Invented punk? nah.
The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
91–100 of 232 posts
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#92If the Ramones put their name on all sorts of merchandise does that make them sellouts? I joke, of course, and I'm a big Ramones fan. I've had numerous iterations of that shirt over the years. I often use them as an example when discussing "what is good art?" They are one of the most influential bands of all time and yet they were terrible musicians.
>I joke, of course, and I'm a big Ramones fan. I've had numerous iterations of that shirt over the years. I often use them as an example when discussing "what is good art?" They are one of the most influential bands of all time and yet they were terrible musicians. This makes me to wonder why do you and other people like them and why were them influential? Isn't a band's purpose to produce good music and aren't peopl…
What is good music though? I think the OP meant that the Ramones were terrible musicians in the sense that they were technically "good", i.e. most jazz musicians are much better technically. But that's the whole point the OP is making, to make good music you don't need to be technically good, i.e. to play the most complex guitar solos or be extremely accurate in your timing on the drums.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are they terrible musicians? They played their specific type of music extremely well. Like, technically better than most people will ever be at music. People loved seeing them play. I still enjoy their records. So, what is terrible?
"technically better than most people" I guess with them touring and playing basically non-stop a certain kind of that is inevitable. Their concert frequency was on par with the otherwise known as most prolific band ever, The Beach Boys. It's just that The Ramones' members all died around third of the way (~20 years of touring vs 60).
The Beach Boys also unabashedly liked money. I saw The Beach Boys - what was left of them anyway - with one the original members talking on stage basically talking about how he still did touring because he liked driving around in a Bentley.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#94If the Ramones put their name on all sorts of merchandise does that make them sellouts? I joke, of course, and I'm a big Ramones fan. I've had numerous iterations of that shirt over the years. I often use them as an example when discussing "what is good art?" They are one of the most influential bands of all time and yet they were terrible musicians.
The concept of "selling out" requires you to have some core values which you and your audience share. If you're a hard rock band and you make a cringe disco album because that's what the record label told you to do, that could be seen as selling out. If you're an anarchist crust punk and you get signed to a big label that could be selling out. If you're an underground DJ and you do the soundtrack for a big movie that could be selling out.
I don't think most music artists have the necessary relationship with their audience to "sell out", because their music isn't ideological and they don't have a real relationship with their fans. As famous sell-out Laura Jane Grace sang, the content is so easily attainable that the culture is disposable.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#95Isn't the whole point of touring to sell merchandise?
Today perhaps. But in the past the artists money from selling records. So the tour was to promote the album, rather than the other way around
Sometimes the band would get pennies from an album sold in stores, but they'd get almost the entire price of an album sold by them at a venue.
Authors would get something similar, they'd rarely sell out their advance, but could buy copies for pennies on the dollar and sell them at conventions.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poor take. In the last three years alone they've played over 100 concerts. Their set is two hours. They're all in/approaching their 70s . If that's not a band, I'm a pterodactyl.
Even if they are indeed a band, that doesn't mean you are not a pterodactyl, mind you. But pterodactyl are pretty cool too my mind, so no offense really.
You won't even notice the pterodactyls - they're often in the bathroom!
But the p is silent.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#97I was wondering the same thing about Iron Maiden the other day - they seem more of a merch company than a heavy metal band these days. You can get Iron Maiden beer, Iron Maiden wine, Iron Maiden sunglasses etc. let alone the common merch like T-shirts. Given many more people can buy merch than can buy a concert ticket (which has inherently limited numbers) I wonder how the two revenue sources compare.
It's the same with the "Star Wars" brand - the biggest chunk of revenue comes from merchandise and licensing, not the movies/shows. Lucas famously became a billionaire by securing merchandising rights in his original contract, not because of the cultural impact of the franchise.
They're tied together - Lucas wouldn't've had the billions if Star Wars hadn't had the cultural impact allowing it to sell all that merchandise.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#98Well, Brian Eno said of Velvet Underground's first album that it didn't sell many copies but everyone who bought it started a band.
Yeah, thinking the same with regard to the Ramones. They are name-dropped so often by bands that came since—pretty sure it is not because of a t-shirt.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Live performance is about status signaling. A party with a live performer (or at least a DJ) is considered fancier than one with just a streaming phone. At the high end, live performance pays more than it ever has, since the exclusivity is what people are paying for. At the low end, the performers get squeezed because they are competing with lots of amateur DJs or people simply doing without a human.
Those are more like live appearances. Basically them doing stuff while a DJ plays a recording of a song the "artist" probably had 1% part in writing. Expensive karaoke. The actual musicians of the world lose money doing live performances these days.
The "artist" has quite a difficult job as well, even with the machine behind them doing a lot of the creative and practical work.
They have to dedicate a decade or more of their life at a prime age to the character - selling their soul if you will. And not going nuts in the process. Fame and extreme fame would turn any normal person crazy. But you don't have the option of withdrawing, because you have this army of other people depending on you, among other things.
Re: The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
#100If the Ramones put their name on all sorts of merchandise does that make them sellouts? I joke, of course, and I'm a big Ramones fan. I've had numerous iterations of that shirt over the years. I often use them as an example when discussing "what is good art?" They are one of the most influential bands of all time and yet they were terrible musicians.
>I joke, of course, and I'm a big Ramones fan. I've had numerous iterations of that shirt over the years. I often use them as an example when discussing "what is good art?" They are one of the most influential bands of all time and yet they were terrible musicians. This makes me to wonder why do you and other people like them and why were them influential? Isn't a band's purpose to produce good music and aren't peopl…
Music is something you can do without formal training. Much like how you can be a terrible programmer but still create popular software. Just like how maybe what the world wanted at some moment was a slow PHP alternative to moveabletype, maybe the world also wanted sped up, stripped down, 60s girl band songs, without complicated rhythms and harmonies.
Not trying to say that Wordpress v1 was terrible software written by terrible programmers, but I hope you get my point.