Commercial Vs. Obscurity..an opinion
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 3:41 pmTruth is there are many obscure musicians and bands that are 1000X the musicians and artists of say a sell out band like Metallica, or Korn or whoever. They'll all tell you how crappy those sell outs are, they'll dog their musical abilities, and imply that their fans are brain dead sheep. What they don't say is they'd gladly give their first born child to be anywhere close to where those sell outs made it, but the truth is they don't know how. They can play arpeggios that make your head spin but are clueless in many other aspects.
Many of you talk about how we shouldn't ever give our music away in fact we should go for top dollar for it to bring the inherit value of music and musicians back to where it was in the past.
Is that not what those sell out bands did?
Metallica (to continue using them as an example) and all those "sell out" "commercial" bands were a 1000X better at marketing themselves and making their product valuable, than those obscure "artists" ever were, and thus Metallica is stupid rich, and Mr. Obscure jazz player has to play 35 times a year to pay his mortgage.
Metallica in particular got where they were, in the era before, internet, cell phones, hell before pagers even, if you didn't have a real fan following, you didn't get noticed by the record labels, period. They had to have an appealing product in order to get that. So disrespect of bands such as Metallica, Megadeth etc, is unfounded IMHO. They wrote music that resonated and still resonates with people for 30 years now, and can still sell out stadiums at will. There is something to that, I don't care if you can play something more precise or technical, there is more to it than that, maybe the statement to be made is technical more or less limits your audience to those who can appreciate and comprehend that technicality.
I play in a band to make the people who come see me, enjoy their time watching me, Their reaction is what gives me the rush, not the playing itself, I don't do it to hear myself play and sing, I could do that at home, if playing a perfectly executed uber-technical jazz bass line to 12 people, is what gives you pleasure wonderful, but that doesn't take away from what a band like Metallica can do with 16 power chords, and a pentatonic lead solo, they made MILLIONS of people want to hear them, with much less in terms of musical tools. I am a fan of both Metallica and Yngwie Malmsteen, most of my friends like Metallica as well, many of them have never heard of Yngwie, and aren't all that impressed with his songs. Never mind the amazing guitar work, most of them never notice it because the product just doesn't move your average person like "Harvester of sorrow" which stole it's simple riff from the wizard of oz.
This wasn't intended to start an argument, just a discussion.
I'd love to hear some opinions on this subject.
Many of you talk about how we shouldn't ever give our music away in fact we should go for top dollar for it to bring the inherit value of music and musicians back to where it was in the past.
Is that not what those sell out bands did?
Metallica (to continue using them as an example) and all those "sell out" "commercial" bands were a 1000X better at marketing themselves and making their product valuable, than those obscure "artists" ever were, and thus Metallica is stupid rich, and Mr. Obscure jazz player has to play 35 times a year to pay his mortgage.
Metallica in particular got where they were, in the era before, internet, cell phones, hell before pagers even, if you didn't have a real fan following, you didn't get noticed by the record labels, period. They had to have an appealing product in order to get that. So disrespect of bands such as Metallica, Megadeth etc, is unfounded IMHO. They wrote music that resonated and still resonates with people for 30 years now, and can still sell out stadiums at will. There is something to that, I don't care if you can play something more precise or technical, there is more to it than that, maybe the statement to be made is technical more or less limits your audience to those who can appreciate and comprehend that technicality.
I play in a band to make the people who come see me, enjoy their time watching me, Their reaction is what gives me the rush, not the playing itself, I don't do it to hear myself play and sing, I could do that at home, if playing a perfectly executed uber-technical jazz bass line to 12 people, is what gives you pleasure wonderful, but that doesn't take away from what a band like Metallica can do with 16 power chords, and a pentatonic lead solo, they made MILLIONS of people want to hear them, with much less in terms of musical tools. I am a fan of both Metallica and Yngwie Malmsteen, most of my friends like Metallica as well, many of them have never heard of Yngwie, and aren't all that impressed with his songs. Never mind the amazing guitar work, most of them never notice it because the product just doesn't move your average person like "Harvester of sorrow" which stole it's simple riff from the wizard of oz.
This wasn't intended to start an argument, just a discussion.
I'd love to hear some opinions on this subject.
