Netflix's 'Metal Lords' Has An Easter Egg Hiding In That Ed Sheeran Song
It’s the year 2022, someone has just tried to sue an artist over one of the most popular songs in music history, and that artist — one Ed Sheeran — is now the new cameo guy of both Netflix and D.B Weiss, the co-creator of the dragon show some people are still upset about.
Let’s break that down in reverse: Ed Sheeran had a cameo in the seventh season of Game of Thrones that turned out to be bizarrely controversial — fans felt that casting a pop singer in a speaking role was cheapening the show, but we all know it’s because Sheeran’s just so British, innit — and the poor guy hasn’t stopped feeling bummed about it. So much so that he’s apparently trying to be more careful in choosing and making cameo appearances … which makes you wonder how much they paid him to do this in Red Notice:
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Sure, Sheeran may need a couple of acting classes but at least Boy Britain has a sense of humor. That brings us to Metal Lords, the new Netflix film written by Weiss that is loosely based on his childhood and his very Gen-X love for metal music.
It is by far the most Gen-X teen movie that is not a Gen-X movie, and they somehow want you to believe that Hunter, a modern-day teen with an impressive knowledge of music who totally slays on the guitar, has never heard of 2Cellos.
Anyway, the metal music in the movie’s pretty rad. In between all the metal deep cuts, however, is Ed Sheeran’s song “Shape of You” that’s performed, twice, by a high school cover band called Mollycoddle. There’s of course no subtlety here — Mollycoddle means indulging, caring, and overprotective — and given that it’s D.B. Weiss making a swiping joke at Sheeran here, it’s safe to say that the singer’s probably in on it, too. Either way, it's nice that he’ll be getting royalties for that song, twice — which one can argue Sheeran probably reckoned he needed at the time, since the Brit was still in court just last week fighting a copyright lawsuit brought against this very song.
That's right, artist Sami Chokri sued Sheeran and claimed the pop sensation stole a melodic piece in “Shape of You” from Chokri’s “Oh Why.” Sheeran won the case, though, so we guess the Metal Lords royalties will now go toward buying a British boat or something.
Still, given that Sheeran was being sued during the production of the movie makes the joke read differently. In essence, it has the pop band Mollycoddle (all mostly nice guys, it has to be said) covering a song by a songwriter who was being sued for originality.
Zanandi is on Twitter.
Top Image: Netflix
