4 Years Ago (2017)
Do artists create value or does the audience create value?
I believe it’s the audience.
We are the ones who decide what song or album we will give our time and money to.
And it’s a cold hard truth for any creator out there. The art they create has no value at the start. It might later, if people decide it’s valuable.
Def Leppard was huge from 1983 to 1992. Even their sound was huge with multi-layered vocals and instrumentation.
They had a bit of a back lash in the 90’s and maybe alienated some of their fan base with their 90’s sounding “Slang” album. But like all great bands from the 80’s they had a renaissance.
Because of piracy.
No one could purchases or access Def Leppard’s digital music library legally between 2000 and 2017 (apart from the few forgeries the band did themselves and the live releases), so people obtained the music illegally.
And just like that Def Leppard replenished their fan base with younger fans.
“In recent years, we’ve been really fortunate that we’ve seen this new surge in our popularity. For the most part, that’s fuelled by younger people coming to the shows. We’ve been seeing it for the last 10, 12 or 15 years, you’d notice younger kids in the audience, but especially in the last couple of years, it’s grown exponentially. I really do believe that this is the upside of music piracy.”
8 Years Ago (2013)
Machine Head is a favourite. And if you want to read a post on some deep album cuts then here it is.
Queensryche appealed to me for a few reasons.
- Insightful lyrics
- Great messages and themes in the songs
- Brilliant arrangements and guitar playing.
- Each album that they released with Chris DeGarmo followed my own changing musical tastes.
So I did a post on some semi-obscure Queensryche songs.
I did a post of my score at a Record Fair.
And I’m thinking what is the point of em when most of the stuff is priced high. But I still go. The collector in me makes me go.
Daft Punk’s track “Get Lucky” by August 2013 had been streamed 104,233,480 times. Spotify generally pays 0.004 a stream to the rights holder. So by doing the math that comes to $416,933.92 in payments from Spotify to the rights holder.
How much of this money is distributed down to Daft Punk from Columbia Records is unknown?
For a song that was released in April 2013, it’s proven to be a pretty good earner.
And i was wondering when Metal and rock bands would cross that 100 million mark. Well by 2021, a lot of em have and in the case of Queen, they’ve even crossed the billion mark.
I was re-reading a Kerrang interview that Derek Oliver conducted with Dream Theater back in 1989. It has the title; “PROG ROCK LIVES… RUN TO THE HILLS.”
It’s the same Derek Oliver that negotiated Dream Theater’s deal with Atco. It’s full of praise.
But it’s not 1989 anymore.
It was 2013.
Dream Theater was about to release their first self-titled album. Music is getting released left, right and centre. Independent DIY bands are competing against label funded bands.
Was Dream Theater still one of the most innovative bands in town?
It’s 1991 and Vito Bratta is doing the rounds for the Mane Attraction album. And he was uncomfortable.
A few years before this is what Vito Bratta said in the June 1989 issue of Kerrang magazine.
“I hate recording. I can’t stand it. I cant stand the pressures of writing and recording a record. If they told me tomorrow that i was going to go out on tour for fives years, i’d say, fine, i love it. Playing every night is what i love.”
When Vito did the Eddie Trunk show in 2007, he had this to say about the expectations placed on them by the Record Label;
“So the record company’s saying we need another “Pride”.
I say, “Ok, so what exactly does that mean?”
The label goes, “we need the hit singles”
I go, “listen the songs we gave you, on “Pride” weren’t hit singles written purposely to be to be hit singles. They were just songs that became hit singles and they were just songs we wrote. Now you’ve got somebody telling you now, you have to purposely write a hit single.
Now how do you do that?
How do you purposely write a hit single, I mean there are people out there that do that…”
In a Guitar World interview from the June 1991, Brad Tolinski asked Vito if Mane Attraction was difficult to make.
“In a way it was. It was the first time I ever felt real pressure. When we recorded our first record, “Fight To Survive”, we were real naive and just happy to have a deal.
Our next record, “Pride”, was also very relaxed. It was written over a period of three years, so we had plenty of time to compose and experiment. “Pride” went double platinum, which was both good and bad.
When we went to record the follow-up, “Big Game”, everyone told us, “Don’t worry, whatever you write will sell a million.”
There wasn’t any real fire or hunger on that record. We were playing arenas, getting big checks in the mail, getting calls that we were going platinum, and so on.
On top of that, we had convinced ourselves that we had to write hit singles in order to maintain our popularity, and in the end “Big Game” was too contrived. It didn’t sell as well as “Pride”.
This is what Vito had to say on the Eddie Trunk show;
“Big Game” was a setback for the Label. It didn’t sell as many. We were doing a headlining tour of Europe by ourselves for the “Big Game” album and they (the Label) said, “wouldn’t it be great if we played at Wembley with Motley Crue and Skid Row?”
Skid Row went on and they were just killing the place. And Motley Crue had a great show and here we are sandwiched in between.
We realized, that night, on stage at Wembley that these songs from the “Big Game” album aren’t translating well in the live show.
So we all looked at each other on stage and said we need to throw in some of our better stuff in here. I was like what better stuff. We need to write more for who we are because these songs are not translating.
Then we went back to the States and we told the record label, no more tours on this album. We are going to do the album that we want to do. And they said well considering how the last album went, they said “go ahead”.
They gave us unlimited funds.
“Mane Attraction” was a half a million dollar record. They just said go and do everything that you want.”
And the album failed to connect with a large audience.
And example of how the post flowed.
In 1986, Jon Bon Jovi was in debt to his record label and still living with his parents. Then the “band” Bon Jovi released their biggest seller, “Slippery When Wet”.
I’m 2013, Jon Bon Jovi was flush with money and the band Bon Jovi released their biggest dud, in “What About Now” and Richie Sambora was booted.
In 1986, Megadeth released “Peace Sells.. But Who’s Buying”, which in their case, everyone was buying.
In 2013, Megadeth released “Supercollider” and no one was buying.
In 1986, Queensryche released a superior album in “Rage For Order”.
In 2013, Queensryche became two seperate bands that ended up releasing two inferior albums in “Frequency Unknown” (Geoff Tate version) and “Queensryche” (Todd LaTorre version).
The fans are screaming for order.
In 1986, Vinnie Vincent invaded the charts, with a point to prove.
In 2013, Vinnie Vincent is.
Databases store everything we do online. And one of my favorite acts Cog had a song about it many years ago.
Yes they’re making lists of people interested in this
And they’re scanning all their databases
Hunting terrorists
Yes they’re making lists of people interested in this
And anyone who speaks their mind is labelled anarchist
Our Government’s get caught red handed spying on it’s own citizens and artists needed to take a stand on this.
But no one did.
And that’s another wrap for another week.
destroyerofharmony 
Vito should be in the Witness Protection Program man. Interesting as what I would think is there best record (MA) bombed on the charts.
DT put out so much stuff that well they put out so much product. lol
I think Sambora is happy he’s not part of that Vegas Act now…
MA is a great album and one of my favorites. The guitar playing is excellent. Tramps lyrics are a bit derivative, only AC, David Coverdale and Motley can get away with writing about the same thing over and over again.
Haha..very true.