In any case–I took the “sales” approach from this: “And by “what is wrong” I mean “why can’t anybody seem to sell anything.” ”

So I focused on what seemed to be the guiding theme set up in the intro.. :)

In any case–I totally agree with you that way to many acts take themselves way to seriously.. (I actually tend to think that MOST acts take themselves way to seriously…)–No argument from me there..

I also think the 2004 context makes this much more understandable–back then, there was a sort of “ueber-bubble” of people thinking they were god’s gift to sound just because they could decide to form a band..

Anyway.. I actually think we talked about this on LJ or some other forum back in 2004-ish… :) and I think we sort of agred that the problem was that people just weren’t making very good music–they weren’t being intelligent about their music and had a process of making music that really didn’t pay much attention at all to the role of the audience–and what they might want or like–in it..

and now back to work…

You’ve kind of missed the forest for the trees on this post. The point wasn’t specifically about sales – although that is relevant – nor is it specific to the very very tiny EBM/goth/noise/synthpo scene (hence the references to breakbeat and trance, which do sell and have audiences several orders of magnitude above and beyond the madison scene – hell, I’ve been to club nights bigger than the worldwide industrial scene). The point is that a lot of acts, especially in the electronic genres, take things, aprticuarly themselves, way. too. fucking. seriously. Wordplay is mostly dead. Irony is dying. Cleverness is dying. Electronic music overall is rife with too many people trying to be profound and doing a terrible job of it.

Look, nobody said everyone has to be The Gothsicles. In any genre. But JESUS are there a lot of bands who take everything, themselves included, WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.

1. That the fan base is tiny-Madison’s THRIVING scene is about 200 people tops–in other words–1/1000 people here (and one should note that the variation of taste within that 200 people is already such that not all of them like EBM or Goth or Powernoise or synthpop or more experimental etc. etc.. ). If your fanbase is generally that small, you aren’t going to seel mass quantities=100′s of cd’s–very easily;

2. That is is often easier to steal the music than buy it;

3. That most of the people in the scene aren’t wandering around with a lot of spare cash–especially these days;

4. That the subset of people in the very small scene, who do have adequate spare cash, and who have the integrity to pay for the music they want is REALLY tiny..

Basically, the overlap of the venn diagrams here is small.

I think that this explanation is simpler and more likely than a collective lack of humor. Also, I doubt, if all the music and fans suddenly got in on the joke, that sales would spontaneously just rocket up because the music is all fun now.

ps–I do agree that a bit more humor and fun couldn’t hurt.. but if all bands became the gothsickles (who are super humorous and fun!) then you’d saturate the music with that style…. and have the same problems…

Ha! That is a great line.

But, come on, the emergence of replicants has been one of the most important topics of debate in the 21st century.

This is why I stopped including lyrics in my music years ago. ;)

- Eric

I don’t find your lyrics of the insanely self-serious variety either. I’m getting mostly annoyed with bands that write horribly, horribly cliched or overwrought lyrics without a trace of irony while doing it. I do not believe it is still possible to consider oneself socially relevant while singing about replicants.

- Eric G.