Stratovarius Community

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote:To be taken seriously by virtually all people. Myself being one exception.

And I was responding to Stratodan, I think. ;P

Fixed that for you.

Heavy metal was born on the stage, and that's where its true home is (ok you hate the term but noone else here does so I'll stick to using it out of convenience and habit).

And the fact of the matter is for a band to sell it needs to be taken seriously. Plus, the way things are going with record sales live performances are rapidly becoming one of the only ways a band can make money (case in point: Shawn Crahan of Slipknot stated that the band has made far more from a single tour than they would ever make from album sales. And they are a huge-selling act.)

... is how they make money. Not how they're taken seriously. People take them seriously by liking their music, and they're much, much more likely to spend $10 on a CD album than they are to spend $100 (plus travel expenses) on concert tickets.

For me making money is more important than being taken seriously and creating experiences is more important than money. I really don’t take bands as anything, just as something that I can chose to interact with or not and something that I can choose the experience I have.

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote:... is how they make money. Not how they're taken seriously. People take them seriously by liking their music, and they're much, much more likely to spend $10 on a CD album than they are to spend $100 (plus travel expenses) on concert tickets.

Yes, but a band needs to make money to survive. No money = no new albums. Hard, simple fact of life.

You cannot make a good sounding album for cheap, not unless you already own several thousand $ worth of equipment and are well-versed in using it. Recording albums professionally is a pretty expensive process, but it is what makes the difference between an album that sounds like Elements Pt.I and the home-recorded demos everyone starts off with on Myspace.

Unlike what most people believe, record companies will very rarely actually give money to a metal band to record (and if they do, they then get them back from the next lot of royalties) so the band will often finance the recording themselves. And what record company would fund a band that wouldn't play live? Again, Shadow Gallery are one of the very few 'proper' bands that never play live that I can think of which have a reasonable international fanbase (one must remember that bassist Carl Cadden-James is a sound engineer by profession and they can actually do most of their recordings 'in house', so to speak, therefore they can escape the massive costs which recording a professional quality album will inevitably entail).

So yes, sadly, money is pretty damn important for a band wanting to get somewhere or indeed, carry on existing. It's got nothing to do with luxuries or any rockstar bullshit (very few bands actually get famous or rich enough to afford such nonsense anyway).

So not only is playing live part of what metal is all about anyway, it's pretty important to making records too (unless the band fund the album recordings themselves from their day jobs). And why wouldn't a band play live? It's fun (first of all) and brings them closer to their fans, establishing a personal dynamic. It's pretty vital.

Nobody's arguing whether it's vital or not. Nobody's arguing whether that's how they make money. And nobody's arguing about how much they make off records compared to concerts.

What's being argued is how a band's playing live is directly related to their being taken seriously by what you claim to be 'virtually all people'. I choose to think of it as more than trivial, but less than vital. I'd say the ratio's about 65%-45% in terms of how many people won't take a band seriously if they don't perform live.

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote:Nobody's arguing whether it's vital or not. Nobody's arguing whether that's how they make money. And nobody's arguing about how much they make off records compared to concerts.

What's being argued is how a band's playing live is directly related to their being taken seriously by what you claim to be 'virtually all people'. I choose to think of it as more than trivial, but less than vital. I'd say the ratio's about 65%-45% in terms of how many people won't take a band seriously if they don't perform live.

Ok let's simplify it:

For about 95% of active bands performing live = income = new high-quality albums.

A band which does not release new albums cannot be said to be active, or therefore taken seriously.

Live performance builds a closer relationship with the fans. That cannot be argued. Therefore, a band will be taken more seriously if they perform live, as they will have a closer link to their fans and also make a bit of cash for the next album.

Simple eh?

Which would be fine if the fans were a single body. And they're not. They're a variable.

Yes but a fan feels far more closer to the band if they get to see them in the flesh then if they only see them on album covers.

This is the way a working band always goes, you make an album and then you tour to show the fans that you appreciate their support, if you were to make an album and then just cash in on said album without touring for the fans wouldn't that be very selfish?

Can't please all the fans all the time, so the thing is to find some really hot ones and please and get pleased by them.

For me, hearing that a band played a concert that I was not able to be a part of is not going to make me like them any more. Even with the bands that I have heard live, it does not change the way I feel about the studio recordings. The live is a special experience for me that am its own memory. Live is human and a moment kind of thing, it does not represent all that can happen as it an independent event.

It is said that the size of the band is not determined by the amount of the fans but of the haters.

wisely said I think.

not to mention I can't understand a WORD of your horribly disorganized and typo-prone post, mayhem)

I was in a hurry and found inspiration
I just had to write everything I had in mind.

If I had a band, bring on the haters, because that brings on fans. Volume is the key to fans so I would be happy with a 1% fan ratio fans to haters over a big population.

That is the truth, it's the fans who matter and not the haters cause no matter what genre of music you play there is always going to be someone who hates you and your music, what matters at the end of the day is the people who support you and love what your doing.

The truth is opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.

and they all stink?

JK btw

hiro23 wrote:and they all stink?

JK btw

Depends on your own opinion.

LOL I don't see how it could unless there are people out there who perfume their buttholes

... *opens mouth then quietly retracts back into corner*









... kidding. Anyway, adding to the topic... for those of us here who aren't haters, favorite DragonForce songs?

Think I'd say Dawn Over a New World and Trail of Broken Hearts... The Fire Still Burns was ruined once the introduction has passed, but it's epic nonetheless.

It depends a lot. I've been loving The Last Journey Home lately. In the past I've been really addicted to Dawn Over A New World and Disciples Of Babylon.

I really like it how we suddenly begin loving a song or another, even though we had already listened to it several times, but then all of sudden we find out it's a fantastic song. It's awesome.

Lol. I tend to be a fan of the more melodic pieces... I still can't find a whole lot of one in Disciples of Babylon. <:3 I like the melodies in Once in a Lifetime and Body Breakdown (that song has its own strange little style... some of the solos actually reminded me of the early Sonic games). Black Fire wasn't bad, either.

What about Rhapsody of Fire? Any fans of theirs? Nobody seems to take advantage of the "and related bands" part of the forum title.

sometime I will make a midi compilation of some of my favorite dragonforce ideas.

i love so many little peices that it will be useful for me to put together a compolation for rapid fire.

Rhapsody Of Fire deserves a thread of their own.

I find Disciples Of Babylon so energetic. The bridge is amazing, repeating in an octave higher, brilliant stuff. There's not much of a recognizable pattern, but I tend to like faster songs at first sight, and I really like bridges and multi-layered vocals for chorus.

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about (I'm not one for musical definitions) they pulled something similar in Once in a Lifetime, jumping an octave for the final chorus repetition.

I love key changed endings.

if I could pick a song I truly like by them, it would be either 'soldiers of the wasteland' or 'cry of the brave' - in fact, that was a bonus track on Sonic Firestorm, I can't believe it wasn't one of the main tracks.

As many times as I've heard Soldiers of the Wasteland (for reasons I won't go into, it's a lot more than most of their songs) I still can't for the life of me remember it off the top of my head... which leads me to believe it apparently wasn't all that memorable for me. I remember the last line of the chorus and namesake of the song in Cry of the Brave, but not much beyond that either. Both the tunes seemed sort of generic to me... at least in comparison to the rest of the album. They're still miles ahead of their recent work.

It's funny how opposite the two bands are, though. Stratovarius started out generic and perfected their style over the next few albums whereas DragonForce started out of the blue, totally original and pleasantly melodic then deteriorated as time passed and they [presumably] ran out of inspiration. As a musician, anyway, finding inspiration has always been my greatest blockade... which would only be worsened if I did it professionally. -_-

Wonder why Jens hasn't made an appearance yet. Maybe he's off raging, or just lurking the pages until the haters disappear and the coast is clear.

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote:
What about Rhapsody of Fire? Any fans of theirs? Nobody seems to take advantage of the "and related bands" part of the forum title.

Yeah, that means bands actually involving past or present members of Stratovarius, 'related' in that sense. Threads about other bands are in the Other English Discussions subforum.

NeonVomit wrote:

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote:
What about Rhapsody of Fire? Any fans of theirs? Nobody seems to take advantage of the "and related bands" part of the forum title.

Yeah, that means bands actually involving past or present members of Stratovarius, 'related' in that sense. Threads about other bands are in the Other English Discussions subforum.

So why is this thread still here? DF are not related to Stratovarius at all.

Because dragonforce is stratovarius.

I wonder why some people don't count different melodies and rhythms as change or ideas.

NeonVomit wrote:Yeah, that means bands actually involving past or present members of Stratovarius, 'related' in that sense. Threads about other bands are in the Other English Discussions subforum.

By whose definition? I didn't see it written anywhere.

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote:

NeonVomit wrote:Yeah, that means bands actually involving past or present members of Stratovarius, 'related' in that sense. Threads about other bands are in the Other English Discussions subforum.

By whose definition? I didn't see it written anywhere.

Is it so hard to understand the word related? I don't see any relation between DragonForce and Stratovarius exept that both play Power Metal.