I think many non-conformists (use any term you desire) have different aspects of their lives that they use to separate themselves from the flock so to speak, music being one of the most dominate. When a band is labeled as selling out I think many factors play a role. A person may label a band as selling out if they perceive a drastic image and/or musical change etc. etc. It is my opinion that there is however one lager underlying aspect. I think what truly upsets some when a band sells out is that they believe they have lost their means of separating themselves. In a sense the very people they despise have stolen something from them. I dont believe the act of the band selling out in and of itself causes all the resentment.
Commercial "Mainstream" Music
- Thread starter MetalManCPA
- Start date
mindflesh
Rainbow Satan Overflow
The whole "Sell-outs"-bashing that some metalheads keep doing only proves their own closed-mindedness... I listen to the music I like, and don't pay too much attention to the popularity of a band or an artist I appreciate. Of course you can often feel if a band is only in for the money or would keep on making music even if they didn't get one cent more than what they need to pay their expenses for equipment, production, etc.
Anyway, the wider one's taste in music is, the more competency he/she has when he/she is talkin about music... You can't say "Everything on MTV totally sucks" if you watch it once a year, for example - well, you can, but you shouldn't.
BTW, I don't like S&M too much either... some songs are really good, but Master Of Puppets, for example, simply sucks with the Orchestra trying to keep up with the guitars...
Anyway, the wider one's taste in music is, the more competency he/she has when he/she is talkin about music... You can't say "Everything on MTV totally sucks" if you watch it once a year, for example - well, you can, but you shouldn't.
BTW, I don't like S&M too much either... some songs are really good, but Master Of Puppets, for example, simply sucks with the Orchestra trying to keep up with the guitars...
D Mullholand
[project closed]
Commercial music, by definition, is music aimed to be accepted by the masses. The masses, by definition, want entertainment. Real music is art. The difference between entertainment and art is. 
Meathead elitism is really trivial - some people use a music-style (metal, in this case), basically "to make friends" - otherwise, to find through music a social group that would accept them as their own. The usual string of cult icons and judgements are attached and accepted by the novice. Other musics can be liked only if they are listened to as an equivalent of metal, or as a total opposite, just to "relax" to, maybe even as a guilty pleasure, or to show off with an "I don't give a fuck" attitude, which is in fashion. Ridiculous criteria like "heavy" and "true" and "moosicianship" enter the word-game. As soon as an "important" band deviates from their established sound (even superficially, as MDB did on 34,788%), it becomes a threat to the meathead's psychological security, as if his whole world is beginning to fall apart. So we have the usual "sell-out" choruses from the meat crowd. This is a prison for a music-listener.
D Mullholand
P.S. S&M sucks duck.
Meathead elitism is really trivial - some people use a music-style (metal, in this case), basically "to make friends" - otherwise, to find through music a social group that would accept them as their own. The usual string of cult icons and judgements are attached and accepted by the novice. Other musics can be liked only if they are listened to as an equivalent of metal, or as a total opposite, just to "relax" to, maybe even as a guilty pleasure, or to show off with an "I don't give a fuck" attitude, which is in fashion. Ridiculous criteria like "heavy" and "true" and "moosicianship" enter the word-game. As soon as an "important" band deviates from their established sound (even superficially, as MDB did on 34,788%), it becomes a threat to the meathead's psychological security, as if his whole world is beginning to fall apart. So we have the usual "sell-out" choruses from the meat crowd. This is a prison for a music-listener.
D Mullholand
P.S. S&M sucks duck.
veil the sky
Lexicon V
wow
That may well be true in the Ukraine, but in the UK the metal scene is so sodding small and disreputable that you'd have to be in it for the love of music, trust me on that one.
I know what you're saying, but if I started to think when I was playing/writing music or even considering my image, that maybe I could get more money by doing it differently, then I'd have to say that something has gone wrong, at least where metal is concerned. And I intend on being a full time musician.
If I thought I needed more money, then I would do something else for work while still doing my music, the number of people who earn a living by playing extreme metal is practically nil. Even then I would prefer to get a 'bill-paying' job somewhere else in the music industry. Did you know that Testament all have full time 9-5 jobs, and they are pretty big!!!
I am the only person I know who listens to metal, so I can definitely say it isn't for the social interaction for me
Excepting ultimatemetal of course
Excepting ultimatemetal of course
Velya
Tzimisce Methuselah
There are noticeable factors here. A band like Metallica has the label of commercial not because of their success, but because of sacrificing integrity of their work by making a more simple, and accesible work. This is the case of many bands that get such label ( because of all the disturbances inflames comes to mind ). However i can and do appreciate bands who either a) Progress to a simplistic digestible style for non-financial reasons b) Attains commercial success without sacrificing their integrity but rather as a product of mature evolution. Most of the commercial attacks people launch are simply misunderstandings when they really are just attacking the fact that the band became digestible simple, and often dull, to attain commercial succes, but they do not attack the commercial success itself.
This can sometimes be an indistinguisheable line, but IMHO - I feel the way you do about Metallica. I am a little soured with their lawsuits too. Too me, using the legal system is a nother vehicle that is used for monetary gain.
I "usually" can tell the difference from a band getting big by changing musical style to fit a determined audience, versus a band attaining mass appeal by a stroke of luck (I've seen so many examples of this luck on those VH1 specials - like Jewell).
lumen
CKMS supporter
A few reasons why I don't like "mainstream" bands:
Overplay: It bugs me when I can't escape bands. Turn on the radio and you hear them, go to the bar and people dance to them, and they're likely all over MTV and Much Music too. It's enough to make me feel like the songs are stalking me. I can even get sick of chocolate (so yummy) when I have to much, so overexposure to music, when it's not of my own choosing, just pisses me off and makes me sick of the sound of it.
Dance floor space: The more popular a band gets, the less room I have when I'm dancing to them. Example - Tool. I remember when I had lots of room to dance to the odd Tool song that got played. Now there's a mad exodus to the dance floor when they play each of the three or four Tool songs they play a night.
Privacy/selfishness: I get a possessive feeling about the music I love. I like to share it with friends, but when it comes to allowing most of the yucky human species near it... "Ew! Get your filthy ears away from it! It's mine!"
I don't really care too much about bands "selling out." (I really do like new In Flames. ) But it does make me sad when the evolution of a band that could create songs that truly move me leads them to make songs that hardly touch me at all.)
Overplay: It bugs me when I can't escape bands. Turn on the radio and you hear them, go to the bar and people dance to them, and they're likely all over MTV and Much Music too. It's enough to make me feel like the songs are stalking me. I can even get sick of chocolate (so yummy) when I have to much, so overexposure to music, when it's not of my own choosing, just pisses me off and makes me sick of the sound of it.
Dance floor space: The more popular a band gets, the less room I have when I'm dancing to them. Example - Tool. I remember when I had lots of room to dance to the odd Tool song that got played. Now there's a mad exodus to the dance floor when they play each of the three or four Tool songs they play a night.
Privacy/selfishness: I get a possessive feeling about the music I love. I like to share it with friends, but when it comes to allowing most of the yucky human species near it... "Ew! Get your filthy ears away from it! It's mine!"
I don't really care too much about bands "selling out." (I really do like new In Flames.
) But it does make me sad when the evolution of a band that could create songs that truly move me leads them to make songs that hardly touch me at all.)
