acsguitar wrote:Art Vandelay wrote:Gnarls Barkley definitely doesn't belong on that list, and 'Crazy' is far from their best song.
And is Lady Sovereign popular now or something? I don't watch MTV or listen to any top-40 radio, but I had no idea she was big enough to warrant inclusion on this list. I'm no fan of hers, and I've always pretty much hated grime as a genre, but some of her earlier appearances on mix-tapes and guest appearances on other tracks were decent.
i don't know as much about hip hop as you by any means. But I was watching some MTV because I felt like getting enraged by society and this came on and it made me enraged.
Anywaysy Gnarls isn't the worst on the list but I hate that song. And the fact they dress in costumes is weird and I just dislike them in general. Is it the same guys who did Gorillaz cause I hate them too.
Here's what I have say about this...
First of all acs is a musician and guitarist (and from the YouTube videos I saw, a pretty damn good one) and he believes that a band's popularity should be based on their artistic ability and talent as musicians... and not a catchy beat and a gimmick. But I'll be damned if I don't admit that Feel Good, Inc. is a catchy tune. Crazy to a lesser degree. Talent and ability alone should be enough to guide a songs success rather than those things or name recognition, which I guess explains why garbage consistently tops the charts.
But I have another explanation. Take real music fans for instance; the ones older than, say, 20 who have a specific style or genre of music that appeals to them. They buy music of that appeal; for instance, Artful Dodger likes metal... so if a metal band releases a new album, he and everyone like him is buying it, but now that the fan base is so widespread, it doesn't translate to domination on the charts. I can only imagine that's why some no-talent ass clown like Fergie sells records... marketing, image, name-recognition and general unintelligence. The unintelligence part kicks in with availability. I'm 24, and I know how to get music through not-so-legal means. That allows me a bit more flexibility to give new styles and genres a try. I'm a self-described "indie rock" fan, which is pretty ambiguous itself, but true if you consider that I'm more likely to listen to new music if I don't have to pay for it.
So that's a double-edged sword. You take the teenagers that buy all their music from record stores and iTunes and you've got garbage like Fergie and whoever the hell the subject of this thread is about "selling". Then you have your genre and style specific people, old school music lovers who buy new albums from their favorite bands but lack universal appeal since teenagers now have the most music buying power. And then you have me; I download a lot of music, but if it's something I honestly like, I buy it. I've bought CD's thanks to downloading that I never would have bought because I never would have known it existed. Then again, it's only people intelligent enough to like good music that are intelligent enough to get ahold of it through shady measures. In that regard, garbage sells great, genre specific stuff has only it's niche of fans, and then un-heard-of bands that otherwise wouldn't have sold 10,000 records do well based on download recognition alone.
You'll find that a lot of big name bands (like Metallica) are adamantly opposed to music downloading because it cuts out from their bottom line. But other, otherwise unheardof bands, support the downloading just to get their name out. People like Fergie and Ashlee Simpson could care less because their fan base is too dumb to figure out how to download music for free anyway.
*Disclaimer* This is only a hypothetical post and does not, in any way, necessarily reflect the actions and practices of the poster. All of the music in my possession has been acquired through only the most legal of means.
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by Art Vandelay » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:55 pm 
