Credit: Found On Internet

It's been a funny old day in the world of metal, with a pair of bizarre stories rocking the Devil Horn-throwing world.

The first is something that Kerrang! would run as an "And Finallly..." if they ran the News At Ten. A judge in Sweden has ruled that Metallica is most definitly a girl's name. I wonder what James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich have to say about that?

The story arose when a pair of prospective parents chose the name for their new daughter - apparently Metallica was a combination of both their names, rather than a tribute to the San Francisco thrashers. The controversy came when the Swedish Tax office objected to the name, despite having earleir given it the go ahead when the parents checked it out. The parents weren't going to take that though; they took it to the district court and won. Don't take that shit from The Man!

The other curious bit of news is that studies have shown that clever kids prefer a bit of Napalm Death to Lemarr. The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Children has found that over a third of the UK's smartest children like to rock out to metal, with more than a third rating it their favourite kind of music.

More than 1000 gifted kids between 11 and 18 were asked a range of questions about their media preferences, including ranking a selection of genres. While Rock and Pop took the two top slots, Metal was an unexpected 3rd place position. According to the University of Warwick, where the study took place, the cathartic nature of metal is what kids today are using to cope with the pressure at the top. When correlated with the children's attitudfes, the researchers found it was often those with low self-esteem issues that gravitated towards Slayer et al.

I used to love metal as kid. No wonder I'm such an insufferable smart-arse. Who cries myself to sleep every night.