August Spies

j-ogenes:

yes I used Velvet Underground as an example when he originally made the claim. But he just told me that only VU fans considered them great and my head imploded.

Xeluan

This is weird. i was thinking about Spacemen 3 today. I had a few tapes of theirs a decade ago. I was living in Japan at the time and a friend got me into them.

"Sound of Confusion" I quite liked.

Ray K

My position was not that commercial success = greatness, but that greatness leads to commercial success. You can also be commercially successful because of other factors not related to greatness, like good marketing.

That does not mean that a band STAYS great once they become commercially successful.

defining: Commercial success = lots of fans = lots of record sales.

You may now return to your Velvet Underground masturbation. :boohoo:

August Spies

Ray K I understand your "argument", you still haven't defended it properly.

August Spies

Here is the first flaw in your argument Ray:

"great band = lots of fans"

A band can be great but simply not heard by a large number of people. A band in the underground scene, even if they are huge in the underground scene, will frankly never have their music heard by enough people to even possibly have enough fans to get them commerical success.

Then, as I pointed out, there are always music genres that simply do not appeal to the mass market. In fact, most music genres start out this way and then slowly get more popular. So no matter how great a grindcore band like Pig Destroyer might be, they simply will never get enough fans to have commecial success. The only way you could really get around this is by claiming a band isn't great unless they could appeal to the a large mass of people.

but I guess your not even defended yourself anyway so I won't go on.

Ray K

LOL

In baseball, this would be like saying someone runs well -- for a catcher.

Sorry, I must have missed the week that "grindcore" bands transformed the music industry. You seem to have a very personalized definition of "greatness", one that equates Radiohead with the Beatles!

Yes, I am LMFAO.

If you would simply provide this forum with a list of all of the "great" bands, then we can restrict our conversations to those groups and spare everyone your pompous indignation when someone suggests otherwise.

August Spies

hhahaha... wait a minute, the dude who is claiming that only bands with commerical success can be great, and thus putting down thousands of bands that many people love, is acting like i'm making absurd definitions of musical greatness?

you are too much kid, too much.

p.s. have you ever heard pig destroyer?
p.p.s. I wouldnt' call pig destroyer a great band, just using them as an example. Although grindcore band can certainly be great, the obvious example being Converge. Certainly one of the greatest bands of our day. I dont' think anyone that actually played an instrument or knew anything about music could disagree.

August Spies

you know Ray k, every single person who has posted has disagreed with you. I can't imagine why you are so full of yourself and your argument.

Of course you haven't really been known to think coherently....

so.... Hanson transfromed the music industry doesnt' make them great. But even if you are using this as a requirement for greatness, examples we have already given (Velvet underground, Pixies etc...) still destroy your argument.

Ray K

Of course. I think I am making a perfectly reasonable statement that "great" bands WILL become commercially successful. I don't know how you define "great", but (to me) great music will attract new fans and will crossover or maybe even create new genres.

Great bands WILL break out of niche genres. It is a function of the marketplace. Metallica was a prime example. Of course, a big fish in a small pond is not always a big fish in a lake. And, to stretch the metaphor further, sometimes the fish gets so big that it becomes fat and slow (i.e. Metallica).

So, exactly when did you start following "underground" music? How old were you at the time?

I ask because I want to know how you could be such an expert on the topic while simultaneously being so uninformed about Metallica's early years.

Ray K

oh yeah, Radiohead = Beatles. That's real coherence. LOL

Hey, if everyone you know likes Radiohead, then they MUST be good!