Andy Biersack from the Black Veil Brides Hypothesizes as to Why People Don’t Buy Records Anymore, is Incorrect
Here’s a fun quote from a recent interview with Black Veil Brides vocalist Andy Biersack:
“There is nothing more, I guess, cannibalistic than the metal or hard rock scene, it seems. And people wonder why we aren’t selling millions of records and why we’re not at the top of pop and everything. It’s because, in my estimation, we have eaten ourselves alive for the last twenty years. The genre itself, the feeling of, ‘If something gets successful, let’s bash it.’”
While it’s an old cliché that metal fans stop liking bands once they begin to get popular, there actually is not a whole lot of evidence to support that — ’cause if it were true, then the career of every metal band that has ever gotten popular would be derailed more or less immediately. There will always be a vocal minority who hates it when a band gets “too mainstream,” but the key word there is “minority.”
Besides, even if that were true, it wouldn’t explain “why we aren’t selling millions of records.” Dunno if Biersack has taken a gander at the sales figures recently, but EVERY genre’s sales are suffering, because more or less every record ever made can now be downloaded for free in a matter of minutes (if that). If this were 1992, I’m sure that Black Veil Brides and many other successful metal bands’ sales would be far higher. But on the flipside, if this were 1992, there’d be no autotune and Biersack wouldn’t be able to have a career. So, ya take the good ya take the bad…
Biersack continues:
“Or in the case of Avenged Sevenfold, how ridiculous is it that one of our own got a number one record and is doing all this wonderful stuff and everyone feels the need to say something negative to them.”
Well, I really like Avenged Sevenfold, but most of the shit they’ve been taking as of late has to do with the fact that their number one record sounds exactly like a lot of other people’s number one records, not their popularity. Sooo, yeah.
Biersack concludes his less-than-convincing assertion thusly:
“And also, it’s really commonplace for metal fans to not give new bands a chance. It’s just it is, you know? The Black Album still sells more copies—not saying it’s not an amazing album—but The Black Album still sells more copies than any record that is put out every single week than any new band.
“And it’s not to say that any new bands put out a record that’s as good as the Black Album, but I don’t think people are even really ready to give it a chance.”
And this, my friends, is where I really got confused. Biersack’s logic is that no new bands are selling records because metal fans hate it when bands get too popular, and they demonstrate this hate by continuing to purchase copies of the single most popular metal album of all time. Huh? How does someone say that out loud and not realize they’re making a highly contradictory argument? Does he not hear the words coming out of his mouth? Is he completely incapable of rational thought? Does he say dumb stuff deliberately so people like me will give him press? The mind boggles.
[via Metal Injection]
