AceShowbiz -

Heavy metal band Metallica finally offers individual songs for download. After long holdout, the music act has, starting from Tuesday July 25th, made their catalog available on iTunes. In a message posted on their official Web site, the band announced that they will offer their entire catalog, including individual songs for download - on iTunes.

There they wrote, "Over the last year or so, we have seen an ever-growing number of Metallica fans using online sites like iTunes to get their music. So, in continuing with the tradition of offering our albums for sale online (which we've been doing for a few years through various sites), as well as making our live concerts available for download in their entirety (through the livemetallica.com site), we are now offering fans the opportunity to obtain our songs individually."

As of Tuesday, the iTunes store began offering the band's entire back catalog of 10 albums for sale, from their 1983 debut, "Kill 'Em All", to 2004's "Some Kind of Monster [EP]". As a bonus, previously unreleased live tracks have been added to the first four albums as iTunes bonuses.

On Wednesday morning July 26th, individual Metallica songs were listed as available on other downloading sites, including Yahoo! Music, mp3.com and Napster, although it was unclear how long they have been available.

The group noted in their Web posting that, while their music will be available on the iTunes stores in the U.S. and Canada, it will not be sold on iTunes overseas, "due to the fact that our record company overseas doesn't seem to want to play ball with us on this at the moment."