Most bands are meh, just a few are memorable anyway. Manufactured groups are more common in Japan where the recording companies hold more power, and I suspect in Nashville for the same reasons, but that’s just a guess. The producers do have more say there.
Babymetal is manufactured the same way Hendrix was - a producer saw potential in an artist, and built a band to hightlight their skills. Which is not the same thing as the Monkees, who were brought together for a TV show.
There are different reasons to manufacture, not just a cash grab.
Take Babymetal. The group was built as a vehicle for Suzuka’s talents, she was previously in a group called Karen Girls, which sang songs for an anime. When the anime run ended, so did the group. But during the run, she performed in front of crowds as large as 25,000.
Babymetal’s first gig was a sold out crowd of 200. The fastest way to make a buck off Suu would be to go the pop rout; not metal, which to that point didn’t have a track record of selling cds.
Manufactured groups come together for different reasons, and like I said, shouldn’t have any negative connotations. I’ll give anyone a listen and judge on the music. Been wrong too many times coming in with my mind made up.
Journey is another band on the list btw. Might be more of them than you realize.
Journey is the band that changed my mind on ths subject. When they first came out, I dismissed them as corporate rock as did many folk at the time. Boy were we proved wrong.
I wonder if with babymetal, the record company is using them to sell the whole anime pop-culture package? Not just the music but the costumes, the stage shows and whatever else. I bet there’s a ton of babymetal merch out there…
They started out just doing music videos and a ton of live shows. Remember that they have a really, really solid band backing them at all times. It’s not all pop culture.
Most radio stations (yeah they still exist) are own by the same companies, iHeart radio for example, the programming comes from a central office, so a group of a few people decide what everyone will listen, probably in “collaboration” with the major labels, that’s why you have the same handful of artists over and over… now every now and then someone goes viral online and it jumps to the airways
The irony is that right now it’s harder than ever to get on radio since there’s no local DJ/radio hosts they cannot just play whatever they want, but it’s also easier than ever to record music and put it out on the web for the world to see
My take is the reason is just because their music is simply that good (Beatles fan here so biased by that).
Having the succes they had was obviously the perfect mix of talent, creativity, good management (Epstein), good production, good musical tutoring (Martin) and… and of course luck of being in the sixties, with no internet, no youtube, no computers, no spotify, no nothing (or almost) and becoming The Beatles. There’s nothing wrong with luck but they made their own luck by being what they were (some of the most talented songwriters ever with a heck of a drummer, who Ringo was despite what many people might think).
Luck is part of life. They got “lucky” but put the same perfect mix of favorable circumstances on some other band…and the do not become The Beatles.
I recently heard an interview with Leland Sklar (no need to tell who he is in a Bass Forum do I? ) in which he candidly says that he was lucky that the man who he got introduced to almost casually was James Taylor and that had he been someone else… maybe he wasn’t going to become who he is.
So he was lucky by his own assessment…but can anyone deny he can play some bass?
The Babymetal fandom is among the most loyal of any band in the world, but they have rejected any tie ins with anime for some reason. They have merch, everything from baby onesies to custom ESP guitars. According to the annual stockholders report, they account for 30% of Amuse Entertainments revenue, and this for a company that counts Perfume and One OK Rock as artists.
But for the first couple years they were so modest that the record company wouldn’t buy them costumes, they borrowed clothes from friends and teachers. And they wouldn’t fund a record, it was 4 years from the time they hit the stage until they got a record cut.
Other bands use them to market themselves too. It’s not uncommon at Tower Records in Shibuya for other acts like KISS, Metallica, and Slayer to post photos of themselves with the girls on CD racks to move CDs. They are a merch juggernaut.
They were discovered by merch in fact. The girls were walking around Sonisphere in their riffage on Metallica t-shirts in their …and justice for Babymetal shirts when Lars and his wife spotted them, and caught their show. In a month they were in an ad campaign for Metallica touring Asia, in two they were recording an album. And the rest is history.
Someone posted this before, but Victor sums it up really well, especially at the end. Echoes what Gio quoted from sshoihet. At the end of the day, music is about an experience and feeling for your listener.
I watched part 1 of The Beatles documentary (Get Back) yesterday @Ed It’s not for everyone, but I found it oddly affecting when he played ‘The long and winding road’ for the first time for everyone and hummed the words as he hadn’t written them yet.
“Audiation is to music what thought is to language” (Gordon, 1999: 42).
Many years ago my (now ex) wife was annoyed at me for whistling to a song I’d never heard before, she couldn’t understand how i could do that but much like how you can often finish someone’s sentence, i can hear where the song is going. My problem (which i’m working on) has always been that i never knew an instrument well enough that i could get what was in my mind to come out my fingers… that i could think about the music without having to think about the playing.
Your problem is a lot better than my problem. My problem is closer to writer’s block. The music is in there, but when I sit down to do something about it, it won’t come out.
I’m keeping myself busy with playing around with covers but I really want to get on the stick with doing original music again.
It’s interesting to hear other people’s creative processes. We all have heard about songwriters who wake up and the song is just there or as both of you highlighted, the song is in your head, you just need to get it to come out. I don’t usually have that, often I start by throwing different sounds or beats around (for me it always starts at the low end, drums, Percussion, bass, etc) and then the rest starts to flow…although melody can be a challenge for me
My classes have forced me to make time to be creative, which is key…it’s just another form of practice if you think about it.
Oh I do the same too… i come up with some great stuff while riding home on my bicycle (also do my best thinking then too) and it’s not like i can easily pull out the recorder then either but i have stopped to whistle a tune into my phone several times. if i sit down to actually work on it, i can’t think of anything. I have to start with some thing first, either a chord progression or a melody and build from that.
(Beatles fan here so biased by that).
) in which he candidly says that he was lucky that the man who he got introduced to almost casually was James Taylor and that had he been someone else… maybe he wasn’t going to become who he is.
