many things like that sucks brother, but the way that the bands are walking is totally different, now exist internet, TV, cell phones...i mean everything to be famous! and the fans are making this a big thing! Fans are making this big also with mainstream!

Written by Daru Jericho on 29.05.2006 at 03:58

Hm...this sort of thing gets on my nerves a little. A lot of people say that fans don't affect artists' music whatsoever but it does.

My mains one are probably Nightwish. A lot of people are drawn to Nightwish because they have depressingly romantic lyrics and think that if they listen to them they'll be 'goths' even though Nightwish is far from gothic metal. As a result, Nightwish's latest album 'Once' lost its operatic vocals and made it much more commercial orientated in general. For me, some of the magic was lost.

Century Child din't have oepratic vocals either yet still is my favourite Nightwish album. Once had it's let downs but no way are Creek Mary's Blood and to a lesser extent Ghost Love Score mainstream commerical nu-goth songs. But when I heard the enw Sleeping Sun I think a part of me died. Hopfully the new singer will sound less like pop-Tarja and more like old Tarja. I think Nightwish could have broken into the mainstream with any album since Oceanborn had they released it at the same time as Once. the old NW albums were released during the nu metal craze when Nightwish would have been bashed by allt he mainsteamers for having solos and no rapping and other un-nu stuff but since Nu is now widely accepted as a stupid dead phase mainstream 'rockers' became far more recpetive to new tihngs (see the sudden popularity of Dragonfroce, that would never have happened a few years ago).

Written by Guest on 01.08.2006 at 01:41

Written by Daru Jericho on 29.05.2006 at 03:58

Hm...this sort of thing gets on my nerves a little. A lot of people say that fans don't affect artists' music whatsoever but it does.

My mains one are probably Nightwish. A lot of people are drawn to Nightwish because they have depressingly romantic lyrics and think that if they listen to them they'll be 'goths' even though Nightwish is far from gothic metal. As a result, Nightwish's latest album 'Once' lost its operatic vocals and made it much more commercial orientated in general. For me, some of the magic was lost.

Century Child din't have oepratic vocals either yet still is my favourite Nightwish album. Once had it's let downs but no way are Creek Mary's Blood and to a lesser extent Ghost Love Score mainstream commerical nu-goth songs. But when I heard the enw Sleeping Sun I think a part of me died. Hopfully the new singer will sound less like pop-Tarja and more like old Tarja. I think Nightwish could have broken into the mainstream with any album since Oceanborn had they released it at the same time as Once. the old NW albums were released during the nu metal craze when Nightwish would have been bashed by allt he mainsteamers for having solos and no rapping and other un-nu stuff but since Nu is now widely accepted as a stupid dead phase mainstream 'rockers' became far more recpetive to new tihngs (see the sudden popularity of Dragonfroce, that would never have happened a few years ago).

The cover of POTO on Century Child had operatic vocals, actually.

Written by Daru Jericho on 01.08.2006 at 02:48

Written by Guest on 01.08.2006 at 01:41

Written by Daru Jericho on 29.05.2006 at 03:58

Hm...this sort of thing gets on my nerves a little. A lot of people say that fans don't affect artists' music whatsoever but it does.

My mains one are probably Nightwish. A lot of people are drawn to Nightwish because they have depressingly romantic lyrics and think that if they listen to them they'll be 'goths' even though Nightwish is far from gothic metal. As a result, Nightwish's latest album 'Once' lost its operatic vocals and made it much more commercial orientated in general. For me, some of the magic was lost.

Century Child din't have oepratic vocals either yet still is my favourite Nightwish album. Once had it's let downs but no way are Creek Mary's Blood and to a lesser extent Ghost Love Score mainstream commerical nu-goth songs. But when I heard the enw Sleeping Sun I think a part of me died. Hopfully the new singer will sound less like pop-Tarja and more like old Tarja. I think Nightwish could have broken into the mainstream with any album since Oceanborn had they released it at the same time as Once. the old NW albums were released during the nu metal craze when Nightwish would have been bashed by allt he mainsteamers for having solos and no rapping and other un-nu stuff but since Nu is now widely accepted as a stupid dead phase mainstream 'rockers' became far more recpetive to new tihngs (see the sudden popularity of Dragonfroce, that would never have happened a few years ago).

The cover of POTO on Century Child had operatic vocals, actually.

Ah yeah I supose, still less than the previous albums. PotO was an odd one out of sorts on the album.

***
I took on the task of reviving Metal Storm threads a minute ago [had it in perspective for a month or so ], If you're reading this, I means that this thread was on of the trve General Metal Forum threads that nearly hit rock-bottom [a thread could only hit rock bottom if them vntrve threads that IMO don't really belong in the GMF got removed by some miracle]
***

I even heard Mikael from Opeth say, people were complaining about them not doing enough solos so they went and done material with more solos in them.

I am Kinda Dissapointed by Bodom, but I still like their newest album, just less so than their older ones. They were so good, then came the poppy teen girls, then there came the fans......

But for the most part I don't let a fan base decide what I think of the music, it's just that if your a poser or an idiot, I'll probably avoid talking to you.....

you shouldn't judge bands by their fanbase but by their music IMO.

Written by Guest on 18.10.2006 at 21:25

you shouldn't judge bands by their fanbase but by their music IMO.

Certainly, I'm sure most of us agree with you.

We alll want to agree with her, but we all know that, of the majority, we don't, that's the sad truth.

I can go with my friends and say "yeah, we judge the bands by the music they play and not the people who listen to it" but then you see Children of Bodom live and they're crowded by emo kids and In Flames by mallcore kids and you just get disheartened, and suddenly you're back to square 1, basing your like of CoB and IF and a lot of other metal to the fans. It shouldn't happen, but it does. Especially as, *imo*, there are lot *better* bands out there that do not have this fan-problem and, imo, have a better atmosphere / sound / live performance, so why waste your time avoiding emo kids and mallcore kids when you can just go to a better gig? I guess hardcore fans of CoB and IF will not care about the crowd if they really want to see the band anyway, so this is really just an opinion of a person who thinks CoB is "good but not great" and IF "to have good instrumentals". :>

@Vidrageon,
I know what you mean, Ive been a fan of In flames, Cob, and Arch Enemy, and in the range of a year and a half, the fans pissed away my attraction to their music. F***ing Anders, Alexi, and Gossow IMO became so influenced by the fame they got from maintstream listeners that they changed their sound.

I remember reading interviews of Alexi saying that he wanted to change their sound to better get attention of llisteners, what does that tell you? I dont remember what band, I think it was In flames, did tours in America and in Ozzfest with nu metal bands and they got alot of applause, next thing you know, soundtrack to your escape comes out .

I dont care about the fans, but when the sound changes and you have those little faggots thinking that they are hot shit cuz they know the secret to the worlds greatest guitarist (ALEXI LAIHO!!!) that crap pisses me off.

I know what you mean Hellraizer, but sometimes you gotta adjust to the market, to what's popular. These guys do this for a living, I do not mean that they should turn to sellouts but they do need to make money.

Yes, as we all do, but still...there are alot bands that arent committed to marketing to the mainstream community but rather to their music, it would be naive for me to say thats how a band should work without money, but there has to be a limit, and there has to be more honor.

Slayer have some ridiculous fans. People who think Nazism and satanism is not only cool, but is the message the band is trying to get across. And people who will eat up anything that has 'Slayer' written on it.

DragonForce. Most of the fans I've talked to completely over-rate the band's talents. They take every oppurtunity to fellate Herman Li and Sam Totman's 'skillz', but the minute I point out the shallow songwriting and crappy solos, they jump down my throat (even if I'm remaining completely ambivalent). They also take every oppurtunity to compare DragonForce to Maiden, who are my favourite band (these are my friends, by the way). And they take any insult against DF as a personal insult. Quite similar to...

...progheads. I know a proghead in my year in school (I'm quite good mates with him, actually) and he's so up himself it's unbelieavable. He loves Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime (a very good album, I must add) and yet doesn't even bother to listen to 7th Son when I try to introduce him to it because 'It's not prog metal like everyone says'. Maiden were never prog metal, and 7th son is certainly more progressive than O:M. He's also obsessed with DragonForce. One time my friend told him what he thought about DF, and he nearly cried

Nightwish's fans can be quite annoying, as well; the kind of people who hang around the City Hall in my hometown with the goths wearing HIM, Evanescene etc. t-shirts. The people who only have Once, and have no idea that NW released other albums.

Most of the time, I ignore who listens to bands I like, but whenever it starts to enroach on the band's music, that pisses me off. It's one of the reasons why I like Maiden so much; they don't give in to peer pressure
(hence Bruce ripping up the 'Play classics' sign thrown by fans in America-they've just played a tour where they played nothing but classics, and the next tour will be the same! What do these people want-the moon on a fucking stick?!) and they do their own thing. DragonForce allegedly 'don't give in to calls for them to change' either, but given that they can only play one-and-a-half songs, I can see why they don't want to change... :p

Well, times did change but don't blame only the fans, it are the media who are to blame;

In the beginning of eighties there were the bands, playing around from town to town with not so much support and money; the NWOBHM and traditional heavy metal. They had to work hard to get a status. Some of them became big, even now they are still popular. Examples: Priest, Maiden, Saxon, Motorhead, Ozzy, .... Others were very good but didn't make it although they were very good (for example Satan). Didn't they work hard enough? We will never know. The support from the metal media (magazines, radio) were not that important, everybody except the metal heads hated metal and maybe that was the secret of the popularity of metal in those days; a part of the youth wanted it loud 'n heavy.

The influence of the television came later (with MTV and especially the glam metal scène) and that was the beginning of promoting metal. Metal was underground before and did grow from the underground because the fans wanted the bands but this changed with MTV... In those days we were happy with the attention from the TV but when I look back this was the worst thing that could happen to metal because the media decided from that point how metal should sound.

Metallica is propably the best example: they were a first class thrash metal underground band in the beginning but grew because they did work hard, played 100% metal, had a new sound and had awesome albums. With them the support for the underground died because aftre 3 awesome albums the media (TV and big radio stations, popular rock magazines) picked them up, made them popular and killed slowely the "true spirit of heavy metal" in their music because their music needed to be 'popular for a big crowd'.

Since the popularity of Metallica the support for the underground dissapeared and there was a change in interest, the metal media decided who was bad or not, who needed to be popular or not. With Nirvana almost the entire eighties metal scène died, the media needed a new sounds, less difficult music. About the glam metal; it was about time they dissapeared because most of the bands lost their feelings with reality and "metal". True heavy metal was the biggest victim and lost a lot of interest. Also magazines like Aardschok changed their vision and started to support the bands whom labels paid the most. Metal was big bussiness...

It was a good thing death and black metal became popular in the ninetees, they kept the spirit of heavy metal alive and thanks to them there's a revival nowadays for the traditional metal. There were too much genres in those days (gothic metal, prog.,...) and none of these genres became extremely popular because of the so promoted nu metal bands. Nowadays the media is so important (internet, tv, radio,...) and who pays gets a popular band on his label, talent isn't always important. Exceptions are bands who were popular before like Maiden, Saxon, Motorhead, Priest,... and some exceptions like Iced Earth, Helloween,...

There's also a lot of crap nowadays and if the labels pay the media the band will become popular.... If you read about a band, hear them on radio or tv ythan you will earn fans. The more you pay for the support, the more fans you will earn. MEDIA IS A POWERFUL WEAPON !!!!

Nowadays there are awesome bands in different genres (doom, thrash,US power, heavy, prog...) who are, IMO so much better than the popular bands but the fans of those popular bands don't care at all. They only care about their band and don't really listen to bands who might be much better (more talent, more metal and better songs).

But there's a revival goïng on and those who really cares about metal will search for more than only the popular bands.... METAL IS NOT DEAD!!!!

Hey, people, take it easy! It seems to me that some of you think metal music is something really really serious. It is not. It's just music, something we enjoy.

I don't like opinions like 'fans of power metal shouldn't listen to death metal, 'cause they don't know anything about it and are posers' or 'everyone who listens to Pink Floyd/Iron Maiden/Black Sabbath/Pantera/____ (fill in your favourite cult band) and doesn't know all their albums is poser' etc. What I hate the most are fans who think their favourite band is something for the 'chosen ones' and only a small group of people should listen to it.... These people had better think about themselves.

I'm also not comfortable with some people who suddenly love e.g. Rammstein after the release of 'Amerika' single. And when I'm standing among girls in glittering pink T-shirts on R+'s concert I feel there is something wrong. But I don't mind when someone discovers the band thanks to the promotion of the newest CD. The important thing is whether he/she likes it because of the music (and not only because it is modern to like it) or not.

But back to the topic - I agree that Nirvana is good example. It seems that it is 'cool' to listen to Kurt Cobain and have his face on T-shirt. I know some people who have clothes and/or patches with Nirvana pictures on it, but they don't listen to Nirvana at all. I don't understand this.
I myself don't like Kurt Cobain, by the way, I don't feel any sympathy with him. IMO all that around him and Nirvana (and their music) is overrated...

^Hell star,
Great post which was very informative. Media can be used to support the band, which isnt a bad thing, because every band needs to support themselves, but I guess when a band gets so popular, the media as always, label and simplify music to reach people.

Written by Sunioj on 27.10.2006 at 18:13

^Hell star,
Great post which was very informative. Media can be used to support the band, which isnt a bad thing, because every band needs to support themselves, but I guess when a band gets so popular, the media as always, label and simplify music to reach people.

That's a fact. Media attention is good but it is wrong when the band change their style because of this attention...

Too much is never a good thing... exception: too much metal!

Quote:
But there's a revival goïng on and those who really cares about metal will search for more than only the popular bands.... METAL IS NOT DEAD!!!

Try telling that to Kerrang, they think Trivium saved metal for fucks sake!

@Ravenlord - I can see why you don't like DragonForce that much. I agree the only reason they'll carry on with their speed gimmick is because Sam and Herman know it's popular with the scene kids. Personally if the next album is Inhuman Rampage 2, that's where I'll give up on them

@Klaara: Metal music is something really, really serious for me ... it's my life.

@Hellish Star, thanks for that reply, very informative. But i fail to see the co-relation between the thread and yor reply, kindly justify, i dont mean to argue, im just curious about your point of view.

Fans have always been part of the darker halo of the bands, the popularity of the bands no matter how good their music was ultimately rested in the fate of the people who listen to it, its the same in all the genre's that exist today. Fans were really responcible to get Metal into the mainstream, it were they who run labels, radio stations, magazines and did them all to promote the band or the genre of their choice, even today in Wacken its only the fans who set up stall and sell/exchange stuff for stuff they are looking for.

I believe fans are the most important thing in any genre, Britney obviously is popular for exercising and showing all she can in the videos, i think fans are the major force behind many labels and in helping newer bands in getting deals and spreading music. Im a Metal Music Fan, i started a label in Hyderabad, India to promote Original Indian Metal / Rock Music. I do it cos i want to spread metal to more people and let them discover this amazing genre which has always been in the shadows specially in India.

Written by Guest on 18.10.2006 at 21:25

you shouldn't judge bands by their fanbase but by their music IMO.

I agree with you, but sometimes one may not give interest in listening to a particular band because he thinks the band isn't good because the fans(around him, of course) are so annoying and ignorant(about metal).

damn it!
let the music and the spirit flow!
if you don't like it... simply don't hear it

the fans is one of my problems with black metal, I always encounter 'Tr00' black metallers bitch about how there music is underrated and it gets dismissed as just 'noise', yet they bitch when a black metal band becomes popular, and say that it isnt 'tr00' or that they sold out or whatever. Am I the only one that notices how self contradicting some Black metallers who take themselves too seriously can be?

Nope, you are not. But I notice this for all metallers and also for all music-listeners.

Written by Paganblood on 01.02.2007 at 17:51

Written by Guest on 18.10.2006 at 21:25

you shouldn't judge bands by their fanbase but by their music IMO.

I agree with you, but sometimes one may not give interest in listening to a particular band because he thinks the band isn't good because the fans(around him, of course) are so annoying and ignorant(about metal).

I also agree. I like a lot of bands which by the way are really good, but the fans are just so stupid I don't want to be labeled as one of those fans when I listen to a certain band. But yea, its the band that's making the music what it is, not the fans...

@Dan066: Oh yes you've presented a good point: its the band and not the fans that make the music.

I believe what Hellish Star was refering to when he stated "There's also a lot of crap nowadays and if the labels pay the media the band will become popular.... If you read about a band, hear them on radio or try than you will earn fans. The more you pay for the support, the more fans you will earn. MEDIA IS A POWERFUL WEAPON !!!!"

Was in regards to the payola issues, though not new with the music industry but allows bands that really should not be winning music awards for "Best Metal Band" ie Korn. With head lines like "SONY SETTLES PAYOLA INVESTIGATION " http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/jul/jul25a_05.html or the news reports in
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1591155&page=1

It makes you wonder why good metal bands can not get the media recognition that they deserve even though they are musically stronger, they worked harder and the fan base is there. I remember when Jethro Tull won the "Best Metal Award" it's not that Tull shouldn't have gotten an award they deserved one but Best Metal?

Good post Hellish Star as sometimes the music industry doesn't care about the music but the bucks $$$.

yep ... it happenes... when listeners and fans misundertood the message of the lyrics... and misinterpretate the band's atittude :|

This is something that really annoys me too, however if I like the band I will usually keep listening without joining the mob so to speak. Slipknot fans annoy me although I'm not a big fan they do have some ok songs, but god their fans tend to take them too seriously. Pantera fans also annoy me, largely because fans of pentera rarely look past Pantera for other metal bands. Personally I quite like Pantera, but I have met so many fanatical fans of Pantera that won't acknowledge they are listening to a metal "No its just hard rock these people say".

Many fans don't realise that artists make music they like and one time they're more into that genre and a year or more later into another genre. Just like everybody else they're just normal people, but with a hobby that got out of hand. And you just can't do right for everyone...