Metal Reviews

I don't want to nit-pick you, but how is it commercial? How do you define commercial? Available in major CD stores? Heard on commercial radio?
Before I sound like too much of an ass, I just want to know what you think of as "commercial"....

If the focus is on selling a lot and be accessible to a lot of people rather than to make good music. Nymphetamine even showed poplike songstructures. One more note, one doesn't have to sell a lot to be selling out. For example, Enter Chaos sold out on their latest as well...

i agree with what gast said but i wanna add to it as well.

Shifting your style to become more accesible or popular with a different, more poular demographic than ever before is selling out.



The new album was alot more popular with the skater, pseudo rebellious kids than before and less to there old fans.Them changeing there style to appeal to these people is selling out, even if they still aren't mainstream.
i still like all of the bands other releases though.

But what is good music? It's subjective.
You can't say that Mozart did better music than 50 Cent just because it's a hell of a lot more advanced, better structured and demanded whole orchestras. It's good music when you can reach out to people who like what they are hearing, no matter if it's some techno beats or mysterious black metal symphony.

Same with COF. You really can't say that they sold out just because you don't consider their latest release to be "good" music.

That wasn't the point that Gast was trying to make. Read his post again.

I wouldn't call them sell-outs. The whole Damnation and a Day fiasco was pressed upon them by Sony Music and so they quickly left the label. I think that shows a certain amount of integrity to leave a multi-album deal on the table instead of bowing down to the labels demands. I think it's more of an issue of line-up changes. Losing Robin Graves and Gian Pyres was a huge hit to the band as they wrote a huge chunk of the music. Paul Allender keeps trying to match his excellent riffing form The Principle of Evil and is failing miserably at it. And Dave Pybus, while being a good bassist, is nothing but a big goof and contributes nothing creatively to the band. Nymphetamine tries to be classic Cradle, but it's not the classic Cradle line-up making the album. I think if they got Stuart back, things would be a lot better.

I just bought Nymphetamine and I really quite enjoy it. If selling out means making listenable metal, then I like it when Cradle sell out.

I serioulsy think that Damnation and a Day is their best album yet, and one of the best records ever, Sony or not. It is most definetly 99/100 in my book.





Waiting to get flamed...

but, seriously, I agree with you.... it's a very likeable album my only problem being Dani's voice which makes me want to kill little children... :twisted:

Can't stand his voice and unless he totally changes, I think that's not to change... ever... :?

His voice definately takes some getting used to. DDAD was virtually the first BM (of sorts, I know it's not proper BM) I heard, and as an introduction it wasn't bad. I still give it a spin now and then, and may even get some more COF/DB some time...but I can think of several proper BM bands whose complete discography I'd much rather have.

I just loved Danis voice from the first note

I wouldn't link Dany's vocals with BM. They are not screams they are squeals

Ha! Ha! No, I'm not going to flame you. The album is pretty good, it's just not Cradle of Filth. All of the songs are in the 5 minute range which is very strange for them. All of the awesome interludes(a big reason I listen to Cradle) are sectioned off into their own seperate tracks instead of being proper parts of the songs, and the whole concept of the lyrics was kind of ridiculous, even for Cradle. All of this was requested by Sony Music in an effort to make the album more "marketable"., which is silly as I don't think Dani's voice will ever be marketable anyways. You either love his vocals or hate them. I feel Nymphetamine is a much better effort, it just never seems to find it's feet.

Well I thank you for respecting my opinion.

I think the big problem with commercialism in music is that when profit interests enter the 'soul' of the music leave due to the change of focus. That must be what 'selling out' is all about. I actually liked some of Cradle's old stuff (you can flame me if you like but I see I'm not the only one ) but their Nymphetamine album is a soul-less piece of crap... I blame commercialism, capitalism and profit interests (as I do in most cases)

If someone is really uptight about selling out here is a thought: All the bands which play their music for their living are in my oppinion trying to satisfy their contractors. Because this the artists are manipuated. They dn't vary much but if they do they go toward's a likable music. Puting more soft parts which in some cases turn out a little cheesy. I think this is the case with most bands.... The ppl get older and with that they try to hoard big piles of money so they could die happy and not at all poor. How many bands have used growls and now use clean vocals? How many bands are playing more and more gothic influenced music? I actualy fancy goth metal but i hate that more and more bands play it but rarely generate something new and refreshing...

Be HARDCORE! Listen ONLY to SELF FINANCED or UNDERGROUND music. These ppl are not sellouts since they invest more than gain from it....

The whole underground thing is funny. Euronymous himself said it's better to make a living from the music and increase its popularity.
I listen to a variety of stuff, and at the end of the day, the muysic is how i rate it, not how underground the band is.

I'm not HARDCORE! enough to go exclusively for underground music. I'll listen to anything I like and that includes some of the more commercial bands. But often the price for increasing popularity is very high in terms of artistic integrity. Hence you can find a lot of good 'unspoiled' music in the underground that would never get popular in its current form... So I'll have to disagree (partially) with both RvN and Euronymous.

I like RvN's way of thinking but it's a little too late for me.. I'm hooked on plenty of major label bands, already. Dude's right, though, if you eschew the mainstream stuff and delve deeper, you get a higher quality selection of music to choose from, especially if you can handle terrible production, haha.

I'm with you on this one.

Sure, there are tons of people that play music just to make money or to get a piece of ass, but there are also tons of succesful artists who aren't sell-outs. AC/DC and Iron Maiden are popular all over the world, but they're still true to their music.