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Totally depends on genre. Fans of different genres want different things. For example, you can't make something meant to appeal to fans of multiple genres, or you'll end up making something so generic it really doesn't appeal to anybody.

Nope. Unless it's basic music by people with a grade 3 and mimed by someone conventionally attractive who's mostly interested in how they can choreograph a dance to it then you really need to ensure you have a day job.

You might gain moderate success with a huge record label and a good PR team but got that you need a gimmick, Slipknot have masks for example. They aren't musically amazing but without the masks they'd be lost in a sea of nu-metal. Coldplay are utterly dull but their various publicity stunts and high profile relationships have kept them in the public consciousness.

There's plenty of great bands on the scrapheap of history from Budgie to Anvil. It's not completely hopeless though, plenty of bands have been around for years before getting successful and not all of them are sell outs like AFI.

Lizzo is a good recent example of this. She had the backing of a major studio, critical acclaim and even appearances on movie soundtracks and her third album went largely ignored. It was one of the best in its genre for the year. She was so dispirited she wanted to quit.

Then a few years after release, one of the songs got featured on a Netflix show, which then allowed it to gain popularity on Tik Tok. Then she blew up as people went back through her catalog and realized how good it was.

If it wasn’t for that Netflix show, it probably never would’ve happened for her.

define succeed

Success - if it is measured by popularity - has nothing to do with good music or lyrics.

Tons of great artists never achieved commercial success. There was a band called Supafuzz out of Lexington Kentucky. Great rock band, great lyrics, cool rock riffs, and they didn’t really sound like anyone else. Got a little radio play but never took off. I saw them at a club with maybe ten people in the audience and they rocked it like they were in a stadium. They just didn’t have the money behind them to get that big push.

Wrong. Slipknot has stood the test of time due to their music, if their music wasn't as good as it was they would be like Mushroomhead, another Nu Metal band that wore masks and had extra drummers.

What publicity stunts and relationships have Coldplay done? You sure you didn't mean Ye right?

And AFI never sold out they just changed styles and punks don't like that.

>What publicity stunts and relationships have Coldplay done?

Travelling to Jordan to put on a special concert to highlight his their next tour will be carbon neutral comes to mind. All the hallmarks of a PR fluff piece plastered as a good thing by the press.

Chris Martin was (is?) Married to Gwyneth Paltrow which is pretty much guaranteed to keep you in the public eye.

AFI went Emo when Emo was clearly becoming a huge deal, that's selling out, they changed their style to what was clearly going to make them bags of cash. I was sort of on board with emo as i inbred Brand New and was willing to check other bands out, I'd already heard of AFI, that they'd been around a whole but we're just taking off and i heard Girls Not Grey and was unimpressed, it was a couple of years later that i bought a compilation called Punkzilla and heard what AFI used to be like and was impressed. I really liked their earlier style.

As for Slipknot they are all about the marketing and PR guff. Take GTA, GTA is in the public consciousness as the controversial murder simulator because of a campaign by Max Clifford paid for by DMA (later named Rockstar) and they still keep up this façade via PR stunts designed to keep that crown. Slipknot are the same, they are THE band people know about, this isn't by accident, Roadrunner know exactly what they are doing, keeping Slipknot as the demonic, ugly face of metal which is why your grandmother had heard of them and not Mushroomhead.

This is the first I've heard of any of those things about coldplay I don't know who Gwyneth Paltrow is. Kinda weak publicity if you ask me. Who cares if its carbon neutral or carbon negative or carbon monoxide.

Girls Not Grey is far from the only sound AFI had on that record and has since then. Dancing Through Thursday is more punk and the leaving song part 2 is harder than Girls not grey.

Yes and no with slipknot, yea they had roadrunner records on their side but let's keep it real, Mushroomhead didn't have a drummer as skilled and intense as Joey or a vocalist as good as Corey. To say its ALLL PR and marketing is wrong, Not to mention, you can have ALL of those things and still fail. Plus mushroomhead just doesn't have the songs compared to slipknot and is more inconsistent.

Plus Labeling GTA as a murder simulator is kinda... seems boomerish. Call of duty, Mortal Kombat and a whole host of other video games could be labelled that but it is inaccurate and stupid to call it that

Clearly you weren't paying attention when it was all over the news that Coldplay were doing that Jordan gig, it was hard to ignore and framed as a good thing (though some real journalists did question the hypocrisy of flying the band and crew out to Jordan just to highlight the fact).

AFI totally sold out and i saw them live a few years ago and everything was post - Girl's Not Grey, they'd gone full emo and ignored anything before then even though I'd only stopped at the stage to hear earlier stuff live. There's plenty of bands that have changed their style that will play their earlier music too because they haven't sold out, they've evolved and embrace their entire back catalogue.

Slipknot are exactly what they are portrayed to be, without the masks and stage setup they'd be barely anything, their drummer is hardly the best drummer in the world. Clearly you need to see Mike Portnoy, Johanne James, Nicko McBrain or pretty much any other drummer in that realm to be honest.

As for "murder simulator" that's the term the likes of Jack Thompson use but he, and groups that protest each GTA game launch, have all been led on by Max Clifford's PR company, he's said so, Rockstar have said so, they paid for the campaign, it worked and it's still working. As they say there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Clearly though you don't peek behind the curtain much to see what is behind a certain story or feature, you should as Sick Of It All said "scratch the surface, serve a purpose", or don't, you could just donate your eyes to science instead.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention to coldplay but clearly you weren't paying attention, I didn't call Joey Jordanson the "greatest drummer of all time" I said he was better than the mushroomhead drummer. If you compared them you'd agree.

Mike Portnoy is an amazing drummer too bad the bands he plays for are play boring drawn out prog metal.

Ill donate my eyes when you donate your brain because unlike my eyes you ain't using it

Mike Portnoy is a sell out too lmfao, he was Avenged Sevenfold's drummer. Not to mention Sick of It Alls involvement with nu metal and rap rock. Let's not forget brand new and them selling out to indie rock.

Coldplay is a proper noun, it should be capitalised. The drummers name is Joey Jordison. Mushroomhead is a proper noun and should be capitalised. Mike Portnoy has played in:

Liquid Tension

Experiment

Transatlantic

Flying Colors

The Winery Dogs

Metal Allegiance

Sons of Apollo

BPMD

Dream Theater

OSI

Cygnus and the Sea Monsters

Yellow Matter Custard

Avenged Sevenfold

Adrenaline Mob

So you're wrong there too.

>Ill donate my eyes when you donate your brain because unlike my eyes you ain't using it

Do you mean "I'll" as in the contraction for "I will"? If so you've missed an apostrophe and there really should be a full stop at the end of that sentence.

This, by the way, is really basic grammar that anyone 12 years old and a native English speaker should know. Either you're as educated as an under-12, are under-12 or only capable of learning to that level. Either way you really shouldn't be accusing others of a lack of cognitive ability. Anyway that's it, if you think a 4/4 drummer like Joey Jordison is better than any other 4/4 drummer then you're really not well educated when it comes to music.

Pathetic grammar teacher. You can't possibly think that all 4/4 drummers are the same, you're more ignorant than you think I am if that's the case. Yea Slipknot's drummer is better than Meg White from the White Stripes, Lars from Metallica and the Mushroomhead drummer. Plus Spiders by Slipknot is in 7/8. You seem to be one of those pseudo intellectuals types who acts like he knows everything.

"Success" needs to be defined.

Is it regarded a "success" if an album still has a hardcore group of fans 40 years later?

Example; The Greatest Story Ever Told by Balaam & the Angel. I've met very few people who have even heard of the album or band, yet they still have a strong following, and it's still my most played album.