Underground?Selling Out?

I agree with everything you just said. Well put.
I've heard people boast "I was a fan of the band before they hit it big". Gee-golly, aren't you special? That will earn you a yellow smiley-face sticker on the top of your test paper!

Wasn't it Elvis Costello who said that it's more punk to "sell out", use a big label's money for everything, and get millions of people to hear you than to spend your own money and be stuck in your garage forever?

I never pay any attention to those descriptions since they mean different things to different people............depending how knowledgeable each person is of a certain type of music.

Interesting you mention Dimmu Bogir and Cradle of Filth, even though both are well past their prime glory days musically they are still very extreme by most people's standards........Dimmu is on mainstage of Ozz Fest this year, they will be quite a culture shock to many people who think that USA nu metal is the cutting edge. By my thinking Blink 182, AFI, New Found Glory were "sell outs" from first record (even though I find them fun to listen to)

Also with cable music video channels like FUSE (Uranium show) we see extreme music now that would never see the light of day on MTV or VH1, so the term "underground" is really almost useless.

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I've never understood people who are hung up on what record label a band is signed to. To paraphrase Elvis Costello (again), "that's like buying a box of cereal in order to eat the cardboard". But there are people out there who get hung up on this stuff, and it seems to me, they are more interested in the packaging than they are the contents.

There's only 3 reasons any given band aren't signed to a major label and/or have a large following:

1. They aren't good enough

2. They aren't good enough *yet*

3. The music is too deliberately obscure and "out there", atypical, innovative and avant garde to ever appeal to anything but a very small group of fans. Some of the *best* music happens in this zone, but not all "artists" plowing these fields are necessarily talented, boundary-pushing, or will ever be remembered for anything. Being "difficult" or unusual, or innovative, however, does not necessarily mean you are automatically making "good" music per se. IMO, there are people out there who will champion total junk, the more inaccessible and amusical the better, just to front that they "get it" where everyone else are just ignorant philistines. So they'll stand there and pretend to dig this total tripe, just because this music matches their image of themselves. And bands will play to that crowd and make music for that crowd, just like jazz musicians will play to jazz crowds, rap artists will play to hip-hop crowds, metal bands will play to metal crowds, etc. Sometimes bands play "avant garde" music because they couldn't write a melody or compose a harmony if their lives depended on it. It's analogous to bands with an elaborate stage show or get-up (like KISS for example) all that razzle-dazzle to cover up the fact that the music sucks. Keeps your eye off the ball so to speak. Same thing in many cases with so-called "difficult" music, avant-garde, or "challenging" music, label it how you want. "OK, we can't really play, we can't really write songs, so what the hell do we do? What's our hook, our "gimmick"? I know, let's play the weirdest most amusical crap we can come up with". To me this no different than KISS's make-up and Gene Simmons big tongue and blood spewing. There's an audience for this stuff and bands will cater to it, it's not like they're there expressing their "art" or whatever. It's all just marketing.

As for "selling out", as if these bands don't *want* to be heard, don't *want* people to actually come to their shows, don't *want* make a living at playing music. Give me a break!

IMO, there are lot of these little indie music fascists who are no different and no less sheep-like than the people who they try to contrast themselves with. They follow the trends and are every bit as fickle as the "tasteless" mainstream music "fans". They know exactly what they are "supposed" to like, and "supposed" to hate, how long they are "allowed" to like it, what it's sell-by and expiration date is, and they seem to posess no apparent taste of their own. If they actually accidentally liked something "mainstream" they would have to hide it from their fellow fascist friends and might even be driven to purge it from their music collections lest anyone see it on their shelf or on their iPod. I also find that many of these people have no clue about music that came before, are not musical "scholars" at all, and take no interest in anything that came out more than a week ago.

When I was in high school in the 80s, all the "rebels" wore black and dyed their hair funky colors and wore heavy eye-liner (even the guys). It always amazed me how these people who "rejected" the "uniform" worn by typical suburban teens of the time, all conformed to another dress code every bit as narrow as everybody else's. All these "rebels" rebelled in the exact same way. That crowd could never understand me. How could I like both the Smiths *and* AC/DC?

At some point, it stops being funny and it's just sad.

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Underground = Not Mainstream, completely sepearate from quality of music. There's music that is underground that absolutely sucks and stuff that blows everyhitng else out of the water.

Selling Out = Changing your music merely to make money amd not for the fact of just making the music you want.

Good post Markl. I agree and could not have said it better my self. I can really identfy with your part about the 80s. People draw to many lines not to be crossed for stupid petty reasons. I thought it was pretty funny when my hot rod driving, long messy haired, black t-shirt wearing, marlbo red smoking, heavy metal (hair band) buddy said to me "hey, I really like Modern English", but don't tell my friends".

BINGO!

ENOUGH! This is the most redundant topic I've ever heard.

Good underground bands are those whose music hasn't reached a bigger audience YET! I'm sure it is way more intimate to play in a small club in front of 200 people than in a stadium for 20,000. But I'm sure they don't mind playing either. That's why Bob Dylan, when he came to Toronto a couple weeks ago, played at three separate venues in three nights: the first night, a large stadium for 15,000, the second, an intimate club for 300, and the last, for a medium-sized stand-up crowd of 1000.

Artists need money, period. They deserve money, period. If they don't know HOW to make money without changing their sound for a bigger label, they're not sellouts, they're just bad musicians.

as far as i'm concerned, Markl's word is about as close as anything to my own opinion.

however, i will add this: in my opinion it is better for a band to do their thing, play around with music, sound completely inaccessible and fall flat on their faces than to play what everyone else is playing, go with the flow and try to make a few bucks.

music is ART. and art should not give a sh** what anyone else thinks. art is as much about failure as success, and if people dig it, so be it. lets not try to define art, but appreciate the diversity of artists, even if their music is completely unlistenable.

EDIT:
i'm sorry, i think thats BS. one can name thousands of underground, indie bands that are better (technically, musically, artistically) than anything in the top 100.
by your judgment, bands like Mission of Burma are "bad musicians", and while i might agree that they were bad businessmen, saying that they don't know how to write a song/play their instruments is an insult. its an insult to them and to every other band playing music because they love music and not simply because they're trying to make a whole lot of money off of music.

That's not what I'm saying at all. It is their choice to accept an offer from a big label, by which they'd make much more money, and attempt to keep their original sound. If the label tells them that they must change their sound, of course it's their prerogative to accept or deny the proposition, but, and in this sense I agree with you completely, it's about the music. However, accessibility is a subjective term, and it's the ultimate challenge to create an accessible, complex and creative album.

If musicians merely want to be, they can play, at no charge, in my local club, your local club, and make $20 to split between the band. Now that could be the best damn music you've never heard, or it could be the next top-20 hit. Every CD you've ever bought has gone through many changes, alterations and reductions from business-based decisions. However, if an artist feels he must give in to the pressure of a major label, it does not denegrate his musical abilities, but his sense of musicianship, which is a separate issue altogether.

Now I hope you can see where I'm coming from?

okay, i understand what you're saying.

i think markl and everyone else have great comments on the topic.

one example: throughout high school and college i meet people who are surprised that i'm the biggest Cure fan they've met, and they go "funny... you don't look like a goth." i don't have to dress like a conforming non-conformist to look like a non-mainstream music fan to know what i like. then the Cure fans i meet in school are surprised that i'm the biggest Iron Maiden fan they've met, then they go "Iron Maiden? Heavy Metal sucks!" it's like because i like a certain type of music i'm supposed to not like another... even i admit to enjoy a fun, mindless pop single like a Britney hit or a Justin song every now and then and i'm not one to hide it. hell... sometimes i even hum along to a few Celine Dion tunes when it comes on the radio at work.

anyway, just because a band gets signed to a major label doesn't mean the quality of music decreases. i think a real fan should be quite glad that a band is getting a bigger exposure than when they were underground. that's not selling out.

Does an actor "sell out" when he/she accepts $20 million for a role in a dumb film instead of $100 bucks for a local theatre production of Hamlet?
Selling out doesn't exist. You either play the music you want to play, regardless of the money, fame, etc., or you play music simply for the money. It's a choice, just like whether you accept a job for a good salary instead of sitting on a couch watching tv 24 hours a day (and don't tell me you wouldn't if you could!)
XXhalberstramXX, you say music is art and art shouldn't give what anyone thinks. Do you think all that crap (yes crap) you see in modern art gallerys is an artists true vision, or some paint slopped on a canvas or ridiculous scultpure that the artist full well knows will sell because of some yuppie jerk who, as markl said, likes it because he/she has to?

for me, even if i tend to listen to undeground more, i like 'popular' stuff too. i jsut catergorize music into: good and bad. sometime i download (riaa, oh ****!) britney spears or eminem music just to know what they sound like, because i cant criticize them if i never listen to them.

there are many bands that tried to be dark and heavy sounding and all that, but they just sucks. a person once ask: "are there such thing as bad doom metal?" unfortunately the answer is yes.

one thing i must confirm, cof and dimmu borgir, well they just sucks. (sorry if this opinion comment offended you)