If everything is crap, then I say what are we measuring it against? Where is the bar? How can everything in the world be crap?

I can't tell you how often some elitist asshole says that if you buy any CD that comes from a major label you're some uneducated rube, or a conformist loser.

Then they play some horrid, poorly written and poorly recorded indie crap as if it validates their rebellion. Music is neither inherently good nor bad just because it's underground and thusly supposedly cool, nor because it's on the radio and everyone has heard it.

Both sides practice such blatant close-minded arguements that they drive me nuts.

And you think I'm wrong when it comes to bands being misrepresented by videos or singles?

Fuck, there is a litany of albums I bought when I heard a single, only to be completely shocked when I heard the rest of the album.

Does the artist choose which song to make a single?

No.

Does the artist make their own vidoes?

No. A director does.

Do they even get to choose which songs to make videos out of?

No. It's tied into which singles are released.

I've found that b-sides, and unreleased tracks often show a vastly different side of bands from the polished, enforced image that labels often try to super-impose on artists.

Considering that the artists seem to have very little say in their videos and singles (namely zero say) I'd say the best way to truly appreciate and judge an artist is through their live shows.

Let's take a popular band to thrash these days, in Nickleback.

They use two or three chords at any given time. They remind me of Bush. If I hear one song every once in a while, I enjoy it. If I listen to them too much at once, it drives me insane. Very repetitive, and seemingly made specifically for the radio.

Yet live, they are a very different story. Their first tour, they got hugely popular, moreso than they expected. They had signed on to play bars and small venues, not expected a #1 single. They honored their initial contracts, and played a small bar in Lincoln, NE the first time I saw them despite selling platinum records.

Then, the record company wouldn't front money for their second tour, so the band took money out of their own pocket, built a stage, and paid for their own tour to try and put on the best show they could for their fans.

The set-list looks nothing like their first two albums, and they put on a much better show than Bush.

They're not at all like the band MTV and radio stations want you to believe they are. But people feel justified in making snap judgements not only on music they haven't heard, but also on the people that might enjoy it.

That my friends, is elitism.

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"Nihilism makes me smile."

I agree. I tend to avoid extremist twats and just listen to what I like. As a musician, I might have different criteria, but.. that's ok.

No. I don't.

I tend to think that's the best way to judge an artist, also.

And there you have it.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

Genres are needed. Subgenres are helpful. Elitism is fun. Major labels can suck the life out of a once great band. Indie rock is no better and no worse than popular music. Don't judge a genre by it's popular prototype, that prototype is often nowhere near what the genre is really like. Radio singles rarely give you a clue as to what a band reall sounds like. If a single sounds awesome and innovative, the CD is usually 1 good song and 12 shit songs. If it sounds sucky, it's usually a poppy song, while the rest of the album is decent (though lately it's become a constant that sucky single=sucky album). Primus made good songs, and awesome videos, as did Tool.

The best place to find new music is not MTV or the Radio. It's down the street, the next block down, or in the next town at your friends' houses. In lieu of that, the internet makes for a great sampling zone.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Bunnerabb and DragonXero,

I agree completely. That's all I was trying to say.

9 times out of 10, I will pull out a CD I bought 10 years ago before I turn on the radio if given a choice, or will go see a local show over most concerts these days.

But I think we shouldn't be completely close minded when it comes to new music. I don't think older music is perfect. Lord knows the 70's, 80's, and 90's all produced some serious crap music. Even if we could name twenty brilliant albums from any decade, there are thousands of crap albums to accompany them.

The same can be said today. I own both commercial pop albums (like R.E.M. or U2) right alongside indie albums (such as old Pavement records).

I have found that the older I get, the fewer major label albums I buy though, and I've found myself buying more local music. I care less about having this huge, impressive CD collection, and care more about supporting the local scene over the corporate scene.

But that won't stop me from buying a new album for a corporate band that I happen to like (such as Tool, APC, Pearl Jam, whatever...)

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"Nihilism makes me smile."

This is one of the most irritating threads I've ever read.

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Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.

Matchbook said music is music. Well, sometimes it isn't. Bunner said something about hit songs having some kind of something that makes them sell and blah blah blah, but that isn't usually true either.

First: There are no hit songs, only hit records.

And the record biz is tangled up in a bunch of other entertainment markets, most notably radio, television, and movies. If you think those industries are in the business of selling music, you're wrong. They're mostly in the business of selling audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. And advertisers sell up-market leisure crap like SUV's, sports drinks, sneakers, iPods, and beer, and they want to buy audiences who can and will buy that stuff.

That's what drives the music business these days. Sure, record companies sell records, and records contain music (sometimes), but the record business is not a straightforward Adam Smith marketplace. The sooner you realize this and act on it, the sooner you can start making money.

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What others say about boorite!

Okay, there are good artists in nearly every "genre" of music. Genres and sub-genres, to me, are simply about segregating people according to their tastes and having yet something else for people to claim to be unique with.

What it comes down to its that there is much more heavily-marketed music that SUCKS than there is good music PERIOD.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Let's get another thing straight: For the most part, consumers do not buy "music" in itself, and they do not have musical "taste" in any comprehensible sense of the word. They buy and listen to records so as to align themselves with whatever they think that recording and that artist represents. Consider Johnny Cash. Millions of artists can play and sing circles around him, but damned few command the respect and loyalty (and sales) that he did and posthumously still does. There's a message in there for you arteests.

Consider also "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," by Elton John, from Disney's The Lion King. Consider it, yes, but do not listen to it under any circumstances. It sold bazillions and won awards.

I'm only tracing around my main point here, which I've already forgotten, but maybe you guys get the picture.

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What others say about boorite!

I think so. You're saying that Johnny Cash was a man's man while Elton John is a fag.

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I was gonna send a robot back in time, but I got high.

Wrong.

Hit singles are still what drives the marketplace. You have to buy the whole CD, now, but hit songs are the franchise players for those hit records. They look at it as units shifted, but... the song that's at 12 on the charts is what's shifting those units.

Cross marketing is huge, and has been since they started using popular music to sell soda and cheeseburgers.

Old news, but something that any aspiring artist should look at as a way to make music and eat and live indoors and not have to sell soda and cheeseburgers through a window to survive.

Genres and sub genres are designed to offer some sense of alignment with whatever pose is being used to sell that genre, yeah, but some of it is artist generated: ("We look and sound like THIS cause we're hard core , dude!") - and some of it is label generated ("They COULD be the next big thing in the scene, but they just don't have the look.").

If you buy into it, you get what you pay for.

Johnny Cash is still selling records for a lot of reasons. I disgree with your's as the prominent one.

Johnny Cash was not a technically proficient singer, no. He was an OK guitar player. Johnny Cash, however, -and, yeah.. I've worked with people who have worked with him, although I never had the privilege, and they would happily agree with this assessment- had a style and an approach to music that deeply affected the listener emotionally because he was very unique and he connected with the music he performed in a very raw and emotionally naked fashion. We was visiting, that motherfucker lived there. He touched people. His voice and his style and his music found deep emotional resonance with people.

You can try and fake that, but you get shit like everything Elton John's done since 1979.

Early Elton John farmed the same "sensitive" back forty as most artists did in the mid '70s, to a degree. Johnny was sensitive, too, though. Except Johnny was busy trying to cover up the heart on his sleeve and pretend nobody could see it. Elton was waiting to sell enough records to be able to decorate his in cubic zirconium and glitter and buy some spotlights to shine on it.

Now, Sir Elton is who he is, and Johnny is gone.

Totally different styles and statements, yet they both found some sense of emotional purchase with the people who love their work. The difference? The difference is obvious. Just put one CD from each artist into a CD player drawer and push "RANDOM".

Now.... Let's see... what genre would Sir Elton go into?

Probably AOR.

Johnny?

Johnny Cash is usualy filed under "Johnny Cash."

Viva `la difference.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

The song isn't at #12 on the charts. The record is.

Yes, singles drive album sales, which are the "units moved." Also, I agree with the rest. Lastly, you agree with me about Johnny Cash, although you don't think you do.

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What others say about boorite!

Killed the fuck out of this thread, didn't I?

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What others say about boorite!

Fuck emo!

In defense of subgenres (which are a bit silly to me but...), the purpose of subgenres is so we can speak in short-hand and not spend three hours trying to describe every single nuance of a band's sound (IE "The guitar sounds like Ted Nugent mixed with Mark Knophler except with more rolling beats and harder like The Living End but with a darker edge like Morphine" when you could just say it's dark rock-a-billy and then they'd go listen to it and figure out for themselves).

Every house is just a house except there are slight differences between a trailer, a double wide trailer, a ranch home, a condo, and a tudor home, hence we give them different names. There are a bunch of different kinds of bugs yet they all have different names. I don't really care about the difference between a cockroach and a palmetto bug, but I'm sure there is some.

I worked in a punk rock record store for three years and believe it or not, no one ever came in and said 'I only listen to emo! Everything else is shit.' They would however ask what certain bands sound like and on occassion I would drop the E-bomb inorder to simplify.

In summation, I don't really care if some kid with a shirt on that's too small and expensive shoes wants to call music Emo. Fine, call it that. Just buy the record. Also, I don't think labels really care about subgenres. Collectors do. Collectors want to differentiate and classify. It serves their purposes.

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Peeing sitting down is the gift you give yourself.

So?

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Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.

Exactly.

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Peeing sitting down is the gift you give yourself.

I wanna thrash.

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possible savior probable SEX MACHINE

Unless it's something cut-and-dried like rockabilly, I find subgenre labels inadequate to the task of describing a band's sound and spirit.

Then again, I refuse to label myself theist, atheist, or agnostic. I just have this thing about labels. Unless they say "75% off price marked."

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What others say about boorite!

I label you "fag".

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Just because I've spent the last thirty-odd years mincing around and sucking guys off doesn't make me a fag.

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What others say about boorite!

No, that would make you my dad.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Does this make me your mom? Or your dad's bitch?

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Poop.

Unless you're actually listening to somebody with enough talent to have defined the aspects to which other genres only aspire to.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

That would make you my mom's bitchy dad.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Collectors squat their anal retentive asses down to lovingly place a disc, in the most stringent alphabetical-by-genre order they can construct with Excel, into a small opening on a large shelf - where it is never heard again.

Who gives a fuck?

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.