well, they tend to happen to break the underground rules when they've reached mtv anyways. Changing their ways to compensate conservatif requirements that is.

argh i'm never gonna get paid, Goodbye a million credits

Money = commercally acceptable.

Who cares about your "sound" when you can make millions, tens of millions and more.

Also - if they don't "mature" their music, then they are "brushed off" as a stale one trick pony. Needless to say they are damned if they do, damned if they don't.


Also - to expand some more. Many bands write their best stuff before they are big, or during the first few years when they are doing everything to excess. They have tons of things to write about, banging groupies, od'ing, friends dying, touring etc etc etc. However, as they get older, they mellow - enjoy life more, slow down on the crazy stuff, stop doing drugs (chilli peppers)

Think about them as a prime example, their teenage years of excess are gone, their mid life madness has been left behind. They are 40+ and fathers/family people with responsiblities to others and not themselves. How they can keep writing like they did when they were drugged up, practically dying every other night........well they cannot, they just don't live that life anymore. Ergo they seem to be more "commercial" and sold out.

So, overall - how can they write songs about things they don't live anymore with conviction? People do move on, and in many bands cases...if they didn't they would probs die!! (Alice in Chains)

I personally don't see bands like the offspring as sell outs, I look more to the R&B crud that get's pushed out day after day. Now there's a blatent grab for cash if I've ever seen one. I chortle everytime they have the audacity to call themselves artists, there's never been a more phoney industry than those bunch of tossers.

It's the nature of being in a business isn't it? Until a record label picks you up, you're free to play whatever you want and sound whichever way you want... because it is all your own risk... whether you succeed or fail.

Once you get signed, though, the bean counters take over. They are in the business of making music CDs/DVDs for a profit, not to make musical art. That is a secondary objective which is supposed to be promoted only after the first objective is assured.

There are these so-called talent scouts who are supposed to have the "ear" for what is "in." As they get older, thought, they lose touch but they make too much money to admit it. So they hang on and try to dictate what the market wants to hear by "molding" talented groups into cookie cutter formulas. And for all this, the RIAA is suing people who "like" the stuff but don't think they should be forced to buy an entire album when only one of the cuts is worth listening to.

So you think that after a record label pays a group millions of dollars to sign with them, they should just give the music away? How are they supposed to stay in business if they can't get money for their product? I know it's a rip to have to buy a whole CD to hear one good track but it's been that way since they invented records.

I think it's funny how these groups are out there dissing the establishment, yet they depend on market forces to get them money and recognition. I also think it's hypocritical when people like Eminem say they only let their kids listen to edited versions of their music, but it's OK for everyone else's kids to hear all the filthy and(or) depraved lyrics.

Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!!

" I also think it's hypocritical when people like Eminem say they only let their kids listen to edited versions of their music, but it's OK for everyone else's kids to hear all the filthy and(or) depraved lyrics."

an excellent point, very well made. I don't myself think Eminem is particularly offensive (anymore) just rather boring, but his example does illustrate the point rather well.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/21/2004 8:59:54 AM

No, not give them away. iTunes and other singles downloading is more appropriate, I think. What I meant to say was that when the record companies looked at how kids were "stealing" music of the net, their reaction was NOT to figure out why but to sue them.

It took Apple, a non-music company, to come up with the first commercially viable model for downloading singles. What does that tell me?

It tells me that the RIAA represented fat cats who didn't want their little cash cow being changed for the benefit of the music listener. By selling CDs at a price which is something like 1,200% more than the cost to make and distribute them the music companies were making waaaaay too much money to go back to charging per song.

BTW - The record comopanies will tell you that its the CD albums that give their artists the room to be "artistic and creative" by adding songs that otherwise not be published. Which is just another excuse for making people pay for cr*p cuts in music.

but singles are aimed at kids and the mass market, the albums are where the creative and inventive work is (usually) to be found. they aren't per se "crap cuts" rather imho it's the singles that are crap and the albums that are good, cos they have the non-single stuff. and everybody knows its only album charts that really count, seeing as the singles charts are a complete rip and only intended for under 16s anyway (the average age of singles buyers is 14)

I do know of one singer who did "sell" out Amy Grant. Started as christian singer and was very good, but found out she could make a lot more money with secular music and jumped sides.

but thats offset by her contemporary, Donna Summer, who was a legs up to her neck disco-diva then went off to sing for Jesus.

(Amy was much sexier imo, and she joined our side, of course )

If you are an established "star" in a music label's roster, yes, the albums are how they are able to publish their "art."

But if you are a new group that is in a drive make it big, you have a commitment to churn out "x" number of albums. Those albums very often
are clogged with cr*p cuts.

Yes. I am over generalizing but ... how many groups are in it for the money and how many are in it for their art? Which group will the major labels groom and market the most as a result?

Taw, you listened to many modern albums? the good finds of experimental genius are years behind us now...........its constant ballads/remixes of singles and other rubbish in the effort to "fill" albums for the modern generation that really annoy me about modern albums. However, some still put out good content, see Audioslave - every track on that album is brilliant!

Radiohead (ok they're not q what they were, i'll grant you that)
Cinerama
Polyphonic Spree (-ish)

thats just 3 off the top of my head, I'm an indie-boy so pretty much everything I listen to falls into the not-very-commercial category. I don't listen to chart rubbish (much)

Hmm, the last two i have to confess to never hearing of!