Metal Reviews

This post Seinfeld26 posted in the other forum got me thinking:


Sadly, I am now convinced that this is because no one buys albums anymore. I know I own a ton of CDs, but my friends, like I've mentioned in the past, have 50,000 MP3s on their PCs and own only a handful of actual CDs—most of which they bought prior to the P2P craze. About 3 weeks ago I visited a torrent site for the first time. I was shocked. I occasionally use P2P software for rare songs, unreleased material or whatever, and it was rather anonymous. I only saw what I downloaded—which was virtually nothing—so my opinion on downloading was inaccurate.

Now these torrent sites are frightening! For instance, Suspyre's album is on this Kerrazy Torrents site. How can a band like this handle not making money from their albums? There are pages and pages of replies like "Thanks!" or "Thankies! You rock!" or "Sweet! Thanks!" That's it. No discussion at all. It's the equivalent of me walking into a record shop and just randomly taking anything and everything and just going "Thanks!" and walking out.

Not only that, a band like Solitude Aeturnus—who are considered to be one of the top 5 doom metal bands of all time, just under Candlemass—have trouble recording albums because they haven't got the money! But go to this torrent site and you can download every album in one frickin' torrent file! ONE!! How can we expect our favorite bands to survive this way?

There's a Def Leppard torrent there with like 35 pages of thank you replies, this torrent has everything the band has done since 1978 plus live bootlegs, unreleased songs, you name it. ONE FILE. It's ridiculous. Yeah, they have plenty of money, but the principle applies.

Sure, labels don't help by force-breeding the urge to download by releasing sub-standard albums, but there are a million bands out there being destroyed by downloading. I am now convinced. Do you wonder why honest musicians sign up for ridiculous reality TV shows? Go to Kerrazy Torrents for your answer. Sepultura only selling 2,300 albums? HOW? How is that possible? My personal CD collection is double that amount! Sure, they're not as good as they once were, but they are legends in the metal world! 2,300 copies is a joke and it doesn't reflect the quality of music they're writing and releasing now, it reflects the state of mind the music "fans" have about music now.

It's saddening. Rather pathetic considering this is something that I love so.

could be because new sepultura sucks.

No it's not downloading. Sepultura just haven't been on the radar in years. Couple that with a steadily declining quality of albums, it's only natural that Sep' albums are selling less and less.

your examples suck balls.

a) Sepultura are getting progressively worse and it's not lost on their fans.
b) Doom is a genre with fans comparable to black metal, ie, not very many and most are faithful to the artists. doom might even be slightly more obscure since there isn't really a doom version of Cradle of Filth or Old Man's Child or whatever the fuck. So Solitude Aeturnus doomed (ha!) themselves far before downloading came into play.
c) this is the big duh point, but, there are fags like certain people on this board who tend to a) only listen to fairly well-known music and b) are unable to be satisfied until they're holding the band's CD in their hands. In this case the torrent site is actually earning the band more paying fans than they would otherwise have - don't kid yourself into thinking that many music fans would buy a CD just because they couldn't download it.

what's it's really killing is our appreciation of music.. with such a constant influx of new stuff to listen it's hard to develop much of an affinity with any one album, so your favourites will probably remain your favourites forever.

I say fuck the music industry. My favourite bands don't really make money from their stuff, but yet they keep on releasing great music.

Make art for art not money.


- and the new Sepultura sucks so, this isn't really about the p2p killing the music.

*claps hands*

Eyesore put some effort into that post, and you destroy its purpose with a one-liner like that. Good goin'.

I only download to get to know something, and mostly it's Misha who offers something to me. I'm too fucking lazy to go look stuff up on one hand, but on the other hand I prefer getting to know other bands at my own rate, which is slow but satisfying. I buy all my albums as I like to have something tangible (plus artwork and lyrics) and all artists whose albums I buy, deserve the money.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, Eyesore. The name Sepultura is legendary in the metal world, but they've fallen from grace ever since Max left (I'm not saying it makes sense, or that their music has gotten any better or worse; I've never really cared for them, personally). I don't think this figure is indicative of anything other than the fact that the new album ain't that great. After all, how many copies did St. Anger sell? Sepultura don't have the mainstream recognition that Metallica do, so when a mediocre album comes out, they're lacking the necessary legions of fanboys to move more than a couple thousand copies.

As far as downloading music in general goes, I'm firmly in the "it's a good thing" camp. Kazaa helped get me started in discovering new bands, and I generally bought the albums of the random bands I happened upon in my searches. I know this is only personal experience, but everyone I know had pretty much the same experience. I don't know if the numbers of the "obviously I'll have to buy this" side and the "ha, I've gotten it for free, now I don't have to spend my precious money" side balance out, but the former would be nigh-invisible to someone browsing download sites. I don't think it's quite as dire as you make it out to be.

Even for a band that has gone downhill, 2,300 copies is not a reflection of their music. Are you suggesting they only have 2,300 fans in the US now? They should be selling over 100,000 copies! 100,000 is not much considering.

Fine. Take Sepultura out of the equation then. I still feel they should be selling far more copies than 2,300. That figure is ridiculous. But what about Suspyre? That album is an independent release, self-financed. This isn't Man's Evil with their toilet bowl sound and production, Suspyre had to have made a huge investment in their album. Yet, it'll be downloaded in droves and those people will not buy the album, for the most part.

Look, I'm not against downloading. I feel like anyone should be able to know the product they're buying first, but I think that product should be paid for after that fact. Downloading is killing music. There is no other scenario that plays out.

I would say there are only 2,300 people who STILL care. They have put out 4 or 5 albums(not sure) since Max left and haven't delivered on any of them. Just massive dissapointment after dissapointment. If someone is still wasting money on their albums at this point, they've more than likely been lobotomized.

I'm not sure what you're arguing, then. As I said, you're not going to be able to tell how many people are downloading and then buying.

Look, people that buy albums will buy them. I downloaded St. Anger because I heard "Frantic" and thought, uh-oh! Sure enough the album sucked, it was deleted and I never bought it (though I would for like $2). I'm sure there are some people like this with Sepultura, that's fine. But I'd bet everything I own on the fact that at least 100,000 people downloaded this CD and are happy and pleased with it because they LIKE it. Those people should have bought it.

Still, this isn't about Sepultura. That post just sparked something that's been stewing for a while now. I see it time and time again with bands I like, downloading is killing them.

But other factors paint a bigger picture. This isn't a blind "guesstimation" here. This is history, current album sales, current mainstream musical climate, promoters, you name it, it all plays a role. But eliminate the downloading and things would be very different. Sure, I would have paid for St. Anger, the band would have gotten my money and I would have been shit outta luck, but my sadly-missed money keeps that music machine from breaking down. That's just how it goes.

How many of your favorite bands don't tour in the US anymore? How many of them don't get their albums released here anymore? Do you really think MTV and the media plays a role in that? Not really. The biggest reason they don't tour or get their albums released here anymore is because people don't buy their albums so the demand isn't there. Sure, a million people may download their albums, but that doesn't help a band.

FUCK THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

NO ONE SIGNED THE POSTMAN SYNDROME TO LET THEM RELEASE A SECOND ALBUM

THEY CAN BURN IN HELL FOR ALL I CARE

and as much as downloading is killing music, I think the fact that its getting easier and easier to record albums is helping it out. Soon all you'll need is a computer and instruments to get whatever sound quality you want

I wouldn't have bought half the albums i have now without downloading. I download to find stuff i like. It helps me get into bans i would never hear otherwise.

As do I, but we are a rarity.

yea, if it wasnt for downloading i would probably just listen to tool, devin townsend, strapping young lad and the postman syndrome since they are like the only bands i can think of now that i heard about w/o downloading

I do the same thing actually, and im sure many other people do that as well, downloading is the only way that the listeners can protect themselves against the fucking music industry, lets face it internet has helped the music industry a lot, a lot of cds i own were bought online, and be damn sure that im not going to spend my well earned money on something i hevent heard of, the industry is well aware of that, and thats whats been bothering them, sales are droping because people are actually listening before buying and now is harder to deceive someone by realising an awful album, even if is suposed to sell well like the new sepultura.

On the other hand theres a lot of people that dont buy albums at all, well those people suck but its no downloading fault, they wouldnt be buying albums anyways.

Sepultura should just disband and leave their unloyal mallcore fans behind.

I believe mp3s helped many obscure bands, bands like Pagan Altar, Heathen etc would have been forgotten without it. Real metal fans would surely buy and support after liking what they hear.

People who only download mp3s and claim to be a huge fan of the music suck immensely. :x

Yeah, my sister and my girlfriends friend are examples of this, before downloading they basically just listened to around 10 albums, so its not like they were buying music anyways =\