How big of a band would Metallica be if it was for the black album?

[Elric of Melniboné]

Cool. You can look into it yourself because you aren't a person who I feel compelled to research things for.

 

[The Butt]

Okay I definitely hear it, good call.
The second half of "Bleeding Me" actually sounded a bit Paranoid-esque.

I get more of a Mob Rules/Dehumanizer vibe from the songs tbh. Mostly the latter. Throw Dio on there, reverb everything to shit and you basically have Dehumanizer.

I think the guitar parts in those songs sound a lot like some of the more riff-heavy 1990s rock music than they do like Black Sabbath songs.

I don't hear it tbh. *shrugs*

 

[CiG]

I get more of a Mob Rules/Dehumanizer vibe from the songs tbh. Mostly the latter. Throw Dio on there, reverb everything to shit and you basically have Dehumanizer.

I was only talking about the first song.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Cool. You can look into it yourself because you aren't a person who I feel compelled to research things for.

I did look into it, and it appears that you pulled it out of your ass. For comparison, Morbid Angel's Covenant has most likely not reached a million sales, and it's the best selling death metal album out there.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Why do you assume that Covenant is more popular than a much more accessible album like Nightfall? I would love to know.

Hmm honestly not sure why I typed Altars of Madness after reading your post but I edited it now.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I didn't assume that (although it's probably true regardless), I was talking about Covenant.

1. Covenant was released on a major label, Nightfall was released on a second-tier indie metal label
2. American bands generally receive wider recognition than non-British ones
3. American bands, including Morbid Angel, have greater touring range, while afaik one of Candlemass' biggest tours involved opening for Exodus (a band themselves unlikely to have sold 2 million albums between their entire discography_
4. "Death metal" is a widely-known phrase even if most aren't actually fans, "doom metal" is not
5. Death metal has an inherent appeal to edgy teenaged kids looking for the most ev1l and kvlt music
6. Covenant has some musical connection and appeal for people into thrash and groove metal in the sense it's largely about the chugging riffage and whatnot, you can headbang to it, while the same does not appeal in Nightfall

Etc etc I could go on. Did you really just pull a number out of your ass on the basis that it seemed right to you according to assumptions regarding musical accessibility?

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

I didn't make up that number. It used to be on the Candlemass website as I stated earlier. I have better things to do than make up numbers for an album that isn't even among my favorites.

I also don't know how many Swedish people you know, but I've known several and almost all of them talked about Candlemass and how I must listen to them because they're so popular in Sweden. You could probably ask some of the Swedish people on this site if there are Swedish language resources that track album sales like the RIAA does in America.

This conversation means very little to me but it's obvious that you feel the need to win every engagement that you enter on this site.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

I also find your umbrage over my post to be idiotic since I didn't claim that the 15 million sales figure for Candlemass albums was correct and only talked about the band's claimed sales of their most popular album by far. I would be surprised if that number was accurate too.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Bands have reason to exaggerate their own sales.

Sweden is a small country. Their highest platinum certification apparently peaks at 40,000. For comparison, In Flames' modern singles peak around a single platinum cert in Sweden; I can't find data on album sales, but even if they're double of that, it's far from a million, and this is talking decades later and from an extremely mainstream metal band. Face it, you're wrong and as usual Omni you lack the integrity to admit it.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

This argument did teach me something, however.

“Samarithan” is one of my alltime favourite Candlemass tracks, and it nearly didn’t make it on to tape. Mats Ekström thought it sucked big time when it was rehearsed before the recording of “Epicus” and it was scrapped, but luckily enough the new band loved the song.

Son of a bitch. That could have been the one thing to make Epicus an even greater album than it already was. I can only imagine it with Lanquist singing and that album's production.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

This argument isn't something that I really care about but your post just now reminds me of when you said that downloading copyrighted material isn't illegal in Canada and tried to ignore page after page of articles and legal texts about it before finally admitting that you were totally wrong.

@The Butt recently posted an anecdote that only further supports the obvious truth of the matter.

I also don't see how my claim that I don't know the sales figures of Candlemass albums can be wrong as I clearly don't know them and made that clear from the beginning and that I was referring to something that used to be on the Candlemass website. I find your obsession with winning on the internet to be humorous. I already made it clear that I can't prove what I said from the beginning so I don't know what you want me to do.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I admitted I was wrong about a specific part of the law when presented to me in an objective way. I found numbers on their website btw:

"Leif's Abstrakt Algebra was a cross between Rush and Dream Theater and the record came out on the Megarock label. It was not a success. Some critics liked it but it didn't sell. After a year it reached about 7500 sales worldwide, which was nothing compared to what Candlemass sold. �Epicusɔ is hard to estimate. Maybe about 40 000 � 50 000 copies. �Nightfall� and �Ancient Dreams� were well over 100 000 units each, �Talesɔ 80 � 90 000, �Live� about 70 000 and �Chapter VI� 40 000. "

Much more in line with what I would expect, nothing close to a million.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

It's cool that you found some information. I still know that their website used to contain a claim that Nightfall sold over 1 million copies.

In regards to Canada's downloading laws, I linked the legal text that contained the words that I later quoted directly near the beginning of that discussion and you told me that you didn't see anything relevant in it for some reason.

 

[Phylactery]

yeah those numbers sound much more reasonable for Candlemass than what Wikipedia said.

I've read that Covenant is the best selling death metal record of all time on various websites before. Have you ever found the actual sales figures for this album?

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

As of 2003:

The top selling death metal bands of the SoundScan era are as follows:

CANNIBAL CORPSE: 558,929
DEICIDE: 481,131
MORBID ANGEL: 445,147
SIX FEET UNDER: 370,660
OBITUARY: 368,616
DEATH: 368,184
NAPALM DEATH: 367,654
CARCASS: 220,734
ENTOMBED: 198,764

The top-selling death metal albums of the SoundScan era are as follows:

MORBID ANGEL - "Covenant" (1993): 127,154
DEICIDE - "Deicide" (1990): 110,719*
DEICIDE - "Legion" (1992): 103,544
OBITUARY - "The End Complete" (1992): 103,378
CANNIBAL CORPSE - "The Bleeding" (1994): 98,319

The numbers were supplied by Nielsen SoundScan.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/it...elling-death-metal-band-of-the-soundscan-era/

 

[EspaDa]

six feet under lol

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

This list is also considered controversial because Deicide was released before the SoundScan era and it's very possible that it's the best-selling death metal album but has unrecorded sales due to when it was released.

 

[Phylactery]

Thanks Elric. Obviously I know death metal isn't going to to sell massive amounts, but I at least thought some bands would have broke a million in total sales by now.

I guess the bands aren't lying when they say most of their income comes from touring and merchandise sales.