Band self-induced illusions

Ermz

Ermz

¯\(°_o)/¯
Apr 5, 2002
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Melbourne, Australia
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I was wondering, how many of you guys have worked with select bands for prolonged periods of time?

Have you ever experienced the phenomenon where a band will be writing follow-up material to their prior release, which you may believe is decent music, but the follow-up is completely regressive? Not only this, but the band collectively believe in the new material as being vastly superior to the old?

Not necessarily saying I've experienced this myself.. several times... but if I had, I would start wondering whether it's a common thing among artists.

What say you?
 
I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that most bands have as long as they want, for all intents/purposes to write the first album, but are relatively limited with how long they can take on the second.

Also has to do with most bands having a distorted sense of quality control, but let's not go there. :lol:
 
Haha! I could say without working with such bands I can count a few of my hand that I know have done this :p I'm hoping we don't become one of those statistics... going to have about 15 songs ready for pre pro next year just waiting to cut the fat :p
 
I think it's really common since I don't know a band that forever gets better with each albums, each bands seem to reach a peak they never reach again.

Always wondered why, although there's probably a logic explanation I'm just missing :lol:.
 
Seen it a bunch. It's really sad, cause most of the time there is nothing you can do. Most bands at this point refuse to listen to any sort of counter opinions or any sound advice, thinking that they know better for some reason.

They always fail.....always.
 
There's been plenty of times when new albums came out and it divided the fans. Some thought the new album was better (slightly or significantly), some thought it was equally as good, and some thought it was worse.
You may not like the new stuff an band you're working with is doing but hell it's entirely possible that when it gets released it will be regarded by a majority of fans as their best work.

Most bands/artists have too much of an ego to pull an Isis, preserve their dignity and call it a day when they come to the realization they've said all they can say as a collective.
Personally I think almost all bands after about 10 years (15 at the most, pushing it) should part ways and go onto other musical projects/join new bands where they can start off fresh again, rather than continuing to put out uninspired album after uninspired album.
But somehow I don't think telling an egotistical band leader that his band has 'run its course' will go down too well with them :p
 
i think there are those who really learned from the process of making an album and use that for the second one to make it even better, and those who forgot how much work went into the first one, just trying to repeat the process in a shorter time, because now they "know".

it's indeed a good indicator for ego caused distortion of reality perception.
 
if your not a pro songwriter, its all hit and miss. bands write songs, some good some bad.
there is just no consistency, unless they repeat what they are good at.

anyone listened to the new dredg?

horrible. completely uninspired boring shit.
but : gavin hayes said he doesnt want to write the same songs he has when he was in his 20ies. (hes 35 or so)
i respect that some bands do not want to repeat themselves.

i mean is there any band on the planet you love every single song they did?

not even tool or meshuggah for me ;-)!
there is always 5 great songs, and 35 bad songs in the whole discography.
(alright, with tool its different)

ermz : i think thats how musicians are. ever evolving. for better or worse.
 
Not experienced myself with bands, hoping it won't be something I have to think about for my own band.
My shit filter is set pretty strong tho so we'll see
Not having to deal with huge egos helps too on that

I also think it's because of the time pressure to come up with a 2nd release. You have a lifetime for the first album, and only about 2 years for the next so it's pretty though for sure.

But even if you take more time for the 2nd album you have some problems: look at Jari and "Time", that shitt better be good as EVERYONE will observe it with a mikroskope
IF it ever comes out :lol:
 
dcb said:
i mean is there any band on the planet you love every single song they did?
Click to expand...

This is a tough one. Fair to midland maybe but I haven't paid too much attention to their older stuff becouse of the prodction etc.

Linkinpark had a good start. hybrid theory ep, hybrid theory and then meteora. Then came Minutes to midnight and introduced many bad songs.

But yeah it's a really difficult task to make someone love a whole discography with no exeptions.


I've heard a theory in which the first album is great second one is bad and the third one kinda shows what the band is going to be in the future.
 
Happens all the time. It probably stems from the "all the time in the world to write the first record, and two weeks to write the next". I Think this happened to me, really felt the time crunch.:rolleyes:
 
I think one of the biggest mistake it seems the whole music business do is expecting an average album to be 40 to 60mn.

I've heard really really FEW albums good from the beginning to the end and being that long. If more bands would stick to something like 30mn, maybe the overall quality of music would increase. I really prefer 4 or 5 good songs to a 10 song album, unless it's really awesome.
 
LeSedna said:
I think one of the biggest mistake it seems the whole music business do is expecting an average album to be 40 to 60mn.

I've heard really really FEW albums good from the beginning to the end and being that long. If more bands would stick to something like 30mn, maybe the overall quality of music would increase. I really prefer 4 or 5 good songs to a 10 song album, unless it's really awesome.
Click to expand...

I think the album format lends itself really well to bands who want to produce a work of art. Something that hangs together well. The result is that oftentimes you can't really pull one song out as being a standout track - because they all hang together in a cohesive mass.

If you're writing "product" then you may be right.
 
I don't think the distinction between product and art is determined by length.

@CFH: Good call. That's pretty much the experience I'm talking about. Is sad indeed, especially when you see the failure coming but the bands are really optimistic.
 
drew_drummer said:
I think the album format lends itself really well to bands who want to produce a work of art. Something that hangs together well. The result is that oftentimes you can't really pull one song out as being a standout track - because they all hang together in a cohesive mass.

If you're writing "product" then you may be right.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with what you say, but I'd say it doesn't necessarily needs 10 songs to create a feeling of cohesion.

Also, most albums are just a succession of songs, and their cohesion only is meant by the production and the current writing style of the artist, but they have no real link together on the really artistic side of things. I don't say it's bad, I just say the whole album format today is kept because people have been used to it, more than because it's what they really want, all that because a Compact Disk is around 700mb of data.

I don't deny people wouldn't like the same songs, so having 10 songs is like having more possibilities to fell in love with 4 or 5 of them.

I personnally like albums made of around 7 o 8 good songs if they last a normal time (around 4 or 5 mn).
 
C_F_H_13 said:
Seen it a bunch. It's really sad, cause most of the time there is nothing you can do. Most bands at this point refuse to listen to any sort of counter opinions or any sound advice, thinking that they know better for some reason.

They always fail.....always.
Click to expand...

I get the point.. But I would actual think that the band knows better.
I mean, I don't go to the studio to let some "stranger" tell me how to write my music (unless he is giving somekind of producer role).

While it seems like we like to put the AE up on a pedestal as being the supreme judge of music, in the end its just the opinion of one guy..
 
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