Is making money and pleasing fans mutually exclusive?

It seems so to me. Everyone thinks you're awesome when you're "indie" and "underground" but the instant you do something in your career that would earn you a lot of money your fanbase starts shouting "Sellouts!" It's a bit funny how this is even used in the Rock Band games, where there are lots of random events that will get you a lot of money or fans; pick one.

Does anyone get what I'm trying to say here?

Making a lot of money is generally the result of having a large or extremely loyal fanbase.

So no, no they're not.

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

Indeed, you have to sell out to somebody, and there are more of those somebodies than there were of the It's Popular, Now It Sucks! crowd.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

It depends which fans you want to please, and how picky or elitist those fans happen to be.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

Any time any band with more than ten fans does anything, they will lose some portion of those fans. It's just a part of the way the mind works, I dunno why, but it is.

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

I'm gonna go with the answer provided by Tool's "Hooker with a Penis", which amounts to, "Yeah, I sold out when I made that record and you're the asshole who still bought it."

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt." - Some guy with a snazzy hat.

Funny tangent, I saw someone in school wearing a Tool shirt today, and there was no indication it was for a band called Tool, it just said "tool".

Intentionally or unintentionally hilarious?

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

I'm not going to say anything because it'll just be a repeat of things I've said many times before in previous threads.

However: A case study. Snow Patrol. After their 3rd album guitarist/vocalist Gary Lightbody wanted to go in a more commercial direction, bassist Mark McClelland wanted to stick to their guns. Biggest ego wins, McClelland quits, band become insanely popular and insanely rich, but their original fans abandon them completely. Critics generally agree that everything after Final Straw is much of a middle-of-the-road muchness. Take from this what you will.

edited 23rd Sep '10 3:06:57 PM by Saeglopur

Listen to Music with Tropers at The Troper Turntable!

No offense, Saeg. But "critics agree" is a very hipster thing to say.

Critics like whom? Who are they, are they qualified to make that sort of statement? Who do they write for? Blogs? Newspapers? And who reads what they write? The mainstream public, or is it an underground publication?

edited 23rd Sep '10 3:11:54 PM by SpainSun

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

You're right, of course, Spain. Critics aren't really any better qualified to judge music objectively than anyone else. For the record, here's something that kinda represents 'critics agree', although Metacritic isn't the best of sources as the scores tend to come from two sources - indie review/blog sites and US newspapers, so of course there will be bias.

Anyways, my post was just an example of the phenomenon the OP was asking about, rather than my personal opinion. My personal opinion being that this happens an awful lot, sometimes it's with good reason, sometimes it's just unpleasable fanbase/it's popular now it sucks, and there's no hard and fast rule that says 'money and popularity = YOU SUCK'. But I would say that if a fan appreciates a band for doing something different, and they then decide to go for mainstream success, then that fan is inevitably going to be disappointed.

edited 23rd Sep '10 3:22:13 PM by Saeglopur

Listen to Music with Tropers at The Troper Turntable!

Mainstream success is something different.

I think it's entirely possible for a band to make a ton of money and still be True Arty. Cip, the KLF. Who...actually burned all their money, come to think of it, but it still counts.

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

This idea has always annoyed me. Especially when I go to music forums where indie fans troll discussions of pop artists. I never understood the "logic" behind this belief. What am I supposed to assume. That the majority of the public will only ever like crappy music? That most people actively avoid listening to music that's good? It makes no sense.

Makes sense to me.

Only from a misanthropic perspective.

I think it's more that the mainstream stuff is inoffensive - it's the stuff that the majority of people will think "that sounds decent", not "OMG that is amazing!" Not saying that nobody ever loves a mainstream song, but that the vast majority of profits for mainstream pop are unlikely to come from a hardcore fanbase.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

Perhaps that decent is just boring mush that pleases noone but those who haven't gotten into anything better. Since most people start out with that sort of stuff, it sells a lot.

I don't mind when a band makes money, I consistently buy David Bowie's albums so he can have as many ivory backscratchers with gold handles as he likes. It also helps me choose to support him because he is still alive to require ivory backscratchers.

However, the one example where I utterly became a decryer of a band as selling out was when Green Day released "American Idiot" - which was the soul crushing ice water in the face moment of reality where I learned damn hard once and for all that a band can dramatically ruin your high opinion of their music not by monetary gain but by utterly changing their image and sound to something unrecognisable and lame. YMMV of course, not gonna lie, some people like their new sound, but as an owner of their International Superhits compilation CD, I have to say I'm pretty pissed at what they did to their career to the extent I may even compare them to being the George Lucas of music.

Not because they got more money, but because they betrayed their punk rock origins to something I utterly hated.

Hell Hasn't Earned My Tears

I like Green Day, but they haven't been actual punk since they released "Good Riddance", at the very latest. It wasn't a sudden transition to a new genre, they'd been drifting that way for a while. I never got the people who disowned them when they released American Idiot.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

Green Day were never punk rock, musically; and ethically, they are still very "punk", I don't get the big uproar over that at all, really.

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

This, I think. It's not that most people try to avoid complicated music, it's that most people simply don't think about music that much. So the major labels push very middle-of-the-road stuff in the belief that it's a safer investment. Which leads to a vicious cycle: labels won't invest in out-there bands because no one would buy anything by them, then no one buys anything by them because no one knows they exist because the labels won't invest in them.

At times, I suspect that the labels want the public's taste to be as homogenous as possible, because that means fewer bands for them to promote.

Anyway, there's no real correlation between success and artistic merit. Some good bands achieve mega-success, and some labor in obscurity.

This is not true. I can think of quite a few mainstream pop songs that I've enjoyed, and I listen to all sorts. I'd be very much surprised if I was alone in this regard.

I'm pretty sure that this, on the other hand, is exactly the case. It's why the industry isn't actually terribly keen on the concept of genres, except when they become popular enough to form a substantial target audience.

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

There are exceptions, as always. Some bands have appeal regardless of musical expertise, but the norm is the opposite of this. The backlash against most of these popular bands should be proof enough.

I put the backlash down in part to the fact that the music is overplayed, in part to the fact that it gets far more publicity than [preferred genre x], and in part to the fact that it's typically less complex and diverse than [preferred genre x] which means it's perceived as being inferior.

edited 2nd Oct '10 6:50:15 PM by BobbyG

Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff

I like how people will never attempt to apply Sturgeon's Law to pop music and just dismiss the whole thing as "bad". While every other genre gets the defense if someone doesn't like it (Metal is particularly bad, I don't like it, lemme alone).

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....

I will be quick to point out that greater than 10% of Metal is, if not awesome, at least better than crap. So there.

no, that requires too many qualifiers. Nevermind.

edited 3rd Oct '10 12:47:47 PM by SpainSun

I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....