Metal Reviews

Now, everybody seems to talk about this group selling out, that group going the way of MTV and stuff ...

I was wondering how the metal groups from Europe are. The general idea, or view, of a succesful and popular band is a bunch of guys flying around first class, having nice cars, chicks by their side and quite a nice bank book.

Now, this is the typical rock star and Good Charlotte-Backstreet Boy superstardom i'm talking about.

Off the bat i can think of Timo Tolki's (or Kotipelto's) first entry on the Tour Diary talking about sitting in business class, Blind Guardian and Michael Stanne being interviewed on their respective DVDs. They didnt seem to be the typical big shot rock star you would find over here.

I was wondering what their lifestyle is, compared to, say, big acts over here like Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Metallica and all those other groups.

ciao

see the "Cradle of Filth are sellouts" thread in the doom metal seciton.

You've lost me....so....HUH?

Tr00 metal means they make money from their music, only they don't tell anyone.

Sellout means they tell people they make money.

from a deontological point of view, sellout bands do not play for the right reasons. This include money, popularity on the charts, ...

from a consequentialist point of view, sellout bands do not play the right kind of music. They start taking traits of common commercial bands.

Hope it helps.

The term "sell out" differs from person to person. I despise the term "True metal" to describe the genre of certain bands, but of course in your post, it is used under a different context. I would say every band evolves, but there are some who actually do something that they are not comfortable with or change their musical direction not because it's something that happens naturally or they are just experimenting, but do it because all the other popular/successful bands are doing it even though their genres might be different. In other words, they move away from what music they play just to follow a certain trend. I would term that as "sell out". There are also bands that stick to what they believe in and create the kind of music they enjoy irrespective of whether it brings them more album sales, popularity or fans and irrespective of the current trend. I would classify these bands as being non sell outs or true metal in this case( I find the use of the term "true metal" pretty appropriate in this scenario ).

I would say the essence of selling out is altering your sound to appeal to a trend. A good example is Bethlehem, who used to play blackened doom metal and have now transformed into a bad Rammstein..

Altering your sound isn't necessarily selling out every time, though.. see Ulver's voyage from BM to avant-Garm (hehehe) or in a less metal vein, King Crimson's voyage from jazzy prog (In the Court of the Crimson King) to twelve-tone experimental hell (THRAK onwards), via romantic new-wave rock. Both of those bands have retained their integrity, even if they haven't retained all of their fans. Even if King Crimson accidentally founded grunge, snarf.