Oh No We Might Lose Crematory You Guys
Crematory’s Markus Jüllich has threatened the dissolution of the band if fans don’t start giving them more money.
In a new Facebook post, the drummer for the long-running German metal group tells followers that their new album, Oblivion, could be their last:
“[The tour] will only happen [if] you fans get off your lazy asses and start buying tickets for the announced shows. The presales are horrible and we will cancel the tour completely, if the numbers don’t increase radically.
“The most important thing is, that you buy our new CD and double vinyl edition, cause when I look at our sales statistics I could start throwing up!”
Jüllich goes on to bitch about the royalty rates for streams and downloads, because that’s proven to be such an effective tactic for other metal musicians.
I feel like Sergeant D. adequately addressed this kind of threat a few years back, so I’m just gonna go ahead and quote him:
Teh complaint: “Wah wah spotify only plays $.00001 per stream theyre screwing the artists.” This is a much simpler discussion than facebook because it is just so comically stupid 2 complain about spotify.
Reasons why this complaint is stupid:
1. It’s not fucking mandatory
Nobody put a gun to ur head and made u sign up for spotify, so if u find the terms of their contracts unappealing it is very simple: don’t sign it. If u signed a publishing deal that gave ur label or someone else the right to put ur music on spotify, well, that’s ur fault too. U should have read the fine print instead of watching zany djent covers of top 40 songs on youtube.2. Ur band wasn’t going to make any money anyway
Since nobody gives a fuk about ur band in the first place, we are basically just multiplying zeros here. I put together this helpful diagram explaining the economics using real sales data from ur band:
here is how the math works out for ur band
Arguing about the pennies ur band will never earn is dumb, but what’s even dumber is when ppl crusade on the financial behalf of the ppl in their favorite band– people who a) voluntarily signed a contract [see point number 1] and b) don’t even know u exist!! Why are u so concerned about how much money some guy who you don’t even know makes?!? Get a life lol.
I would add to this that it’s just bad form to tell your fans they’re doing a lousy job supporting you. I dunno, maybe someday I’ll be old and cranky enough to go on social media and be like “If you guys don’t stop disabling ad blockers, there won’t be anymore MetalSucks! And like all our Facebook posts, assholes!” But hopefully I’ll just die before I’m ever that lame.
[via Noisecreep]
