exactly about -physical- death; it’s about madness and chaos. But that’s just another kind of death: the death of sanity, the loss of self-consciousness, of control over one’s self (and his environment), of identity. Considering that the thing that characterises us most as a species is our ability of self – conciousness (if not our very Soul for those who believe in such things), that is no lesser death.

Moreover, it’s about a “special” kind of madness and chaos: the ultimate one. The one coming from an ancient source (the sea ("lurking beneath the sea", "out from ruins once possessed/ fallen city living death") could be said to represent here essentially the whole ancient world, the history of the Cosmos even before Man, where we come from, a place full of ancient things just beyond us, beyond our reason and imagination; the epitomy of Fear), so old and powerful it even defies death himself (“Not dead which eternal lie/ stranger eons Death may die”). And in a way, that’s an even worse kind of death; eternal torment. Eternal loss and failure.

I mean, death also lasts forever, but happens once, and then there’s nothing (well, for me anyway, but also for many people i think), and that’s why someone could see it as salvation from the pain and suffering of this life. Not so with the coming of “the thing that should not be”. It’s about a torment that kind of starts anew every day; like, every day you wake up into the same nightmare, every new day represents another death, another failure to gain back control, sanity, on and on, forever. Your physical self is doomed simply to live and “speak” of your worst of fates, for eternity. Worse than death; An eternal perversity of life.

As for the music. Even the very first riff tells you right away there’s something wrong here. It combines a very low tone, a melodic line made of semitones and disharmonies (I m not sure if this is the correct term, excuse my bad English!), and even a strange “arrangement” of the chords (e.g. the upside down way in which the very first chord is played – the two open strings etc). The main riff is carried along in a (comparatively) slow pounding tempo, one could quite objectively call “ominous”. All these are elements that represent (again, subjectively of course, but also quite objectively I think) danger, terror, madness, coming-doom, musically. Then again in the first break before the first verse, the harmonies sound “wrong” and cacophonous, with semitones and strange altered chords. The succession of chords is cyclic, underlining a feeling of futility and resignation.
The lyrics, are just full of phrases and words referring to impending doom, madness, darkness etc.
“Messenger of Fear in sight/ Dark deception kills the light”
“fearless Wretch/ insanity/ He watches/ lurking beneath the sea”

All this doom comes slowly and steadily (and thus: certainly), following the slow and steady pounding of the rhythm and main harmony of the song, with a lyrical succession of “points of no return”, another element of suspense and thrill (but also of the inevitable and inescapable):
“cult has summoned, twisted sound”
“Timeless sleep/ Has been upset/ He awakens/ Hunter of the Shadows is rising”

Then comes the solo. Its definitely the most perverse and insane and cacophonous solo of Metallica. A perfect match for the concept of the song, as described so far. Disharmonies, altered chords, wah effects and lots of bending, unusual leaps of harmony and tone, all these depict madness, terror and desperation (the loss of reason, as a perception of the laws of logic, also, is a classic interpretation of madness). Finally, the song ends with a kind of monotonous, cyclic repetition of a cacophonous and also “uninteresting” succession of chords, leaving us again with a feeling of resignation, of giving up hope and even the smallest effort to change the course of things. The end is coming!

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Looking at mine now, I think i forgot to edit it before i sent it haha I dont like it :P
But thanks for the boxset, good shit.

I literally just pounded my fist onto an imaginary desk and said 'damnit!' hehe - but well done you three!

Wow Wasn't expecting to get anything, sweet.

Hey with the runner up prize I can choose either Death Magnetic or a free download from livemetallica.com, now I'm going with the download but I don't know what i should get so anyones recommendations are more then welcome.

congrats scorpio and simexo!!really nice interpretations of the lyrics..indeed rtl very effectively captures the personal side of it all..
would ve liked the coffin box for meself tho..
anyway, this contest rocked
more so cause we won, right?
simexo, i also chose the live download, and i don t know much about their shows, so for me it would be sth like the show from athens (my city) last summer (which was awesome btw) or one with the new songs in it!!so i chose the largely spoken of berlin show from 12/9!

Good job!

Axl, do you think you could post here all the other entries in this contest? Unless the their length and the number of them is too high... I am sure most of the people would enjoy it.
Congratulations to Scorpio, Simexo, and Metagreg, cool stuff to read!

im a little later but congrats you 3. some nice all round info on your choices. pretty good read all round, well done.

ps: and if you dont want your prize then pm for my address lmfao

ya i could do that, unless anyone objects to it