Maybe someday if I calmed myself down they might be interested to answer their most in depth fan questions about the music ever. I don't know. Maybe it would be better to do in text mode since Janne and Kal would probably give me an asswhoopin'.
But to be honest it would be interesting if I could compare stuff about albums and ask about the music and live setlist, but I don't want to annoy them. Some information passes both ways like this too.. like I didn't even realize I'm an idiot before they revealed it to me.
I did get a chance once and found out some pretty exciting stuff.
That's right also. COB is still SOMEHOW "reachable." Bands with "divine" status are always a different thing. But COB will never be one because they don't act like something they're not. Alexi has a little status tho, but mostly they're down to earth - and hosting a role is something that attracts millions of kids searching for different roles to try while they're growing up. One thing is they dress normally, something that for example Nightwish doesn't do.
Speaking of which I think COB could try different outfits too. There's a vid from the last tour where Alexi wears a normal proper woolen shirt and it looks totally cool.
I actually feel the same way and would like to see that.
Not saying I want them to go crazy and wear silly costumes, but it'd be cool to seem some sort of evolution and variation.
I've never understood why some people are so dead set against it. Everyone here on the forum seems to be pretty moderate concerning this- but some people, regardless of how the band is doing musically, decide they hate the band simply because they know too many other people who now like the band.
I really don't get it. To use a smaller example than making the entire metal genre bigger, it really follows the same idea as to why some bands I'll download their music, and some I buy their cds religiously. Some bands who, in my opinion, are mediocre, I will download their music. But some bands, like COB, I buy their albums and merch because I want to give the band money because I feel like they deserve it- and I encourage other people to do the same.
I completely agree.
Because publicity always attracts idiots, and idiots and sellout music support each other. COB is a hard art so it doesn't give much room for fucking around with the music even if they wanted to do what Metallica did with St. Anger, but it would be naive to think bands don't care about their albums selling (and shirts and tickets). Every band makes conscious moves to some extent to make their shit sell. It's 100% alright, but adjusting music to mainstream (by cutting off solos or whatever) is unforgivable.
But yeah, if WIWI is a one off on the album, distinctly more accessible and they wanted to tell the world they exist, I'd not blame them, the skateboarding video is a great idea too. Don't you think it's fucking wrong or kinda weird this music exists and most people don't know about it and listen to crap instead. If they have one track that's not very extreme metal but it's good on the ears then so what. Let's just hope the album is some dirty real Bodom metal and buries these sellout accusations.
Publicity and more fans does bring in more idiots, but who cares. Let the idiots listen, it shouldn't effect your enjoyment of the music or the band.
And as for the new album, I expect it to be just as divisive amongst existing fans as any of their new albums - if not more so. But with that aside, I expect it to be great, with really quality songs and a lot of depth, even if on the surface it may seem more catchy and whatnot.
Afterall, isn't that a mark of great songwriting? You can oversimplify things, yes. But you can also make them overly complicated as well. The best songs strike a balance between the two, somewhere between instant hook and long-term depth.
Are some amazing songs hard to digest on the first listen (or more)? Definitely. But that difficulty of listening, in of itself, is not what makes it good. And many songs that are hard to listen to and understand at first (if not always), are NOT good.
Getting 'mainstream' is not neccesarily a bad thing. I mean you can of course make some shitty metal versions of Kesha or something, but look.
Behemoth, very fucking brutal band, has sold so many of recent album's copies that it turned platinum in Poland. And the same with their recent DVD. A blackened death metal managed to show up pretty high on Billboard, and believe me, they have not turned int a commercial band everyone here seems to be afraid of.
So basically while you may go simply mainstream, you may also BRING serious music TO the mainstream, which is not bad at all. It is great I think. If they can sell more and more, gain new fans and not stop being so mighty brutal, so can CoB.
Exactly. Getting more popular doesn't necessarily mean dumbing down your sound (though some bands end up doing that). It can also mean getting more people exposed to music that has more depth than most popular music. And sometimes, an album just sells really well because it IS really good, and not because it got commercialized and the band sacrificed quality for sales.
For instance, just as an example, "And Justice for All" by Metallica.
Yeah, most of the money comes from merch like shirts, and the tour tickets, but the albums are the essential thing which makes them sell...
Definitely. At this point, albums are useful promotional tools for getting people to see a band live, rather than the primary source of income.