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I don’t think anyone here is talking about bedroom guitarists or weekend cover bands that play at your local bar and grill on Saturday nights. And honestly, even some of those are trying to make money at it. My guitar and drum teacher plays in two or three different bands that play at local clubs, and he teaches guitar and drums. It’s his full time job. His bands still put their playlists together based on what they know their regular fans at these bars want to hear. Some bedroom guitarists start YouTube channels, and they will absolutely alter their content based on what gets the most views.
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It’s a very real issue:
it’s probably the opposite – these punishments are common, it’s a bit of a pr fiasco the existence of such an order leaked.
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I agree, but the rather sweeping statement was: “Pretty much every band forms for marketing/demographics reasons”, so it seemed pertinent to note some types of band that might not.
If it had been “Pretty much every commercial band” or something like that…
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It wasn’t leaked, it was announced by the company.
You are being overly pedantic, I think. I’m pretty sure it was understood that this entire thread was on the subject of professional musicians, not hobbyists.
Also…musical integrity and commercial appeal are not mutually exclusive concepts. REM came together as 19 and 20 year old college freshmen at the University of Georgia. Within weeks of their first jam session, they were playing gigs and writing original songs, and decided that they though they could “make it”, and decided to go for it. Right from the start, they were concerned with the commercial side of the business. They made a contract with each other to split everything equally four ways, including expenses, income, and songwriting credit. Then, when they got their first record deal, they had educated themselves enough on the business side to refuse to accept an advance from the record label because they didn’t want to be in debt to them. None of that detracted from their musical integrity. Hell, that last part allowed them to maintain it. I might argue that REM was a boy band. And I love REM. They’re one of my three favorite bands of all time. But they absolutely concerned themselves with marketing and image and all that stuff. If you’re going to limit the definition to bands that were put together by a producer instead of forming organically, I guess that’s ok, but it’s a pretty limiting definition that wouldn’t include some bands most people would agree are boy bands, like New Edition and the Four Tops.
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I agree.
They may well have, but as you say none of it detracted from their musical integrity. I’m talking about boy/girl bands whose very music - and everything else (how they look, what they wear, how they dance, and so on) - is programmed to appeal to a defined marketing demographic. That’s not REM, I suspect.
Thank you.
Your use of the word ‘most’ there does not align with my experience, especially in the UK pop market (where I think ‘boy band’ has a more focused meaning, which also aligns with the factory production lines of artificial bands assembled in Japan and S.Korea specifically and solely to appeal to a demographic with only a second thought for the music, if that, which is also factory produced, very often). I would never call the Four Tops a ‘boy band’ (and don’t know enough about New Edition to have an opinion).
I use that exact same line to people wanging on about the Sex Pistols ‘inventing punk’, or whatever. Their reactions are generally very funny.
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It’s not about trying to be popular. It’s about who makes the decisions. A boy band does not assemble itself, it is assembled by a management company. The members do not take decisions about musical style based on popularity, the management does that, and directs the band.
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