How many releases do you buy a year?

[General Zod]

Second, do not confuse taking advantage of financial gain, or accepting it, as being motivated by it. There are plenty of artists who are motivated by the love of art or need to create who are damn good at it, and rightfully receive financial compensation for it. But the dollars are not the motivators.

As with most things, I think the truth lies somewhere in between. Sometimes great art is the goal, sometimes money is the goal. That said, I'd like to believe that truly great music is most often created for the love of the music, even if financial gain is one of the benefits. But perhaps I'm overly romanticizing it.

 

[dcowboys311]

As with most things, I think the truth lies somewhere in between. Sometimes great art is the goal, sometimes money is the goal. That said, I'd like to believe that truly great music is most often created for the love of the music, even if financial gain is one of the benefits. But perhaps I'm overly romanticizing it.

You're absolutely right. And I'd add that with Metal, making "great art" is rarely the goal. The ultimate prize is writing killer riffs, throwing back some beers, banging your head, and praising evil/death/destruction (and hobbits).

 

[General Zod]

...and praising evil/death/destruction (and hobbits).

Agreed. Hobbit praise is essential.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

First, you really can't compare art made in the year 2014 to art in older times. A lot of times, art was previously reserved for the rich, the literate, etc. Now, creating art is easier and cheaper than ever. There are government programs that fund music education in school. Anyone who is interested in any type of art can type a few keywords into Youtube and instantly have high-quality instructional videos. If you'd like to compare the motivations of a couple teenage Scandinavian Slayer fans interested in loud guitars and Satan to that of someone being commissioned by the King of [Insert European Country Here] to write a piece, that's certainly your prerogative, but I'm not sure you'll find many who agree with you.

Second, do not confuse taking advantage of financial gain, or accepting it, as being motivated by it. There are plenty of artists who are motivated by the love of art or need to create who are damn good at it, and rightfully receive financial compensation for it. But the dollars are not the motivators.

Third, throughout history there have been numerous examples to discredit your point. Poe, Thoreau, Van Gogh, and on and on and on. You might argue that these are exceptions to the rule, but I believe there are more than enough to discredit your claim.

Fourth, regarding current art, there really hasn't been enough time passed to note 'greatest' or what have you. There isn't enough historical perspective.

And lastly, back to the genre of music being discussed, Metal. Is great Metal motivated by money? I do not believe that 14-year old Ihsahn had dollar signs in his eyes when penning "I Am the Black Wizards". Dead did not bury his clothes with dead animals in hopes of being noticed by any Norwegian tabloids. "Show No Mercy" wasn't a cash-grab. "Abominations of Desolation" a plan to fund Azagthoth's college education. I'd like to see your list of greatest Metal records that were motivated by money, to be honest. This can be very easily expanded to other genres of music, too.

This is all fairly on point and I don't have any rebuttal to it except to say that Poe actually did write as a "trade" - he was a literary critic in his day, and was arguably more famous for that (when he was alive) than he was for his poetry!

 

[Sir Exar Kun]

I'd like to see your list of greatest Metal records that were motivated by money, to be honest.

1. Metallica - s/t
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2. Someone help me here...... Anybody?

 

[TheLongshot]

As I said before. I understand Justin's frustration. He would like to see the bands he enjoys have financial success so that they can continue to make music. But, not everyone is as passionate about music as he is. Personally, I don't buy music to "support the band" as much as I buy music because I want to listen to the music. (Also, because I'm a materialistic bastard who actually wants to own things rather than rent them.)

As my wife likes to point out, so long as guys can get laid for being in a band, people will always create music.

You don't even need to go that far. I know plenty of people who make music for the sake of making music. These people have no strong desire to make music their career, they are just inspired to write songs and perform them for like-minded people, often with little or no compensation. So, no matter what, there will always people who are looking to produce art.

 

[General Zod]

1. Metallica - s/t
...
...
...
...
2. Someone help me here...... Anybody?

How about much of the 80s? While I'd like to think the music of my youth was recorded solely for women, glory and Jack Daniels, I'm thinking the millions of dollars played some small part. Any musician who's ever had the thought, "I want to be a rock star" has a financial motivation.

You don't even need to go that far. I know plenty of people who make music for the sake of making music. These people have no strong desire to make music their career, they are just inspired to write songs and perform them for like-minded people, often with little or no compensation. So, no matter what, there will always people who are looking to produce art.

I completely agree; people will always produce art. But more than that, people will always want to get laid. It's why bars are more crowded on Saturday nights than museums.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

Is great Metal motivated by money? I do not believe that 14-year old Ihsahn had dollar signs in his eyes when penning "I Am the Black Wizards". Dead did not bury his clothes with dead animals in hopes of being noticed by any Norwegian tabloids. "Show No Mercy" wasn't a cash-grab. "Abominations of Desolation" a plan to fund Azagthoth's college education. I'd like to see your list of greatest Metal records that were motivated by money, to be honest. This can be very easily expanded to other genres of music, too.

I said I didn't have anything else to say, but I guess I lied haha! I guess what I meant by I agree with you or whatever is that you're differentiating bands that are SOLELY in it to make money and bands that sustain themselves on music.

When I say "motivated my money," I mean motivated to sustain themselves on their music as a means of income. Not the whole like "swimming pool filled with millions of dollars" image. Great art is in fact, motivated by this notion - all the great writers and painters, film and video game makers of the world didn't/don't do what they do in the name of charity. They did it investing large amounts of time and money, hoping to make it back and be able to feed themselves and live comfortably.

Funny enough, though, I'm not sure if the black metal example is a very good one in your favor - because in fact, MANY of those guys have outwardly said they did controversial things solely to attract attention from the Norwegian press. Varg, the most anti-press guy in the universe, even admitted to doing an interview in those days with the tabloids to get attention to Deathlike Silence and their releases. What's more, even today, Varg calls himself a "musician by trade" - it's the ONLY thing he does to earn money. The point I'm trying to make here, is that while yes - great artists possess a certain talent that motivates them to make art for their own enjoyment, etc, if there was no way to get money back on it, they wouldn't be doing it. After all, "fun" doesn't pay the bills.

I do suppose this is an endless rabbit hole, so my point is just that it's something we should always think about in these types of discussions, whether we agree with it or not. I think it's important to look at the consequences of a music scene with limited financial incentives for artists, whether or not we view it positively or negatively.

 

[orcslayr23]

You don't even need to go that far. I know plenty of people who make music for the sake of making music. These people have no strong desire to make music their career, they are just inspired to write songs and perform them for like-minded people, often with little or no compensation. So, no matter what, there will always people who are looking to produce art.

From personal experience, I agree that the need to create music and share it with people is a much stronger driving force than wanting money, but at the same time there's only so far that your own drive will take you without support from your fanbase. Sure, there will always be new artists, but piracy/streaming/other ways of devaluing music will lead to shorter careers in new bands.

 

[skyrefuge]

Technology changes and advances rapidly. To think we discovered the final file format for music in 1995 is highly, highly unlikely.

Yeah, my point was that in the streaming world, we just let the distributor care about keeping up with those evolving encoding formats for music storage. For the consumer, "it just works", and he can spend his mental energy on much more useful and pleasurable pursuits.

Had you said "most people", than yes, that would be true. If we're talking "music lovers", not true. Many metal review sites contain dynamic range ratings these days. Look at the vinyl revival. Look at our fellow board member's refusal to abandon a physical medium. People care about format.

My term was intentional. When people are caring about format and dynamic range and encodings, they are no longer being "music lovers". They are "sound lovers". Though they superficially appear to be quite similar, in reality the two are almost completely unconnected interests. Music shoots right past the high-level analytical circuits that are the domain of the "sound lover" and penetrates straight to the heart and soul. The heart and soul, as sensory organs, are wonderfully imprecise and fuzzy, so they are incapable of noting the "sound quality" of the music that reaches them. As long as the melodies and rhythms and words are distinguishable, it all has the same effect.

With proper therapy, most "sound lovers" can recover in short order and turn back into the "music lovers" that they all started out as, but occasionally someone will swing so far, with their high-level sound-analyzing circuits setting up an impenetrable barrier around their heart and soul, that the heart and soul permanently lose their ability to absorb music. The sensitivity of our heart and soul to music naturally decreases in all of us as we age past our hormone-fueled teenage years, but there's no reason to hasten it along by succumbing to the cold 24-bit, 192kHz siren song of sound quality, which risks leaving us ultimately less-satisfied.

While an aspect of that is true, don't discount that people very quickly want an improved sound. The wife and I have been car shopping. One of the first (probably, the first) and most frequent upgrade option offered by car manufacturers is an upgraded stereo. Go to any gym and you can see the massive transition from free Apple iBuds to premium headphones. To see people wearing $100 - $300 headphones at the gym is absolutely commonplace. People will always care about how their music sounds.

Yeah, but those upgrades aren't even in the same ballpark as encoding formats. Better speakers/headphones can change a weak pop-up to short into a soaring home run, a difference obvious to even the most casual fan. A change from 256kbps mp3 to FLAC changes that weak pop-up to short into a weak pop-up to short with slightly less backspin.

 

[skyrefuge]

Sure, there will always be new artists, but piracy/streaming/other ways of devaluing music will lead to shorter careers in new bands.

Yep, I think this is the key that bridges the gap between AS and dcowboys. When weighing "passion and the urge to create" against "money" as motivational forces, the former tends to be much more dominant for the first album or two, but then the latter starts to take over as the artist ages and his passion decreases to a level where he can actually take a moment to visualize his future.

So I agree that less money floating around will result in fewer artists making a long-term push to make music their life's work, but I'm totally fine with that. If I could only listen to the first and second albums released by young dumb and passionate musicians, I would still have an overwhelming shit-ton of awesome music to listen to. Overall it might even be a better subset of music than the 3rd-through-Nth albums.

 

[orcslayr23]

Yep, I think this is the key that bridges the gap between AS and dcowboys. When weighing "passion and the urge to create" against "money" as motivational forces, the former tends to be much more dominant for the first album or two, but then the latter starts to take over as the artist ages and his passion decreases to a level where he can actually take a moment to visualize his future.

So I agree that less money floating around will result in fewer artists making a long-term push to make music their life's work, but I'm totally fine with that. If I could only listen to the first and second albums released by young dumb and passionate musicians, I would still have an overwhelming shit-ton of awesome music to listen to. Overall it might even be a better subset of music than the 3rd-through-Nth albums.

Saying that a good side effect of piracy and devaluing music is new artists dying out (because “only their first couple albums are any good”) is absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

Passion doesn't necessarily decrease as an artist ages. Mid-level bands like Dark Tranquillity, Amorphis, and Paradise Lost have been around for 20+ years and are making some of the best music of their careers now. When artists get the support they need, they can devote more time to creating pieces of art, which leads to a better finished product.

 

[AngraRULES]

Interesting link sent to me earlier today, I figured it would be fitting to the conversation, just for the sake of curiosity:

http://hasitleaked.com/articles/an-interview-with-a-leaker/

 

[TheLongshot]

My term was intentional. When people are caring about format and dynamic range and encodings, they are no longer being "music lovers". They are "sound lovers". Though they superficially appear to be quite similar, in reality the two are almost completely unconnected interests. Music shoots right past the high-level analytical circuits that are the domain of the "sound lover" and penetrates straight to the heart and soul. The heart and soul, as sensory organs, are wonderfully imprecise and fuzzy, so they are incapable of noting the "sound quality" of the music that reaches them. As long as the melodies and rhythms and words are distinguishable, it all has the same effect.

With proper therapy, most "sound lovers" can recover in short order and turn back into the "music lovers" that they all started out as, but occasionally someone will swing so far, with their high-level sound-analyzing circuits setting up an impenetrable barrier around their heart and soul, that the heart and soul permanently lose their ability to absorb music. The sensitivity of our heart and soul to music naturally decreases in all of us as we age past our hormone-fueled teenage years, but there's no reason to hasten it along by succumbing to the cold 24-bit, 192kHz siren song of sound quality, which risks leaving us ultimately less-satisfied.

While some people can get their heads up their asses as far as sound quality goes, dismissing concerns about recording quality is also wrong-headed. Brickwalled mixes and lack of dynamic range is a real problem in modern mixes, and while many won't notice, there are those of us who do.

Yes, the masses rejected higher sound quality over convenience in the marketplace. It doesn't mean that it has to be either-or, tho. Again, I like having lossless formats because I don't like being locked into one format. I like being able to transcode my music into whatever format would be best in the future. Also, the overhead for storing such files isn't that much more.

 

[General Zod]

Yeah, my point was that in the streaming world, we just let the distributor care about keeping up with those evolving encoding formats for music storage.

Perhaps that's true in the streaming world. But this discussion has really been about digitally downloaded music, not streaming.

My term was intentional. When people are caring about format and dynamic range and encodings, they are no longer being "music lovers". They are "sound lovers". Though they superficially appear to be quite similar, in reality the two are almost completely unconnected interests.

You're certainly welcome to that opinion, but I couldn't disagree more. This position also appears contradicts your baseball analogy below.

Music shoots right past the high-level analytical circuits that are the domain of the "sound lover" and penetrates straight to the heart and soul.

While it's a wonderfully romantic notion that music bypasses the high-level analytical circuits, it's also empirically untrue. Before music reaches your "heart and soul", the organ it passes through is your ears. And if it sounds muddled to your ears, it's not likely to have the same impact on your heart and soul. We've all gone to see one of our favorite bands when the sound was off. It just doesn't have the same impact as when the sound was dead on.

The heart and soul, as sensory organs, are wonderfully imprecise and fuzzy, so they are incapable of noting the "sound quality" of the music that reaches them.

So let's say you were listening to Spotify on your phone. During the last app upgrade the sound quality setting had been reset from 320 down to 96. Can I assume you wouldn't bother adjusting that setting back to 320 because your fuzzy organs are so wonderfully imprecise?

Better speakers/headphones can change a weak pop-up to short into a soaring home run, a difference obvious to even the most casual fan.

Earlier you said "sound lovers" and "music lovers" are two groups who have almost no overlap. Yet here you're acknowledging that seeking out better speakers/headphones can turn music from "a weak pop-up to short into a soaring home run" for even the "most casual fan". These two position seems diametrically opposed.

 

[skyrefuge]

Saying that a good side effect of piracy and devaluing music is new artists dying out (because “only their first couple albums are any good&#8221 is absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

Whoops, I definitely didn't mean to say that. I forgot to excise the "piracy/devaluing music" part when I quoted you; I don't agree with that part. I simply meant to agree with you that declining industry revenue would be likely to lead to shorter average careers; I just don't believe that piracy or "devaluing music" have been the major contributors to that revenue decline (unbundling of the album and greater choice in where to spend entertainment dollars are the major contributors IMO).

And then I'm not saying that those shorter careers are a "good" side-effect of declining revenue, just that a universe with fewer career bands would still be a universe I could continue to live in happily.

Passion doesn't necessarily decrease as an artist ages.

Oh, of course not in all cases, that's just the general trend; I agree that there are plenty of exceptions.

You picked an interesting triumvirate with Dark Tranquillity, Amorphis, and Paradise Lost though. All three of those bands started their careers with 4-to-6 albums showing almost-unprecedented evolution from album to album. And though they generally went from "more extreme" to "less extreme", it was pretty clear that they were naturally evolving towards where their passions were taking them, not because they were "selling out".

But then all 3 of them said, "hmm, whoa boys, it looks like we've taken it a little too far for our fans to follow, and now that we've got kids and stuff, let's dial it back to where we were a few albums ago and just stick with that style that's safe and we know how to do well."

No doubt Dark Tranquillity and Amorphis (I have less personal experience with PL) are making very "high quality" albums that benefit from their long experience. It's nice that they exist, and I'll occasionally listen to some of them (I particularly like Amorphis's first "safe" album, 'Eclipse').

But if forced to choose between yet another "high quality" set of songs expertly repeating the style of 'Eclipse' or 'Damage Done', or a new band creating something as unique and unheard-of as 'Tales From the Thousand Lakes' or 'The Gallery', I would choose the latter every time.

But I admit that I might be biased somewhat more towards the novel than the average person.

 

[TENTH DREAMER DECEIVER]

Interesting link sent to me earlier today, I figured it would be fitting to the conversation, just for the sake of curiosity:

http://hasitleaked.com/articles/an-interview-with-a-leaker/

That mentality is depressing. His ego gets stroked every time he rips off a musician. I wonder how he would feel if someone stole his ad revenue before he had a chance to collect it.

 

[Justin G]

That mentality is depressing. His ego gets stroked every time he rips off a musician. I wonder how he would feel if someone stole his ad revenue before he had a chance to collect it.

Exactly. This guy steals for a living and is very glib about it.

 

[dcowboys311]

Exactly. This guy steals for a living and is very glib about it.

These types aren't limited to music. Bad people exist in all walks of life.

 

[Justin G]

These types aren't limited to music. Bad people exist in all walks of life.

That is a stunning revelation.