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Indies
Hi. Have you seen _Do the Right Thing,_ when Mr. Senor Love Daddy tells
everybody to "chill out?" Y'all, it's just the heat. I don't even care
if it's not hot. ?
Anyway . . .
Dan T said:
>What are people's big fascination with indie/underground musicians, and
>then when they somewhat "make it big" suddenly they don't like them
anymore?
> Love music for music's sake. Not for it's level of obscurity.
Peter said:
>Also, I would like to assert that. . . well, I
>find indie production to be charming. Very
>charming.
Kelvin said:
>While that my be true, I think you would also have to agree that too
>often the term indie acts as instant credibility for crap.
Fred's tired. Why does he talk when he's tired? I dunno. It's
happening again . . .
What a band can do and be definitely changes with their level of success.
Eddie Vedder wants to play to tiny bars, and he can't, unless he hides
under a psuedonym, and even then he's likely to get busted (remember tha
little tour with Mike Watt that Rolling Stone ruined?). Music works
differently when it's huge. There are songs I love to hear in a bar that
I would never want to hear on the radio. Some folk music is absolutely
destroyed by massive success (not all folk music). U2 occasionally (or
often, depending on your opinion) make themselves look silly by trying to
make stadium shows work. But all the glitz and the lemon and the arch
really made POP a great show, even from not-so-great seats. Waddaya do?
Waddaya say? If you make an album for an indie lable, with a small
budget, you don't have to sell as many albums to break even, so you can
take more risks and have a smaller audience and still be successful. I
mean, GDBD is a really successful indie album, but if it was a
major-label album, it's sales numbers would equal flop.
So that's it, I think. When your album has to be a blockbuster, you're
more likely to sell out, even by accident. Or be forced to sell out.
Not very many bands are good at being big for very long. Plus, there's
people at the big money level that abuse unsuspecting artists. Man, do I
feel sorry for ol' Britney Spears. She just has no idea what's coming.
I think maybe people familiar with the CCM scene are a little extra
sensitive about this stuff, because we've heard good bands get turned
tepid by the CCM effect. Hokus Pick Manouver becomes Hokus Pick and gets
Brown Banisterized. A thousand million albums with the same stupid head
shots on the cover. Like that. Of course, that stuff happens outside
the CCM market, too.
Y'know, I'm not sure where I'm going.
Gotta shut up now.
Pax,
Fred