Metal Reviews

This may be overstated, but where's the limit? How many records is a band allowed to sell before they lose credibility, and why at all?

Thoughts?

"sell out" is as decriptive of the music as any other adjective or genre name could be. It gets the message across that the band is simpler, more accesible, easy to listen to etc, just as sure as saying a band is "complex" gets across that the music will have time signature shifts, technical instrumental parts etc...

and its just as debatable as any other musical adjective or genre name 8)

also I dont think it has anything at all to do with # of records sold, Radiohead sell millions of albums but no one calls them sellouts because they got weirder and less accessible as their careers progressed. Or you could take someone like The Mars Volta who play extremely fucked up music but still manage to have fairly significant album sales...

Sugar Ray. They're sell outs. A band that started out heavy, even covering Black Flag and Minor Threat as a b-side on an old single. Sure, they had some mellower tunes, but on their second album they had the acoustic song "Fly." Out of every song on their first two albums there is no other song like it. Obviously that song was a huge hit, so what happens next? The following three albums are acoustic pop albums...no more heavy songs! None. Nada. THAT is selling out.

Selling albums, gaining mainstream success, acquiring a bunch of sniveling 12-year old girls for fans, etc., is not selling out. This whole notion of keeping it "underground" is fucking lame. FANS want that because fans are selfish. Sure, there are probably some bands out there that don't care about being poor. Maybe they have alternate income or something. I can't imagine why anyone would expect musicians to live poor! Why? So the fan doesn't have to feel like he's sharing his band with many people? Whatever.

People want to make a living. You can be successful and not be a sell out.

Darkthrone is a great example here, they are probably selling a lot more than their time when they peaked, but no one calls them sellouts because they didn't. Number of albums sold isn't the thing here, it is changing music to reach a wider fanbase, Darkthrone did the exact opposite of this on The Cult is Alive, with the danger of alienating their old fans, they still did whatever the fuck they want.


I want to add a question to get this thing wider, do you think underground bands are more respectable than bands who make commercial music with the intent of getting rich?

I'd say hell yeah, people say it's lame to release limited copies of albums, I think it is very respectable. Nobody does that to be cool, you could be a lot cooler if you went platinum. I think they do it with the intention of "doing music for the sake of being able to create an art, not a profit" and I have a lot of respect for this kind of mentality, art for art.

Yeah.

Playing the devil's advocate, you could say the only way the music's special is if it is limited, thereby creating mystery and that around it. And it is lame ultimately, like stamp collecting but with music.

As for Darkthrone, you could say that they don't give a shit, but this reverse psychology 'release a single to show how kvlt we are' thing never really had me convinced. I respect a band for the music primarily, not for how many records they sell, how many Kerrang! readers know their name, or whether they think all Jews should be deported. I can despise the artists, but like the music, and I think this whole 'sellout' thing is more of that.

I'll give a very direct definition of selling out: Deliberately straying far from your musical roots just to appeal to the mainstream. Save for may be that very special band (Devil Doll for example), most bands want to make money from their music. And if they were really given the opportunity, they would certainly sign to a major record label. Declining such an offer would probably be strictly egotistical (ie. "We're so kvlt because we declined Geffen Records' offer!!!") rather than out of fan loyalty.

Take Lamb of God for example. They were underground for a while, but thanks to some surprise commercial success with ATPB, they signed onto Sony and had a Billboard Top 30 album with Ashes Of The Wake. All without compromising their sound one bit.

And yes, a lot of underground metal bands do have alternate incomes. Jon Schaffer, for example, owns and runs Spirit Of '76 (although Iced Earth is starting to break away from the underground somewhat).

Agreed. Using that definition, I would say that few bands have sold out more than Within Temptation. It only took them 3 albums to change from a dark gothic metal band (Enter) with beauty-and-the-beast vocals to a Evanescence ripoff. Having said that, I quite like The Silent Force (much better than Evanescence!) while Enter sucked royal balls.

i think that as long as band is technically interesting and musically talented, they can sell as many records as they want. If Haggard all of a sudden started selling millions without dumbing down their music, they wouldn't be sellouts in MY book.