Commercial music must die!

Join Share

Leader: anarchoqueer
Join Policy: Open
Created on: 14 Mar 2007
Description:

Ah, the overproduced, badly-written, manufactured, glossy "beauty" that is commercial music!

Don't you just love it? I sure don't.

Please read before joining:

I define "commercial music" as anything on a major label (with a few exceptions---bands like Primus could hardly be considered commercial), and obviously, all music that dominates the airwaves and MTV, or did at one point in time.

That said, there are several jazz artists from the 30s and 40s (to use an obvious example) that were wildly popular in their time, yet would never make it onto your typical pop radio station in the 00s. "Consumer tastes"---as the major label CEOs would say---change rapidly; while disco was quite commercial in the 70s and 80s, it has since been driven underground, and your average conformist-MTV-clone-teenager would not be caught (brain)dead listening to it.

However, those two genres are a rare exception. Plenty of classic rock and oldies artists remain very commercial (how many trendy Pink Floyd and Beatles shirts do you see at the mall?). Quite a few people continue to listen to this music. Much of oldies and classic rock has been highly influential to today's bands, so I respect it, but that doesn't mean it isn't commercial. It's just commercial in a different sense than, say, Britney Spears, whose music is disposable and uninfluential, as the sound is nearly indistinguishable from other "pop princesses" featured on MTV.

Non-commercial music is basically anything unsigned or on an independent label. There is a stark contrast between this music and commercial music. When you hear it, you can immediately tell the difference; the soul remains intact, and the music itself is not lost within layers upon layers of unnecessary production. It retains its individuality, and there is a refreshing raw emotion and passion to it.

Of course, I'm being idealistic here, as not all non-commercial music is this amazing. In fact, some of it is pretty fucking boring. But regardless of an artist's talent or your own subjective personal taste, it remains that there is a world of difference between the experience of listening to independent music versus the experience of listening to mainstream music. And once you've had this experience, you know you can never go back.

Anyway, join at your own discretion. As long as the majority of the artists in your charts are independent, I don't see a problem. If you listen to a lot of mainstream music, please don't join. If you do, I'm not going to ban you or anything, but I don't see why someone would want to join this group if their music ideals are completely counter to mine and that of the rest of the members.

Maybe people assume that the group name is referring to music used in commercials. I really hope that no one is that stupid, but if so, I've already clarified that this group is against mainstream music and for independent music. If you don't know how to read, I'm sorry.

Active Discussions

manuelgat commented on
“Introduce yourself.” (16) Saturday morning

Zuhurbelea commented on
“The worst commercial music, in your opinion?” (33) October 2011

Thread-Blue commented on
“Captain Beefheart” (3) October 2009

Recent Journals

New "Greetings From the 8th Floor" by halfmike | 2 Dec 2010
NO LAST.FM. Музыканты против коммерции. Musicians against commerce by canoplygames | 27 Apr 2010 | 8 comments
Canoply Games – Phantoms [LP] - new conceptual album by canoplygames | 8 Apr 2010 | 1 comment

See all

Weekly Top Artists

Overall Unique to this Group

1	Pink Floyd	7
2	Bad Religion	6
3	Black Sabbath	6
4	The White Stripes	6
5	Anathema	5
6	Metallica	5
7	Slayer	5
8	Ozzy Osbourne	5
9	The Clash	5
10	Beastie Boys	4

Connected Artists

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up (it’s free).

samplr

The Demise of Capitalism in Three Songs: http://patriksampler.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/what-do-you-like/

February 2012
zzZOMBIEee

Hello everyone!!!

January 2012
illusionen_rpqh

LIKE

October 2011
paddypunx

Good music and VERY Great Avatar for this group. CHEERS!!!

August 2011
TojadMordownik

lol at charts

June 2011
LaxATivvz

"Surely music you like shouldn't be dictated by the amount of people listening to it. If you like something, you like it, and you have no control over that. I don't care what people think of my taste, be it too commercial or not commercial enough, because I like it for a variety of reasons." this.

January 2011
SheddingSerpent

Weekly Top Artists, Overall: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Slayer, In Flames Ramones, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Placebo, Iron Maiden. You'r against what here??? At least no Radiohead...

September 2010
king_prawn95

Surely music you like shouldn't be dictated by the amount of people listening to it. If you like something, you like it, and you have no control over that. I don't care what people think of my taste, be it too commercial or not commercial enough, because I like it for a variety of reasons.

July 2010
illusion_paw

LOL hipster group and contradicting charts.

July 2010
halfmike

fuck yeah! make your own music! and put it up on the web. its easy and not expensive to record yourself. and because of the internet, music is essentially free. don't fight it, embrace it... The Grenaders

July 2010
anarchoqueer

How many times do I have to tell people to read the description? Not to mention my responses to the previous shouts saying the same damn thing. Does no one know how to read anymore?

April 2010
AlessandraSays

that dude last comment is kinda right yo

March 2010
indierekt

Haha, you fakers. Look at your group charts: Nirvana, Bad Religion, Metallica, Manson, Muse, Red Hot Chilli Peppers...is that non-commercial music?

March 2010
anarchoqueer

Agreed.

February 2010
LightRed

I'm okay with popular bands as long as their music isn't made primarily for the money and attention, but I still can't enjoy their overproduced tracks as much as some random japanese 80's thrash band's demos with really shitty sound quality.

February 2010
Wizard-In-Black

then everything will die

January 2010
jlaki

if commercial music dies, all of those people will start listening to the music which is not considered commercial today, which will then become commercial, and then everything will be commercial?

January 2010
anarchoqueer

Basically, I'm just saying that commercial music and mainstream music overlap a lot, but not all mainstream music is commercial. Not all commercial music is mainstream, either (like a lot of the bands on MySpace).

December 2009
anarchoqueer

I could probably think of a better example for the description, though. I originally had The Mars Volta there, but I think they're starting to become kind of commercial.

December 2009
anarchoqueer

I wouldn't say Dead Kennedys or Primus are commercial. Dead Kennedys are well-known, and Primus is semi-mainstream, but neither band makes/made music solely for the money. That is what commercial music is. A lot of times, it's also literally commercial in the sense that they mention product names in songs (like a mainstream rap song talking about a Benz). With Dead Kennedys, it's kind of complicated, because the other three members sued Jello Biafra, and he now has no say as to where Dead Kennedys merch ends up. He's pretty much the only member with sense. But that's why you might see Dead Kennedys stuff at Hot Topic. The other members just want to make money and milk their legendary status. But when Dead Kennedys were together, they made music that could never be on the radio, so I wouldn't consider them to be commercial. And Primus is one of those bands that is semi-mainstream, but would never become any more mainstream because they're too "weird" for most people.

December 2009