Sunday, April 20, 2008

Are you commercial?

The other day I saw a funny little discussion somewhere on the internet. Some people got into a serious fight about bands being commercial or not, and of course they were not really arguing, but only bashing each other. Now I wonder is there something as a non-commercial band at all? Lets take 2 bands as an example... Jon Bovi on the one hand and Dummi Burger on the other (lol, yes, I know, those names sound kinda familiar, I don't mean to talk about those bands themselves, I just take them as examples for very different genres). While Jon Bovi plays melodic (Hard) Rock, Dummi Burger plays Black Metal, so is Jon Bovi more commercial? Or are both bands commercial, after all both signed a record deal... isn't this "being commercial" by definition? If you sign a deal with a record company it means you want to sell albums, that's pretty commercial, isn't it? And is Jon Bovi more commercial, because he uses make up and hairspray? Or is corpse paint and fake blood the same, just a tool to attract a certain group of people? While Jon Bovi is aiming at 14 year old girls, that are supposed to find him "sooo sweet", is Dummi Burger aiming at the 14 year old boys that are supposed to find them "sooo cool"? Does all this matter at all? Isn't it better to just focus on the songs and forget about image and all that stuff? I don't really care if a band is commercial or not, or what it looks like, I want to listen to a good song, that's all that matters to me. And just to make this clear, yes, I think both bands, Dummi Burger and Jon Bovi, have good songs ;-)