Metal Reviews

...if you're a pre-packaged band made solely with the intent on mainstream success/promotion/dominance?

This is just a little detour off the other thread here and the Venetian Snares thread. But a good question. Can you sell out if you stay true to your intentions? If your intent is to start a poser-pop band and get plastered all over TRL and MTV2 and FUSE! and all the teen pop magazines, is that selling out? I would say no. That's keeping it real.

Discuss.

I don't think that is selling out. For example, Cradle of Filth was never an underground band, they weren't strictly black metal to begin with but everyone calls them sellouts. I don't think it is fair, if the band wants to make a living out of their art then no one can blame them, if it's good music I'll listen to it.


In Flames - Sountrack to your escape was the pinnacle of the whole sellout thing, and for good reasons, I don't think no one can say it's not selling out.

They were never black metal, but they were certainly underground.

How anyone can listen to that "Black Goddess" demo and say they were never underground is beyond me.

How can you sell out if you were never in???

Most metal bands make music for music's scake, not to make money, its when a band cecided that money is more inportant then music that they usually sell out. But if your intention was to make money right from day one then its not selling out, you were never in!

i think it's a sort of innate sense metalheads have. I mean, you can listen to it, and see what it's about, and then decide wether its sellout or not.

If your sole intention was to make money, then I guess you can't sell-out, for you were never about the music to begin with.

Please, I knew people who owned original Vempire and Principle when Cruelty wasn't even out. And it's Turkey I'm talking about. They were never Darkspace or something. Everybody knew them from the beginning.

Have you heard it? It's so high-pitched and hard to listen to, there's no way it's anything other than underground. People can know underground bands without them selling out!

Yes I have heard it, it's just the production that sucked, limited copies and no live shows is what makes a band underground, if everybody knew them there's no possible way of staying underground and I said they didn't sellout. If a band is well known enough to sell records in Turkey in 1997 there's no way that they were underground, maybe back in their demo era, but you can't discuss being underground with demos, if Britney Spears released a demo and handed it to 50 people she would be underground too.

I suppose we've got different ideas of what 'underground' means.

Zad is a messageboard terrorist! Always hijacking threads! :roll:

Sorry Kathy, but that's just retarded!

I don't see whats retarded about it. What do you think that keeps a band underground? You think the whole black metal scene is retarded then, because that's exactly what they are doing.

i wouldn't say a band is less underground than another band if they both sell a 1000 copies, with the only difference being that the second band limited their album to 1000 copies from the start.

and if you sell a million copies of an album and you happen to have limited the album to a million copies, you're not underground either :roll:


also... Darkspace has also been playing live, Kathy

last time I heard they had 2 live shows in the middle of nowhere. But I don't know if they went on a world tour after that.

so... u don't think Darkspace is underground?


nah.. i can't imaging them going on a world-tour... then they could play for 2 ppl each place ... i only think they played in germany or something like that..

First of all, the whole BM scene releasing limited copies and not playing live is news to me.

I wasn't saying that releasing limited copies of your stuff and not playing live is retarded. (although i do consider the "limited 88 RARE KVLT"-trend retarded for the most part.) I was just saying that it's not what makes a band underground.

I've been to a lot of underground metal gigs. Now, according to your notion of what is underground, underground metal gigs do not exist! The way that you define underground was what i was calling retarded (which was a bit harsh, sorry about that.)

Okay, let's take Darkthrone for example. In the early days they still played some gigs (they stopped playing out by the release of the second album, if i remember correctly, but that's beside the point anyway). The point is, they were a hell of a lot less known, and hence underground, in those days than they are now.

EDIT: And oh yeah... PWNED!!!11

pwned? well go ahead and enjoy your retarded pathetic triumph, you've proven nothing I said wrong. I'm saying bands limit their stuff and choose not to play live so they can stay underground, and you're babbling like an idiot while proving nothing against what I said. I never said underground bm gigs don't exist, you're pulling stuff out of your ass and using my words out of context.

and Darkthrone was more underground than they were today when they first started? wow, how could that possibly have happened, since bands start famously and then go down to the underground, dont they :roll: When a band is only locally known because they just started their career, then it's not their own choice that they are underground is it? You've made an extremely retarded comment there.

Well obviously I was saying that they don't do big live shows, join festivals or whatever, doing one live show in god knows where is of course an underground thing. It isn't any different than not doing any live shows, since like 50 people probably has seen them play live.