troopered would totally love to be one of those evil suit and tie bosses on 80s thrash metal album covers

Is MTV and televising "best jazz" categories? No. Have they ever televised "best jazz" categories? No. Is jazz alive and well despite that? Yes.

Relevant:



"Death! Kill! blood will flow
From the ones who play for money
Sold! Out! It's time to pay
You're gonna die no other way

Blind! Wake up man you've got no hits
Change! Now it's time to end this shit

Make! Way! The time's at hand
To rid the world of milk metal bands
Slow! Death! The only way
A fitting end to their treacherous game"

How do you figure?

So doing something for free and passion are mutually exclusive now?


Wilytank is Shining elevator levels of hemorrhaging from the butthurt.




Validation. People want it for themselves. Why do you think people got upset that Judas Priest didn't get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year?

That's not what you said or meant and you know it.

Good job putting words in my mouth.

Who cares what you want. Normal metal fans want metal to thrive, and mainstream success is as essential to that as bicycles are to fishes.



Apparently underground thinking is wanting a handful of bands to fill arenas whereas 99% of artists need day jobs anyway. Because that's how the good ol' days of the rock music industry that you're so nostalgic for were like, and that's how the music industry works in general. The music biz is not a meritocracy bud.

thrive
THrīv/Submit
verb
(of a child, animal, or plant) grow or develop well or vigorously.
"the new baby thrived"
prosper; flourish.
"education groups thrive on organization"

Really?

Come again?

Also, anyone who cares about who is or isn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (what a fucking joke) needs their priorities checked. Sad Wings of Destiny and Screaming for Vengeance aren't any worse just because Judas isn't recognized by that circus.

You seem upset Ed.

Btw, if you follow up a sentence that has an unclear term as its object with a sentence with identical subject and predicate, it suggests the object of the second sentence is meant to be an explanation of the unclear term.

No. I copypasted a dictionary definition because I knew it would have synonyms. Flourish and thrive are synonyms. You proved my point.



and yet nothing about passion, strange.

Haha, TrooperEd really is Eddie Trunk.

That explains everything.

Metal is thriving, in fact I'd be willing to say there's never been a better time to be a metal fan. Anyone who disagrees obviously just listens to what Terrorizer (is that mag even still a thing?) and MetalSucks tells them to.

M8 you copypasted a dictionary entry because you're an angry nerd and think semantic gotchas will prove you're good at arguing. I suggested why it didn't matter: it's because people use "flourish" to mean wildly different things, and you use it to mean "churning cash" for some reason.

Huh. This has gotten a titch out of hand.

Anyway, I'll throw this in- when my band released our first album we gave it away free. Professionally mixed, mastered, packaged physical CDs. We were fortunate enough to get a grant to cover a portion of making the album, and we made money playing shows, so frankly we just wanted people to hear the damn thing. We didn't give a shit about money. We just wanted as many people as possible to hear a thing we poured ourselves into.

Some reaction was odd... we got some push back from other local musicians, mainly people who were trying to "make it". Apparently we devalued music because we treated it as passion and art, not a fucking investment. Like hey, art SHOULD be valued and artists should be able to make a living. I believe that and pay for music and go to shows and support with my money what I think is worth supporting.

And so do other people. When we went to make album number two we did a crowd funding (which has kind of gotten out of hand but this was like 2011?).... and people gave us money to make the album and many of those got our first album free and paid to see our shows. And they provided the finace to make the second, which was also released free.

So just.... get lost with this "devaluation" of music shit. Maybe for the big industry, but fuck industry. Music makers and music lovers are just fine without the corporations.

I'm glad metal is almost completely outside of the mainstream Hall of Fame-esque sold out arena scene. Why would you want metal to join that corporate circle jerk? Be glad the genre is doing amazingly well and is being supported by a flourishing and thriving subculture.

Eddie Trunk may be an idiot with very questionable taste (Amon Amarth sucks though), but at least he gives a shit about visibility.

I can truthfully say I give zero shits about metal getting mainstream acceptance. It's completely fine if people don't enjoy metal, but anyone who can't see the talent required to compose and write metal is a fucking retard whose opinion doesn't matter, anyway.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Trunk gives a shit about his pals getting visibility. He cares about bands he grew up listening to retaining popularity 30 years after their primes. He whines and bitches about how metal gets no respect while he consistently and flagrantly disrespects metal. Megadeth winning a Grammy is a fun novelty, not a huge milestone achievement, no matter how much you tell yourself it is. Fame is what he cares about, and if less metal bands being less famous is tantamount to a crisis or somehow proof that the genre isn't the strongest it has ever been, then you fall somewhere between "misguided" and "idiotic".

And again, he has a national platform and constantly self promotes as an ambassador to the outside world at large on behalf of heavy metal and hard rock, and does jack nothing to actually promote how strong the scene actually is. If he wants metal bands to be famous again, he has the best chance of making it happen, but he doesn't, and never has. He's a flunkie and douche, and keep in mind that I never ever use this word, a total fucking poser. Metal is seen as a relic and it's arguably in large part because he does everything in his power to keep it at relic status.

Through this all, it seems the biggest lesson is that despite boneheaded reasoning, there isn’t any way to connect the commercial success of shitty sellout band that auctioned away their integrity for money to the overall superior quality of underground band x.

Unless popular opinion is wrong and Cold Lake is actually Celtic Frost’s best album? Better than that Morbid Tales and Hellhammer nonsense?

"Cold Lake" goes with "Stronger Than Ever". Didn't make the big bucks, so they had to go back to being losers who play true metal. I used to give metalheads wedgies in highschool.

They will probably get the money from the albums they are putting out. This isn't a difficult concept.

No company would spend their time developing and promoting a majority of unprofitable bands while funding the rest of the company with a single profitable one. That's completely absurd thinking and a great way to drive a company into oblivion. You might see this with some filmmakers or game studios or individual bands, like an actor/director who does two mainstream films so he can be allowed to work on his ailing passion project. But that will not be the mentality of the film production studio, and also not the mentality of a record label, which is an over-arching production company.

Money speaks volumes, and if some segment of a company isn't profitable, typically, the company drops it. So believe it or not, those little Death Metal bands can be profitable.

As someone who never got into thrash metal, these iconic businessmen (along with checkerboards, circuses and clowns) on various album covers to me remain the genre`s most distinctive feature. I often wondered whether any of them were not drawn by Ed (Repka)?

"You! Think! The world adores you
With your make up and silken pants
Wake! Up! You've had a nightmare
Your record didn't sell so well

Blind! Wake up man you've got no hits
Change! Now it's time to end this shit

What's! This? Demand's declining
No more money in your pocket book
What! Now! Looks like it's over
Gonna throw your lipstick away"

You are correct, but one point you're missing is the scale and scope of operations. Underground labels are generally run by one or two people at the core. PR, artwork, layout, and production are handled by people who are usually close and dedicated, but aren't full-time staff. Bigger label often still have a dusty old staff with people dedicated to things like A&R, advertising, and things that get rolled into the sole proprietor of other labels. While these are valid jobs when working with a certain level of band, there are two factor which increase the sales necessary for a "success" here:
1) the base cost of staff, rolled into making the album
2) the increased need to wholesale albums to handle the volume of sales

Adding a few professionals who put weeks or months of work into a project - which is more often than a minimal effort for the artists which require it - can add five digits to the production cost/label operations budget. Think of that as thousands of albums that need to be sold to cover them.

Wholesale is an ever-more-difficult problem for labels, especially small ones, as wholesale prices have been forced down by lower demand at retailers in the last decade. Wholesale prices have dropped hard in the last decade, especially for less-than-prime releases. Wholesaling also adds in another layer of cost in warehousing and shipping. Where the underground labels thrive is direct sales - ones like Dark Descent thrive on this. The profit margin of direct sales is more than wholesale. Trades and distribution are also more profitable than wholesale, and you'll see NWN/IBP handle this aspect well. For example, a typical scale for these labels is probably 3000 copies of a CD manufactured at $2 (or less) per unit. They'll do well selling 500 copies at $12 each, trading 500 copies and selling the stuff they get for $10-12, wholesaling some, and holding the remaining ones to sell later at a reduced price, probably $8-10. When most of these releases cost under $10k for recording/mixing/mastering, artwork, and a one-time PR blast that gets attention based on their reputation with fans, they can definitely succeed and profit on a relatively small volume - most of which seems to go into expanding these labels.

Compare this with a label who spends $10k up front on A&R, management, and other costs on top of $10k in recording. If they wholesale 5000 copies at $7 each and $2 cost per unit plus $1 shipping, they break even. They're not trying to break even - they're manufacturing at least twice that many and trying to move them, and ultimately their busts end up sold off a cutouts, probably at a loss. Wholesale costs/margins are worse when compared to direct sales when you're handling multiple regions, they wouldn't be worth it handling anything less than a few thousand copies each per greater region (i.e. USA, Europe, Japan.) These can be quite favorable for direct sale - see the NWN/IBP arrangement, or look at how fast any bigass shipment from a European label sells out in the HHB store.

Thus, an album that sells 5000 copies in a year end up as a loss for the bigger label, while the same album on an underground label is a success when it sells half as many copies. More likely, the band on the bigger label sells 25k worldwide and goes on tour to make a living selling t-shirts and cover expenses with guarantees. The band on the smaller label sells 2500 copies and plays a handful of festivals and a string of regional shows, and spends their days packing orders for the label or being a rocket scientist because "Penetrating the Cosmos" is their passion in life, not just the title of their album.

wow, this is still going..

On the topic of Eddie Trunk: I watched That Metal Show on VH1 or whatever occasionally in high school. Me and my best bud had been into metal for a while and were well into death and black metal at that point. The complete lack of any metal beyond Sabbath/Maiden/Dio, Big 4 thrash, and groove metal was really glaring. I specifically remember Whitesnake likely being the most covered band.

Anyways, one episode we tuned in and I shit you not, this was the main topic of the show: Which is the MEANER album, Reign in Blood or Vulgar Display of Power? Those records sound little alike but those three dumbasses spent 10 minutes debating the finer points of being MEAN and fellating these 30 year old albums that have been discussed to death. What an exercise in stupidity. To this day my friend and I refuse to listen to any metal that isn’t at least as mean as VDOP!

My thoughts exactly... yesterday.

On an unrelated note, my wife and I are now proud Subaru owners! We've been driving a 2000 Dodge Stratus for the past seven or so years and it was getting pretty tired. We bought a 2010 Forester and LOVE it. For being eight years old, it's only got 50k miles on it. Plus, it's turbo-charged which is really nice. Because it's a bit older, we were able to afford the fancy trim with the giant moon roof and heated seats (which my wife has been wanting forever). It should be a great car that'll last us for a very long time.

Anyone in the market for a lovely Stratus?

My wife and I have a 2010 Forester as well. We've had it for six years now and love it, as well. Should last you a while. Just be ready for the brackets/hangers to rattle a bit every so often. You can get them spot welded for pretty cheap when it happens though. Aside from, that six years in and no other problems with mine.

^Right on! That's encouraging to hear. I'll keep watch over them brackets/hangers; thanks for the recommendation.

So, cryptocurrency markets seem to be crashing.

I remember that, it was indeed awful. Speaking of which, all they had to do was substitute "mean" for "extreme" and it would have been considerably less stupid. It still would have been dumb, just not as dumb.

Hydrogen-powered bikes? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fran ... SKBN1F52AP

While they are intriguing, and have very good range at 62miles per tank... given hydrogen's track record in propulsion devices, my morbid side can't resist calling them Hinden-bikes.

Cosmic Atrophy lives!
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Co ... 3540264314

That's because of fear mongering from people that are mad they didn't get in on it first.

Are you quite sure that's how it works?

Cryptocurrency will just keep growing and growing, like some kind of, uh, idk, some kind of expanding thing that will never ever break.

The Washington Post posted an article on Alfred Morris III in light of his recent death: Click

Hmmm... the articles I read said nothing about "fearmongering by people who didn't type FIRST!!!11 in the Cryptocurrency comment box."