Nickleback doesn't suck for once

[Explorer]

Just a few premises:

I've worked in more than one wedding band to support me and my family, as that was where the money was.

Art is perceived intent, even if the perceivers are just guests at a wedding party, or metal fans, or Nickelback fans.

If it's necessary, most people will make sacrifices to support their loved ones, and to make sure thay have what they need and more.

Ozzy Osbourne gave up his metal lifestyle to do the same for his children.

My conclusion?

If someone, even Nickelback or Ozzy, make decisions for monetary reasons, I suspect they could not give less of a shit about someone else outside of their families bitching about their decisions... especially a bunch of goth kids who revel in their outsider status.

It's interesting to read some of the pro-goth/anti-sellout rhetoric here. Someone who holds on to outsider status in order to be perceived as such, and makes a big deal of it, is a poser, and thus falls into the same category as what they are condemning, doing something for the sake of how they're perceived. That's humorous irony for ya! *laugh*

Whoops! I again mixed up goths and... well, you know, the group which seems to be fronting the equivalent to all that "goth-er than thou" nonsense..... *laugh*

[Mordacain]

Originally Posted by Explorer

Whoops! I again mixed up goths and... well, you know, the group which seems to be fronting the equivalent to all that "goth-er than thou" nonsense..... *laugh*

I'd say you can just insert whatever group of the day fits that anti-establishment mentality, be it hipsters, emo-kids, scene-kids, punks, whatever. Mostly similar thought processes and rhetoric with different styles; all sharing the conformity of non-conformity.

[Necris]

Originally Posted by The Reverend

So no one finds anything disingenuous about them? I can understand why people like them, the problem is that Nickleback does too, and only do that. They're less like musicians and more like businessmen.

Any band is a business, I don't care how badly you want to seperate "artists" from businessmen. By continuing to play what sells they are being good businessmen. Moreover, any music that is bought and sold is a product, that doesn't lessen it's validity as art, whether it's good art or not is entirely a matter of personal perspective.
Who is to say members of high profile bands that sell hundreds of thousands of albums don't have personal projects where they create music solely for the music?

[The Reverend]

Originally Posted by Necris

Any band is a business, I don't care how badly you want to seperate "artists" from businessmen. By continuing to play what sells they are being good businessmen. Moreover, any music that is bought and sold is a product, that doesn't lessen it's validity as art, whether it's good art or not is entirely a matter of personal perspective.
Who is to say members of high profile bands that sell hundreds of thousands of albums don't have personal projects where they create music solely for the music?

Around 2001 Chad Kroeger started "studying every piece, everything sonically, everything lyrically, everything musically, chord structure. I would dissect every single song that I would hear on the radio or every song that had ever done well on a chart and I would say, 'Why did this do well?'" Nickelback's single "How You Remind Me," Kroeger told Bliss, sold so well because it was about romantic relationships, a universal subject, and contained memorable hooks.

At best, Nickleback is a collection of music analysts who do only what is necessary to sell. That's not art, and if music isn't first and foremost art, what is it? It didn't originate as something made specifically to sell, it started as a vehicle for expression. Look at any innovation in the world of rock; how much of it was done purely to sell records? I don't mean production value, I mean how many records was B.B. King trying to sell?

Label me an outsider if you will, in my worldview that's not a bad thing at all. I can listen to Zombie by The Cranberries and feel the devastating emotion in the lyrics, or Lump by TPoTUSA and feel that raw, youthful energy, but when I listen to recent Nickleback, all I can hear is the gears working in their heads as they decide what the best way to rehash their veritable catalogue of hits is.

I understand having to make a business out of your music in order to provide for your family. Even Lady Gaga, as destestable as she is to my ears, earns a grudging respect from me for using her horrible music to express herself. No one since Madonna has sold themselves as successfully as she has, yet she's still an artist. The two aren't mutually exclusive in my view, however it is definitely my opinion that one is better than the other.

I'm not sure that musically coloring-in-the-lines like Nickleback is really art. Sue me, but I subscribe to Tolstoy's vision of art, not the "well it's music, so it's art." I think those two terms (or art and any media, for that matter) are wrongly included in the same cultural context. Performing music at weddings to pay bills is performing a service; playing covers that mean something to you, and sharing that emotion to pay bills is performing art.

EDIT: I know that I come off as a musical elitist, and I accept that. I also know that Tolstoy thought only Christian art was good art. I encourage everyone to see the forest for the trees.

[Explorer]

That's funny.

In numerous music theory threads, lots of people like Schectorwhore, Soldini, and others (including me) talk about the things to be learned by studying successful music. Learning how musical structures work is learning the craft which enables the art, whether you like that particular type of art or not.

How many people learn a structure (successful radio music, tab of underground black metal artists) in order to replicate it in their own work?

I don't think learning technique, including compositional technique, means you can't make art with that technique. It's like saying Rembrandt wasn't a real artist because his representational art was used to make portraits for pay. Here's one of his commissions, which the world is apparently wrong for recognizing as art because he was a businessman.



Personally, I don't think he was a hack because he was a businessman too, anymore than I think Ozzy undertaking tours to make money makes him a sellout.

Short version: Someone who knows how to reach people and how to use craft to do so =/= hack.

[pink freud]

Nickelback is just the modern AC/DC. Face it, AC/DC has one song. People love that one song. Nickelback has one song that many people also love.

[The Reverend]

Explorer, come on.

There's studying music to learn how to better express yourself through it.

There's studying music to learn how to sell it.

One is art, one is business. The whole point of my long-winded post was to highlight how they are two separate entities. I even gave an example of how they can work together in the form of the atrocious Lady Gaga, but I would've done better had I used Beethoven, Mozart, or da Vinci. All produced art, all made it pay their bills, so to speak.

I think it's shit to say, "Okay, for a hit, I need this chord progression, this song structure, and this lyrical theme." What about that suggests one person transmitting an experienced emotion to another? The guys in Nickleback used to be artists; the second they started focusing on revenue they became businessmen. As an artist myself, I respect one more than the other.

Ozzy is a hack, Nickleback is a hack, even you, Explorer, I'd accuse of hack-dom if I didn't know that you genuinely play music for the music. What happens when people sell out is that songs become calculations, and former musicians become data entry clerks. If there's nothing honest about your creation, how can you be called an artist?

[Daemoniac]

Originally Posted by 8Fingers

Metal, just like any any other music genre, is not only about music itself but about style, clothes, hair cuts and...........attitude.

Bull. ....ing. Shit.

Metal is metal. That's it. It doesn't care whether you're a young dude in bondage pants with dreadlocks all the colours of the rainbow, or a 65 year old bastard in a pair of jeans and a flanny and the only people who claim otherwise are the uptight snob niche that look down on other people for what they listen to.

[8Fingers]

Originally Posted by The Reverend

If there's nothing honest about your creation, how can you be called an artist?

There's nothing more honest than bands who CLEARLY make 'calculations, and former musicians who became data entry clerks' cause it's so easy to see them, the problem is some people can't see them and that's why this discussion will still be alive around 4700 even though music will be a spiritual adventure right through our souls and won't need electronic gadgets.
Please send me some money to finish my CSHC (Church of Spiritual Gaga Calculations)

[steve1]

uh-oh, now we're trying to define what is and isn't art? good luck on that one guys.

[8Fingers]

Originally Posted by Daemoniac

Bull. ....ing. Shit.

Metal is metal. That's it. It doesn't care whether you're a young dude in bondage pants with dreadlocks all the colours of the rainbow, or a 65 year old bastard in a pair of jeans and a flanny and the only people who claim otherwise are the uptight snob niche that look down on other people for what they listen to.

Yeah so how many metal bands or metal clips we can see 'young dude in bondage pants with dreadlocks all the colours of the rainbow, or a 65 year old bastard in a pair of jeans and a flanny' ?

Maybe not even 1?
You're out of reality.
I don't care what people wear or their hair cut, if I like their music I buy it but music industry does, and it does a lot cause the majority care about that stuff.
How many metal headbangers would by Bruce(Iron Maiden) singing dressed like Bob Marley?
Millions of metal heads couldn't even accept Halford is gay and stopped listening to Priest.
Metal without chains, leather, skulls, dark lyrics and melodies etc?
ALL genres/styles have their own lookings and attitudes.

But I got it, your reality is different than the world outside.
Lookings and attitudes don't matter and that's why since 1960 nobody bought a tv set
Or will you tell us your metal band dress like reggae players and your instruments have coloured rainbows?
I bet my soul it doesn't

[The Reverend]

Originally Posted by steve1

uh-oh, now we're trying to define what is and isn't art? good luck on that one guys.

It's incredibly simple, actually, or it is for me. Art is anything that one person uses to transmit a past emotion to another.

8Fingers, I don't know what in the hell you're talking about, so I'm going to ignore you.

As far as metal goes...I love metal, yet nothing about my external appearance would tell anyone that. The same goes for the majority of the regular posters here. Aside from the occasional metal t-shirt, a lot of these guys look like regular people. There's certainly those who subscribe to the stereotypical view of metalheads, but that doesn't really affect the music, does it?

[8Fingers]

Originally Posted by The Reverend

8Fingers, I don't know what in the hell you're talking about, so I'm going to ignore you. it?

So far I agreed to everything you said
Some people say those musicians who make songs become calculations, and former musicians become data entry clerks(like you said) are making art because they can't see what they're really making.
When someone can't comprehend what a product is, he can't realise it's not art, it's a product not made to transmit feelings but only to make money.
I was just agreing to you with a little beat of sense of humour which you couldn't understand maybe because of my english.
Still I agree to you about that matter.

[The Reverend]

Originally Posted by 8Fingers

So far I agreed to everything you said
Some people say those musicians who make songs become calculations, and former musicians become data entry clerks(like you said) are making art because they can't notice what they're really making.
I was just agrreing to you with a little beat of sense of humour which you could understand maybe because of my english.
Still I agree to you about that matter.

I understand you now.

[8Fingers]

Originally Posted by The Reverend

I understand you now.

Hey....wait while I correct my english mistakes before quoting me

[Fiction]

Who cares? They're making money, and you're not.. For a band that seems to have no fans makes a lot of sales, and although they're using the poppy music formula, it doesn't make them any less an artist then a metal band or any other.

This threads about them donating money to a cancer charity and somehow there's an argument about what is art and what isn't. Sometimes people need to get over small things like this.

[8Fingers]

Originally Posted by Fiction

This threads about them donating money to a cancer charity and somehow there's an argument about what is art and what isn't. Sometimes people need to get over small things like this.

My friend it doesn't matter who is wrong or right, discussing things is always funny and good, it's what separate us from animals......but some here still prefer waving their tails while peeing on your leg

[Fiction]

Yeah it's just veered very far from the original topic and I don't want it locked. Also in a discussion I'll be the one pissing on you're leg mid-discussion

Anyways, goodluck to lil' LJ.

[Explorer]

^Wait a minute... I'm the one who has to take the piss on his leg, and you're taking the piss?

I get confused about taking a crap, too. I'd rather leave a crap.

----

I think I previously said that art is perceived intent. Obviously, some don't perceive intent to make art, and so they dismiss the creation, regardless of whether the maker had any arty intentions.

Incidentally... I do love pop music a lot, and have done lots of study on hooks, "money chord" progressions, lyrical themes which sell, and so on. There is something about those things which makes people react, and so I *want* to know how to push people's buttons with those things.

In fact, if you read a lot of the composition threads, I'm constantly flogging pop music as a great place to learn.

I didn't read the interview where Kroeger said that he had studied what made pop music effective, and so I obviously missed the part where he copped to only playing music for the money. It's worth pointing out that you might be using your own perception of intent to decide that his music has no art. I'd be interested in reading the part where he's all about just stringing stuff together and earning money. I didn't find it when I went looking for info on Kroeger a moment ago, but I did find lots of stuff about the band constantly touring and trying to make it in the early decade. (Yes, decade.)

Taking those facts into account, if not making much money and being on the road constantly are the signs of a hack, and making money and writing effective music are *also* the signs of a hack, then you'd have a hard time finding someone who isn't a hack.

Anyway, I don't listen to Nickelback (although I have analyzed the song "Hero," which is an amazing composition with great lyrics), so I don't need to convince anyone that anyone is actually making art. I just want something I can listen to and enjoy... although I also enjoy the quibbling about genres and art that come up here pretty often....

[Thrashmanzac]

idea for new ss.org meme:
"nickleback give $50000 to support cancer victim"
*meme picture*
"....ing sell-outs"

[Explorer]

[fwd0120]

Originally Posted by pink freud

Nickelback is just the modern AC/DC. Face it, AC/DC has one song. People love that one song. Nickelback has one song that many people also love.

I strongly disagree with the AC/DC statement. Which "one song" are you referring to!?! I'm not even an AC/DC fan!!

Treva is always right, so I don't care about this thread.

That cancer thing was nice though... I have a soft spot for cancer-y folks. My mom had cancer.

[Daiephir]

Originally Posted by fwd0120

I strongly disagree with the AC/DC statement. Which "one song" are you referring to!?! I'm not even an AC/DC fan!!

Treva is always right, so I don't care about this thread.

That cancer thing was nice though... I have a soft spot for cancer-y folks. My mom had cancer.

Yu know, that 1 song, that repeats iself, over and over, using the same 3 chords, with the exact same beat

[fwd0120]

Originally Posted by Daiephir

Yu know, that 1 song, that repeats iself, over and over, using the same 3 chords, with the exact same beat

Hmmm.... I see what you did there

[8Fingers]

Originally Posted by fwd0120

Treva is always right, so I don't care about this thread..