Metal Reviews

I don't think that's what it meant.

I think you guys are more or less misunderstanding where I am coming from. I don't hate the labels at all. Without them there is a very slim chance I would have heard any of the music I love. Especially the "metal labels" former liberal promo policies.

And I don't speak to the music itself. I am talking about how it is marketed. Record Labels are aware of the fact that at a certain age a great deal of mostly male record buyers will resist mass marketed pop music, so they need an alternative that fits in line with the emotional state at the time. It couldn't be simpler really from their angle.

I just don't understand why some people insist that industry politics and the way they have been doing business since the 50's is somehow inapplicable to certain genres.

Once again you prove absolutely nothing tangible or of any value to base your argument on.

Someone, somewhere thought they could get millions of people to buy those records, even if it never worked out that way. If they didn't those bands would never have gotten a record deal.

Selling 5 records to 50 million people is much much more profitable than selling 50 records to 50 million people. No matter how awful they sound or how little artistic merit is involved.

Stop making the stupid and ridiculous assumption that artistic merit or uniqueness equals obscurity and independence. It does not.

You are essentially arguing the same thing as someone saying that Tool are not a mainstream rock act because their records, by all accounts, should not be selling 3-5 million copies each based on the way they sound.

Or like calling Kiss avante garde because they dress in makeup and do silly stunts and have effects at their shows.

Prog was fucking huge in the early 70's. It sold a ton of records for a lot of companies and a million prog bands were signed because of that. Get over it. There is nothing obscure about prog rock in the early 70's at all. It is about as obscure as an alternative band in 1994, a high-gloss r&b group in 1991 or an AOR act in 1978.

Can "Tago Mago" (United Artists, 1971)
Tago Mago was recorded in 1971 by Czukay in Schloss Nörvenich, a castle near Cologne. The band was allowed to stay there for a year without paying any rent by the owner, an art collector named Mr. Vohwinkel. This was the first of Can's albums to be made from not only regularly recorded music, but combined "in-between-recordings", where Czukay secretly recorded the musicians jamming while waiting for various technical problems to be resolved. Czukay would edit these long, disorganized jams into structured songs. Recording was completed in three months.
(by the way, Holger Czukay was the producer but also a founding member of Can)

Kraftwerk "Radio-Activity" (Emi/Capitol, 1975)
This was the first Kraftwerk album to be entirely self-produced by Hütter & Schneider in their Kling Klang studio, and the first one to be performed by the "classic" Hütter/Schneider/Bartos/Flür line-up. All the music was written by Hütter/Schneider, with Emil Schult collaborating on lyrics. Schult also designed the artwork – a modified illustration of a late-1930s 'Deutscher Kleinempfänger' radio.

And this is just two of the many examples of how many progressive rock bands proceeded in the 70s.
You can look for yourself for more of this proofs your so loudly crying for, they're all over the internet.

Happy now?

That could come off wrong. What you meant was that people like metal because others don't, no?

More like an effect, not a cause.

did HowlinWolf mean Nu the Spanish prog rock band?

Maybe it is just me, but I got into metal because I never gave a shit what other people thought about my taste in music.

Nope, I meant Neu! the krautrock/proto punk/experimental band from Germany.

FFS Adveser not being mainstream does not make something "obscure". King Crimbo, Miles Davis, Morbid Angel... 3 bands selected at random that are not mainstream but certainly aren't obscure.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mainstream

Mainstream= the prevailing current of thought or activity.

None of those bands were following the "prevailing current" of their day. Now, maybe some of them defined it for a future day, but that is different... (actually, I don't think any of those three bands mentioned above did apart from Miles)

How can you base your tastes on not caring what other people think? It's either because of what other people think or in spite of it. Unless you're just trying to go against the grain for the sake of being different.

I got into metal because that is what I liked. If I cared what other people thought, I would have had the sensibility to conform them to something more agreeable with my peers. That didn't happen, so nothing was going to change for the benefit of the social aspect. The three dozen bands telling people not to care what other people think certainly helped me realize that I was not making a mistake.

Funny how you never commented on my post demonstrating that many bands are free to do whatever pleases them even though they're signed on a major company. I guess some people are not good at admitting defeat...

Ho, and for another example, watch Rush's documentary that just been released on DVD.

You proved absolutely nothing other than a member of the band produced the album, Anything else in there was pointless. Being the producer doesn't prove anything other than there was no middle man to get the labels "issues" and "concerns" addressed. Some bands are more than willing to play ball. Like the aforementioned Zappa, but Zappa loved a certain type of pop sensibility that tended to catch on and make the record gold, so it is obvious in his case why he was producing. It was less of a headache and produced better results. But I digress since that is all hearsay. I am not saying a whole bunch of stories amounts to good scientific evidence for anything. I'm saying a couple thousand with few contradictions suggests a trend, one that no matter how many times it is discussed is ignored as if the few times that almost unique circumstances permeate things disprove them. It's like saying that because Tom Scholz made Boston's first album exactly the way he wanted it that it is a myth that record companies control almost every aspect of the music business and do in fact intervene whenever possible to maximize appeal and profits.

(The fact of the matter is that John Boylan likely found Tom impossible to work with and decided to collect his points sitting at home making up lies and bullshitting invoices to studios that were never used to pocket or split even more money. He probably liked what Tom was doing anyway and unless Tom Scholz really is some kind of space alien with an insane knack for electronics, John offered tons of technical advice on how to record an album in you basement. In other news a few of the people on the jacket of the album didn't play a single note on the album)

*Ahem*

Anyway, for every band that can be named that had 100% control (assuming your examples are legit and they had their first master actually released and never heard it previous to that) there are easily 100 that did not have anything like that, so what does that less than 1% prove? It proves it is possible, but none of that provides any substantial means to figure out who. All we have to go by are the stories that are told over the years and one thing that has always been true in the entertainment business is still true in the record business and damn sure true as well in hard rock and heavy metal. whoever is gambling their money on a winner gets to control the content.

Just imagine if you will that record companies are like movie companies and someone wanted to argue that a huge blockbuster made by paramount 20 years ago was exactly what the screenwriter and director intended. You would never believe such a ridiculous story. Just because "Star Wars" did in fact get made this way doesn't prove "Batman Forever" was anything more than a way to sell cereal, toys, soundtracks featuring u2 and other assorted bullshit. Come on, use your heads.

I'm not saying all music is corporate bullshit, not me, the guy that loves David Foster, Dianne Warren, Toto and Richard Marx, that is not my point and you all know it. I'm not trying to attach some stigma to bands being more marketable. It's mandatory. It is how things are done.

*Imagines a confused KISS being told for the 10th time that yes, even they have to see the image consultant*

Yes, like I said, some people are just not good at admitting defeat.

Sorry if I don't read you whole posts but your statements are so erratic I have no time to lose reading it scrupulously.

So, you think you have a point because your reading comprehension is terrible and you can't follow the logic that nothing you've stated is evidence of anything you claim, you won't address anything. Stonewalling and essentially ignoring any questions posed while repeating the same things over and over is a recipe for bullshit.

Clearly the synthesis of one's opinion into a short and insightful text is a concept that is lost to you.
Until you learn it, I shan't read your long and boring diatribes anymore.

The Mars Volta are the best prog band!

I love early MV, but in my opinion they've lost a lot of bite since the At the Drive-in years. Deloused is a kick ass album though

No, that is called evidence. Not scientific evidence, mind you, but it is all we have. You have no business trying to make a point if you keep ignoring anything addressed it in favor of old wives tales and other nonsense that contradicts everything documented on the subject.