I know they believe it helps market the disc, I just wonder if it does. As I said, who's buying the disc because of a 30 second contribution from an artist they enjoy?
I'd say it's about awareness, about broadening your market. The target is not the hard-core fans like you and me, who go out of our way and do our own work to find new bands to listen to. It's the more casual fan, who may be a mega-fan of a few bands, but needs help to look beyond that circle.
I argue that that sort of casual fan is FAR more common than the hard-core music fan, even in the metal world, and thus, it makes a whole lot of sense to try to reach them. Think of all the people out there who are Dream Theater SuperFans, but have never even heard of any of the prog-metal bands that play ProgPower.
This is also why ProgPower sells 90% of its tickets in a week, and then has to work like hell to sell the final 10%. The hard-core music fans are dedicated, but limited in number. I think this is why, to sell that last 10%, Glenn focuses more on casting a wider net (advertising to locals who may be just a fan of one band, bringing Turisas on board, etc.) rather than drilling deeper (asking past attendees "c'mon, don't you *really* want to buy a ticket again this year?!?") You have much more unlimited growth-potential if you can double the people aware of your name and get 10% of those new people to make a purchase, than you do if you only try to raise the purchase ratio among your hard-core fans from 70% to 80%.
And think about threads you've seen in the past about "how did you first hear about Band X?" There are usually a lot of odd, serendipitous answers. It's not like everyone is born with a memorized list of every band in existence. There has to be SOME way that you first hear about a band, and "I saw that a musician I really like played on their album" is as good a reason as any.
One of my best friends has absolutely no interest in metal, except that he LOVES Fear Factory's 'Remanufacture', and owns a couple of Savatage albums. If he happened to be in the mood to acquire some new music, and saw a sticker that mentioned Savatage on a Kamelot album, who knows?
Really, I guess if they were smart, the sticker/press-kit should say "Jon Oliva (TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA, SAVATAGE)"!
With respect to this disc specifically, Kamelot and Epica have toured a lot together, which would explain their use of Simone.
Yeah, that one they're just lucky that she's in a well-known band, and hot, so they're happy to take advantage of it, but I agree, it's probably not that calculated-in-advance. She really fits in the same group as Thomas Rettke and Robert Hunecke-Rizzo, but since "HEAVENS GATE" (sadly) doesn't mean shit to anyone, those guys don't make the press kit.
As for Jon, Thomas is from Florida and is a Savatage fan.
This is what I mean about being deep into their music scene...yeah, if Jon and Thomas go to local shows and see each other all the time, stumble home together drunk and jam out a bit before they pass out, if they share a practice space, if they help set up local gigs for each other, than sure, it's a totally natural thing to guest on the album. But does that actually happen? I would guess that them both being "from Florida" doesn't mean jack in the real world. Barack Obama is from Chicago, but I ain't never seen the dude.
Ultimately, you may be right, but I'm just not seeing it on this one.
Yeah, and you certainly may be right about this case, maybe business considerations don't enter Thomas's mind at all. But it still would have been a very interesting question to ask, and much more useful to hear the answer from his own mouth then to hear a couple of jackasses on a forum making baseless speculations.
And yeah, it's really none of the people you mentioned that made me say "hmm...", it's the Shagraths and Strids that do that.
I know this is done often in the mainstream world, and I have no doubt these ideas filter down. However, where I think it's different, is many of these tracks are released as single, and available on iTunes as a single song purchase. And I think the mainstream world is a world where many people only buy singles.
Well, in either world, it's cross-promotion, and cross-promotion can be a very cost-effective way to advertise your product.
I do think Kamelot is very into their music, and put a ton of time into crafting it.
Oh, no doubt. Being into their own music, and into the *music scene* are two separate (and nearly opposing) ideas. The more into your own craft and vision you are, the less likely you are to have some guy just email you a guitar solo to paste into your song, because it might not meet your vision of what the song is supposed to be. At the other end is the collaborative, give-and-take sort of music-making that you see in the underground experimental/jazz world.
As if anyone on the planet, outside these boards, knows/cares that Gus G. is Ozzy's new guitarist.
Maybe not at the moment, and maybe never, but it's a hell of a smart and low-risk idea to buy his stock right now when it's low. In the past, being a guitarist for Ozzy has had a rather strong track record of hugely inflating your stock!
Neil
at the Nightwish tight shirts/large fans comment. 
