Silent Acorns

Ray,

Your claim seems to be that all "great" bands are commercially successful. The problem for me is that you haven't been clear on what you mean by "great". As far as I can tell, your only point is that if a band isn't commercially successful then it can't be great.

If this is your entire point, then you're automatically excluding all bands that did not attain commercial success from being "great".

In order for a band to be commercially successful, the public has to be able to appreciate them and the band has to have access to large scale commercial distribution. One of the hallmarks of a great band is being ahead of the times - creating new sounds. Unfortunately, if a band is a little too far ahead, the public at large isn't ready for them. Such a band is doomed to at best mediocre sales and a loyal cult following. By the time public tastes catch up, the band has usually broken up or is past it's creative peak, and some other band (following in their footsteps) gets the big sales. This happens all the time, in all human endeavors.

Consider what would have happened if Metallica had made the same albums 30 years earlier. Do you honestly believe that they would have been just as successful in the 50s? Or would they cease to be great simply because they were ahead of their time?

Ray K

Commercial success is an expected outgrowth of being great. Our society is focused on profit, and commercial interests will hunt down and embrace greatness. Besides, I've said from the very beginning that "greatness" is a subjective evaluation and I don't begrudge anyone else having their own particular definition.

If a niche band cannot break out their subgenre of music and drag it to mainstream acceptance, then how 'great' can they be? And if they force their style into a mainstream acceptance, they WILL sell albums.

If you refuse to consider broad appeal as a component of greatness, then you are reduced to debating the merits of the latest hogcore band that no one's ever heard of. All of this talk about GREAT bands whose music is too 'alternative' to ever gain mainstream acceptance is just a lame smokescreen for promoting why "my favorite band is one of the greatest of all time. Well, sure, after the Beatles of course"

I'm certainly saying that a band's inability to generate braod appeal WITHOUT altering their sound is certainly an indicator that they are not as great as their hardcore fans might think.

That's a fantasy argument. It's like asking if Babe Ruth could hit today's pitchers. Metallica was a product of their time and the musical influences they grew up with. They could not have developed their sound in the 50s. If the musical influences necessary for Metallica's style of metal existed in the 50s then, yes, they would have been successful. But, like I said, it's a fantasy argument.

August Spies

Ray k you ignored his main point, and one that I made earlier.

If you refuse to consider broad appeal as a component of greatness, then you are reduced to debating the merits of the latest hogcore band that no one's ever heard of.
On the other hand making "broad appeal" an essential component of "greatness" you will be forced to explain the mediocrity of the most succesful bands. I've never heard a person that would consider the most succesful bands the greatest, even people that listen exlcusivly to MTV pop music. Every band that you or I have called great pales in record sales to N'Sync or whatever other corporate made band.

and on the other hand if you ignore broad appeal as a component of greatness you are reduced to debating the merits of... the acutal music.

EDIT: and what about great bands that simply are never heard by the mainstream? If a band isn't on a label that pays for radio spots or MTV spots they won't get big. What if a band makes an amazing record that would appeal to the mainstream but breaks up and is simply not heard on that level?

Silent Acorns

I'll admit that my 50s Metallica example was a bit extreme, so I'll try another one. Consider the life of Vincent Van Gogh. His art was a commercial flop, but today he is considered to be one of the masters. And before you claim that his work eventually became successful (long after his death) remember that The Velvet Undergoround sold far more albums in the 90s than they did in the 60s.
Most artists produce their best work over a relatively short time span - five years or so. As a result, timing is everything. A mediocre band that is "in sync" with popular tastes will usually far out sell a superior band that breaks up a year too soon.

Nirvana and Radiohead are great bands, but no more than the 80s bands they followed, like Husker Du, The Pixies, Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3. The difference between the former and the latter was timing.

To me, greatness should be measured only by the quality that a band produces, not the combination of quality and good timing.
I never tried to claim that band X was "too alternative to EVER gain mainstream acceptance". I only claim that there are many bands that were too 'alternative' at the time of their creative peak. Mainstream success is almost entirely limited to artists who are creating music now, not 10, 5, or even 1 year ago.

Ray K

Yes, this is a good example for what I am talking about. As with beauty, there is no objective standard for 'greatness'.

People only talk about the 'greatness' of VU because they are gaining fans and selling records -- NOW. If you had tried to pitch them as a 'great' band in the 60s or 70s, you would have been laughed out of the room.

But they are selling records now, so they are great and were 'ahead of their time'.

Is Slayer an all-time great band? Some of their biggest fans would say 'yes', naturally, but most people would say 'no'.

But whose to say that Slayer won't start selling millions of records 20 years from now and their greatness is then continually debated ad nauseum, while people lament that they just had the misfortune of 'bad timing'?

You cannot appeal to the unknown, the future in this case, when making an argument and expect it to be convincing. Maybe the latest snotgrind band is an all-time great, but they're going to have to garner a lot of fans before anyone but their diehard fans as going to believe it.

Quote:

Most artists produce their best work over a relatively short time span - five years or so. As a result, timing is everything. A mediocre band that is "in sync" with popular tastes will usually far out sell a superior band that breaks up a year too soon.

I defy you to objectively define the difference between a 'mediocre' band and a 'superior' band. It's impossible.

What happens if, 15 years from now, VU is completely forgotten from the music scene? Did they cease being 'great'? Will the Beatles still be considered a 'great' band in 100 years if no one knows any of their songs?

Quote:

Nirvana and Radiohead are great bands, but no more than the 80s bands they followed, like Husker Du, The Pixies, Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3. The difference between the former and the latter was timing.

Every band follows a previous band, but not every band makes music that has broad appeal. Perhaps Nirvana is great, and the others are not, because they succeeded where the others failed. I don't even particularly like Nirvana, so don't mentally classify me as a big Nirvana fan because of that statement.

Quote:

To me, greatness should be measured only by the quality that a band produces, not the combination of quality and good timing.

"To me" is the operative phrase. I am puzzled that, on one hand, people are so emphatic about which bands are 'great' while, on the other hand, there's an implicit understanding of the extreme subjectivity of the entire topic.

I still think this discussion amounts to little more than "my favorite band XXX is better than yours"

Quote:

I never tried to claim that band X was "too alternative to EVER gain mainstream acceptance". I only claim that there are many bands that were too 'alternative' at the time of their creative peak. Mainstream success is almost entirely limited to artists who are creating music now, not 10, 5, or even 1 year ago.

I could posit that 'poor timing' is not a sign of greatness for a band.

Silent Acorns

I wasn't pegging you as a Nirvana fan. I was merely assuming that we could agree that there is sufficient (or near sufficient) evidence for them to qualify as "great".
I think it amounts to, "I know of a band that most people have never heard of, but will one day be recognized as great"
I'm only saying that poor timing shouldn't automatically eliminate Band X from being considered great. I do agree though (assuming I understand you correctly) that time is the best indicator of greatness. Maybe I just misunderstood what you meant by "commercial success", but if you consider 1000 record sales while the artist was alive and 100 million sales after he's dead "commercial success", then I'll agree with the gist of your argument and only quibble with your definition of success.

I have a hard time considering Jesus a commercial success.

August Spies

not so. They were considered great by man in the 70s. And even today, when they are almost universally considered by rock critics to be one of the most important rock bands ever, their album sales are small compared to the latest rip-off rap core CD.

Perhaps your definition of commerical success is just different than ours.

Would the beatles suddenly cease to have been a great band if people stopped listening to them?

Were the velvet underground mediocore until people discovered them and then they turned great?

of course, you are the one attempting to determine what can be "great" and what can't be.