Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Metallica-St. Anger

I have no qualms about burning CDs, downloading music, etc... If "artists" and record companies have no compunctions about charging $15 for a piece of crap CD, then I'm going to have none about burning it. They view us as cash cows, milking and bleeding our wages from us. They should accept the fact that CD sales won't pay their bills anymore. They should use CDs as promotional devices (like air time on the radio) to get more people to appreciate their music and attend their concerts. Oh, but wait, that means they would actually have to "work" for a living, rather than lay around the swimming pool doing drugs.

St Anger, I hear, was recorded live in a basement.

Yeah, real genious there... so now they've spent 50$ recording an album, trying to maximize their profits. i can barely hear drums or bass on it, the vocals are distant, and the guitars sound like crap.

don't they realize it's time to quit? i think they're just money hungry.

that DVD that comes with the disk is an absolute waste of i don't know what.

i'm glad i didn't buy it.

Uh, have you listened to it? The drums are quite prominant (sometimes too much so), and the bass is far more present than on any album since Cliff. The vocals are probably the clearest thing on the album. I'll agree that the guitars are weird, and I haven't watched the DVD yet.

NOTE: Please be aware that this semi-rant has a liberal dose of devil's advocacy sprinkled throughout.


The problem with saying that the music companies treat consumers as cash cows, "milking and bleeding our wages from us" is that they would go out of business if they didn't charge so much. They've got a lot of costs to recoup from supporting a band and producing an album.

Granted, a studio probably doesn't have to spend too much money on marketing for a band with a (declining) reputation like Metallica, but take newer, younger bands as an example. Do you have any idea how much money a recording company has to throw at an "average band with above average looks" (i.e. most "new talent" out there these days) in order to make them marketable? The recording companies have to charge a lot of money for the CDs because they need to recoup those costs. (Unfortunately, the system is so bloated that the number of people involved in producing an album is ridiculously high. In this sense, yes, we are being milked, but everyone needs to make a living, right? )

Please understand that I am not trying to defend the system. The system came into existence (well before the advent of online file sharing) by capitalizing on not-too-discriminating teenagers with money to burn. Studios were justified in spending tons of money to make bands look hip and cool because kids were/are more than willing to buy into the image.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't put too much blame on the music companies. If a market exists, a business will always appear to take advantage of it.

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The problem with saying that the music companies treat consumers as cash cows, "milking and bleeding our wages from us" is that they would go out of business if they didn't charge so much.

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Untrue. There was a time that the "single" was a common form of distribution costing a staggering $0.99 per song. The RIAA had a valid business model then. Furthermore, CDs are significantly cheaper to mass produce than tapes or records and modern albums cost far more than their predescessors while moving in volumes unheard of in those times.

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Granted, a studio probably doesn't have to spend too much money on marketing for a band with a (declining) reputation like Metallica, but take newer, younger bands as an example. Do you have any idea how much money a recording company has to throw at an "average band with above average looks" (i.e. most "new talent" out there these days) in order to make them marketable?

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This is actually an argument FOR digital distribution be it free or charged. It costs them so much to market their talent because their talent doesn't have any. It costs a fortune to convince the masses that five monkeys that don't write their own music, can't define their own dance steps and whose voices would be intollerable without computer manipulation are something they should spend $15 a pop for. It costs a fortune to manipulate and own the radio, MTV, and the record stores. The pay off is that you have to invest not one dime in finding new talent or fostering new sounds because you can rubber stamp manufactured carbon copies of the same droll crap over and over again. It's far easier and it's why the music scene is dead. THAT is why their sales have fallen.

It's truly ballsy to produce 25% less material than a year ago in a recession and blame a 5% drop in sales on pirating when every study ever commissioned by anyone other than the RIAA indicates that free online swapping actually results in BETTER sales as people are finally exposed to music that interests them rather than the mindless crap you're pushing.

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I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't put too much blame on the music companies. If a market exists, a business will always appear to take advantage of it.

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And it has.

Regards,
Semi

Well said, uh, typed.

Mainstream music has transformed from an art into a commodity.

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Wait a second...sushi is a Metallica fan??

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NO WAY!!! But my oldest daughter is a fan of the general genre (not necessarily of Metallica specifically), so I've been inevitably exposed to the jumbo mumbo surrounding them. I've also been interested in the digital copyright issue in general, ever since the Napster fiasco.

So she gets to listen to that stuff on your Pioneer/Hales/Axioms?

Nope. My system refuses them.

You know, she is a typical teenageer, who can care no less about the sound quality. She's very content with her boombox and PC speakers.

Maybe it's time for me to educate her...

Are you mad? Convince the person financially dependent upon you that she needs expensive gear (relative to the crappy little computer speakers)?