Wednesday, May 9th 2012
News, The Truth: Marilyn Manson
Lamb of God Vocalist Rages on Behalf of Marilyn Manson
Here’s where we get the fuck out of the way and let a man who knows his game speak his mind on the imminent demise of the bloated piñata that is the record industry.
We proudly present Randy Blythe, frontman for Lamb of God, in a freshly-shat Twitter rant:
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200315790711463937
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200316213929324544
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200316620374147072
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200316910770982912
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200317525978906624
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200318030465605632
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200318386272600065
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200318695870959616
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200319034657480705
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200319351851728897
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200319591103209472
https://twitter.com/#!/lambvox/status/200319941784776704
Yes.
Manson has a contract with a label, Cooking Vinyl, the album is not being released independently.
I wonder what he thinks about Amanda Palmer’s counter example. Direct artist to fan, booming success. Also, I wonder what the economic difference is for an artist selling 50k totally independently, vs an artist selling 100k through a major label.
Amanda Palmer isn’t a real counter example. That’s like telling everybody who loses the lottery every week to keep playing, because *someone* has to win it. The reality is, without the major label MARKETING machine behind you, you are not going to make enough money to have music be your day job. My band has a ton of talent, a fantastic EP produced by a multi-multi-multi-platinum producer, national radio airplay, sold out shows, and still, hardly anyone has heard of us. That’s because it isn’t 2004 anymore.
If it were 2004, arguably the dawn of the truly widespread Internet and the “democratization” of music marketing, we could’ve been one of those “Myspace bands” who got tons of fans and cashed in with a major label deal. Now that there’s YouTube, ReverbNation, PureVolume, millions of blogs, etc, etc, etc, and it makes it easier for a band to market themselves, there’s just way too much market saturation. The cream doesn’t rise, because the masses wouldn’t recognize it unless it made a sex tape. Plus, it doesn’t matter if you have thousands of Facebook fans, because none of them are industry decision makers, and very few of them spend money. Amanda Palmer took in $500K, but broken down as per capita spending amongst all her online followers, they’re spending <50 cents each. Not great. So far, no one's really cracked the code of how to really convert online following into music sales.
So, the new business model is the same as the old one–try as hard as you can to get good management, a good booking agent, and then a label deal. Because you need that marketing and decision-making muscle to push your band past all the clutter. Nowhere was this more evident than SXSW this year. There were just too many fucking bands! How are truly independent artists supposed to compete for attention with Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Fiona Apple, etc PLUS the 6000 other artists? The true music "revolution," if you can even call it that, has been in licensing your music for TV/film/commercials. If you really want to make some money with your music, sell your song to Cadillac for millions, like "indie" band Phoenix did. That wasn't available to musicians even 10 years ago, and it's my band's main goal. Why spend money touring the country trying to get people in tiny clubs to notice when you can get one placement and fund your entire year's activities?
With regards to Manson, personally I'm as shocked as Randy Blythe at such a low sales figure. I'm Manson's web/graphic designer, so I've seen firsthand how rabid his fan base is. I know fans who bought 10+ copies of his new album (seriously). I also know that his new label spent a tidy sum on marketing for this release, and that the reaction to the new album from both hardcore fans and from the media at large (including Antiquiet) has been largely favorable. In my opinion, 3 things hurt the sales. 1 – as many have stated, including MM himself, the last 2 records weren't great compared to his earlier output. That's caused many an artist to fall off the map somewhat. 2 – on a related note, his live show hasn't been that good the last 2 tours, especially in 2009. 3 – even though in 1998-99 MM was a hugely successful mainstream artist, that's not going to last forever when you make the type of music he does. He will mostly live on the fringes, catering to a very loyal, but relatively small, fan base. As to why less than 1 percent of his fan base actually bought the record they've been clamoring for since 2009, I can only guess. Maybe it was my album artwork.
The hardest thing in the world, as far as I'm concerned, is to get people to care about your art. And nowadays, when anyone with a laptop is an artist (and a journalist), for that matter, Randy Blythe is right–good luck. Because luck is paradoxically, frustratingly, the only thing you can rely on.
Your artwork is fine (no booklet through, big mistake, probably not your decision), the cover not so much, but that’s because of the picture chosen for it, where he looks like Rihanna more than like Manson himself.
I think BV and THEOL are good albums musically, but some of Manson’s lyrics could be better, and people just hated the way he was constantly bitching about his ex-girlfriends/wife.
His live shows didn’t help either. You can’t perform high or being drunk and expect to be taken seriously.
His own look is not what it used to be, we can pretend not to live in a shallow world, but overweight is not good for live shows an makes him look “less cool”. If he was in a good physical shape again, that would be really good for his career and for his live shows.
His current haircut and wardrobre don’t help much either. Shallow shit, yeah, but that was really important back in his glory days, denying it doesn’t help at all. Sadly, for certain artista, looking cool is important from a marketing POV, and Manson only looks good in certain highly photoshopped pics, but he used to look always good, including live shows. Nowadays he looks plain bad most of the time, and that’s not good for an artist like him, he is not Thom Yorke or Black Francis, musicians nobody cares about the way they look. He used to know this.
He needs to improve his look and his live shows, then release a mindblowing album like ACSS or Mechanical Animals, but not repeating himself so much with hell, god or biblical references all the fucking time, because it can become tiresome, he has been doing the same kind of stuff for too long, something really different could be helpfull. Look at Bowie or even how Reznor has changed, he is not the same skinny alternative goth wearing Alice Cooper’s/Skinny Puppy’s make up that he was during the Selfdestruct Tour (and I’m not saying Manson should look like current Reznor, I just mean he doesn’t pretend to be the same guy he was 20 years ago).
I know many of MM’s fans love all that stuff and changing could be seen as an unnecesary risk, but people see it like if he hasn’t new tricks under his sleeve.
But even doing the same stuff over and over again, if he was really good at it again, he would receive a better response, but he needs to perform a real “come back”, just because he chages a bit his lyrics and says he is “coming back”, people is not going to believe it if everything else looks exactly the same and it’s soooo far from MM’s standards back in his good old days.
Just my 2 cents.
he has a point i guess, though MM’s fan base probably decreased seriously after the last few poor records he made. But nonetheless, it’s all about marketing these days which is why so much shitty music gets released. So until people care for real music that speaks for itself (and that doesn’t include MM) then we’ll be stuck in this mess.
Ugh. What a crock of shit. Dude completely ignored the fact that Marilyn Manson has become complete shit and that his/their last two album destroyed his fanbase. Apparently Randy Blythe was either begged to do this by MM or is just a huge butthurt fanboy with a loud-ass microphone. Manson’s record sales are in the shitter because Manson himself is in the shitter trying to climb out. Saying that Marilyn Manson releasing a record independently and having it sell horribly is an example that the record industry is collapsing is idiotic and narrow-minded. Look at Radiohead. Look at Nine Inch Nails. Fuck, look at Amanda Palmer like Jsun said. Blame the artist for putting out garbage, not the “industry” for not buying into Manson’s awful music.
I’m sick of people saying “look at NIN, look at Radiohead.” Those artists became superstars thanks to the major label machine, and it was only once they reached those heights that they could branch out on their own and have huge independent sales figures. They didn’t come out of nowhere. And I think that’s Randy Blythe’s bigger point, that if a pretty famous and still relevant to many artist like Manson can’t sell a ton of records, what hope can new artists have?
Granted, the last 2 Manson records definitely hurt the sales of this one, but Born Villain is pretty good and it’s understandable that Blythe would wonder why it isn’t selling more.
Well then, let’s compare NIN’s record sales to Manson’s back in the good ole’ days when people bought music…the 90′s.
NIN:
Pretty Hate Machine (1989) (independent label) – 3 million US
downward spiral (1994) – 5 million worldwide
The Fragile (1998) – 2 million US
Manson:
Smells Like Children (1995) – 1.3 million US
antichrist superstar (1996) – 7 million worldwide
mechanical animals (1998) – 8 million worldwide
Looks to me like Manson out-sold the shit out of NIN back when they were on major labels and pirating was not really yet a factor. I think it’s safe to say that Manson was a much bigger superstar with a much bigger following. I bet he out-sold Radiohead back then as well (at least until Kid A), but I couldn’t find the figures quickly and don’t feel like looking for them.
Now, look at modern day stats. NIN released The Slip in 2008 as a free download, and the physical version STILL sold over 98,000 copies. Ghost I-IV even reportedly had over 750,000 puchase and download transactions. This begs the question – why couldn’t MM have huge independent sales figures? The reason is the one that most people have been saying on here; his music is to blame. Even if you’re tremendously popular at one point in your career, you have to keep delivering quality material or you will not continue to sell records. Plain and simple. Also, I think that the novelty of MM wore off at some point, too.
I agree with you that the quality of the last two MM records, which most people found lackluster, is the single biggest contributing factor. As for the sales figures, Interscope put insane amounts of marketing into Mechanical Animals. There was a 50 foot billboard of MM in the “boobs” costume overlooking Times Square. So it was kind of a perfect storm–the record industry was doing really well, you had a unique artist doing things people hadn’t really seen before, Mechanical Animals and Antichrist Superstar are actually good albums, etc. Plus, this was the height of the novelty/curiosity for MM, which definitely wore off. Columbine also really torpedoed his career–he had to cancel an entire stadium tour almost solely because he was unjustly blamed for Columbine. So there are a number of reasons, not the least of which was, of course, the music. Not trying to be an MM apologist, though I’m sure I’m a little biased.
Interesting to know that Downward Spiral and The Fragile sold so few copies (as if 2 million can be considered “few”). I would have thought NIN was a much bigger mainstream success.
I’m wasn’t comparing the fan bases/sales of MM, NIN, Radiohead or anyone else. I’m just saying when people tell *new* artists who are exasperated at how difficult it is to sell records yourself (or even to get people to care), “oh, just look at Radiohead and NIN, they’re doing it,” it drives me crazy. Those bands aren’t “indie.”
Of course, given MM’s previous major label success, and the huge internet platform he has to market to (almost 3M Facebook fans alone), it’s not unreasonable to wonder why his new album, which is pretty good, isn’t selling more. Which is what Randy Blythe is asking. However, he is ignoring all the reasons for poor sales which everyone here has mentioned.
Are you Manson’s Steve Coy?:
https://www.facebook.com/thestevecoy
Nevermind, I saw above tha you are MM’s SC.
What happened to MM’s official forum? NK?
Your sales figures for MM’s albums in the 90s are partially wrong.
PHM was 3 x platinum
Broken was 1 x platinum
TDS was 4 x platinum
TF was 2 x platinum (double album)
POAAF was 1 x platinum
ACSS was 1 x platinum
MA was 1 x platinum
HW was just gold
NIN outsaled MM in the US back in the 90s (and in the 00s).
ACSS sold better than MA and HW, hece why I know your world sales for MA are wrong. And you can’t compare US sales vs worldwide sales, that’s just ridiculous.
I know your argument was favorable for NIN, but Manson never “outsold the shit out of NIN back in the 90s”, NIN has always had better sales in the US, and if we had to compare worldwide sales we should have NIN’s and MM’s worldwide sales figures in the 90s, not US vs worldwide.
MM’s figure sales in wikipedia are wrong btw, his fans write there saying Manson has sold 50 million albums and how albums like EMDM have sold millions, which are blatant lies.
I’ve written “outsaled” when I meant “outsold”, english is not my language, sorry. X-D
Yes, NIN and RH became famous with big record labels helping them, but so did Manson, thus he should have a similar result on his current sales, specially since Reznor, for instance, has released his last albums independently without a label supporting him, while Manson has Cooking Vinyl’s support, the label that made The Prodigy sell more than a million copies of his last album.
Why Manson’s new album is not having the same commercial success of “Invadres Must Die”? Because The Prodigy still are a kick ass live band that looks great and release a great album with several hit singles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olHnyslc-OM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcosL-JohCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ec2csY2-_o
If Manson could do the same nowadays, he would sell many more albums.
manson’s new album is relevant/valuable to many people if not mr. nope here, but he hasn’t promoted it very well at all. only the hardcore fans know it’s even out.
As has already been said, I have to think Manson’s music is to blame for this. I know members of the AQ family have enjoyed his latest record but I know many who have grown sick of buying the same craptastic record from Manson over and over again.
I must assume if it was Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead, sales would be much higher.
Also, NIN and Radiohead are palatable to a much larger segment of the population than Manson. Even when Mechanical Animals sold millions of copies, it still only sold 10% as many as Backstreet Boys.
While I wasn’t a huge fan of Manson’s last album, I’ve been a fan (admittedly not a rabid one) for many years now. I read Antiquiet’s favorable review of Born Villain, was interested in hearing it, and yet I still had no idea that the record was already released. Marketing that successfully finds it’s way through such ridiculous media over-saturation to fans is increasingly tough. It took a Twitter rant of someone from another band to bring this knowledge to light: marketing fail. Now that I know it’s out, time to give it a listen. Thanks Randy!
Manson lost so much of his audience with those last two lackluster albums. It’s only natural that people will be skeptical.
To sort of elaborate on other folks’ earlier NIN/Radiohead points, I think it’s safe to say that both of these bands have done a better job of fanbase maintenance than Manson. By and large, they’ve managed to keep their fans happy over the years by (musically speaking) maturing with them as they got out of teenhood and well into adult life.
About ten years back, Manson was still angling for that teen anger demographic, but most of the fans that had supported him in his heyday were well into their twenties, content to move on. By the time he adjusted his strategy, he was stuck between the adults that outgrew his music and the teens that had found another, hipper source for their shock factor. As a result, he fell victim to self-parody and alienated himself from almost everybody at the same time NIN and Radiohead were aging gracefully.
Randy does have a valid point about needing those evil labels as promotion engines, though; there are plenty of other examples of artists (who’ve had more pleasant artistic trajectories than Manson) going out on their own and struggling with it. Hell, Pearl Jam saw first week sales drop 33% between S/T and Backspacer, and they had Target to help promote it. And they have some of the most dedicated fans on the planet.
But the labels have been deemed irrelevant, for better or worse. And really, there’s no one to truly blame but themselves. But it’s still sad whenever you see the adverse effects it’s having on the artists.
Haha. Manson? An underground act? I stopped reading right there.
The thing that Blythe doesn’t see is the indie bands springing up are making a killing. Bon Iver, M83, Other Lives, Fleet Foxes and the list goes. These guys don’t have multi-billion dollar machines working for them. Modest record labels who sign worthy artists who place emphasis on art and not watered down shit that 15 year olds download now instead of begging Mom and Dad to take them to Walmart. I’m not a hipster but I see a fresh marketing model when I see one.
Another point to my previous one: Why do you think the biggest festivals in America like Coachella, Bonnarroo, Sasquatch, etc. aren’t booking bands like Manson, Lamb Of God? Think about it. Rock isn’t dead, it just evolved and it’s not with Manson or Lamb of God anymore.
Or rather, the target demographic of coachella, bonnarroo Sasquatch etc. was never about LoG in the first place…
Hence their presence on the bills of Mayhem & Download festivals instead.
I could have sworn I’ve seen NIN, Isis and Mastadon at one, if not all three of these festivals in the last 4 years. While I agree with you in part, demographic does play a huge role, I think quality of music also plays a big role as well.
I mean, Metallica covered Bonnarroo and you’re talking about demographics? Haha. Metallica is shit but people still love them. Lamb of God is shit and people don’t give a shit.
But since MM is independent, doesn’t he get a much larger cut of the sales than if he only got xxx% through the labels, meaning he could still make more money with lower sales? I don’t think it’s ALL about the sales
Is Randy serious? Manson himself is to blame. He did a piss poor job with the promotion.
End of story. Quit shitting on the little guy and supporting the bullshit machine if you can’t even grasp the simple idea that people need to know about your music in order to buy it.
Has anybody asked Marilyn Manson how many albums he was trying to sell? Manson might have a long tail marketing plan that includes months of appearances and touring to sell this record rather than gambling on an expensive marketing blitz. Metal bands without major labels have done it that way for decades, and Randy Blythe seems to have left that possibility out entirely.
Looks like Lamb of God dude and a lot of other people are leaving a significant detail out of the equation: Manson was DROPPED by his major label for NOT SELLING ENOUGH ALBUMS. He didn’t choose to branch out on his own by choice, he was kicked off. This whole rant would’ve only been relevant if Manson had left his label years ago when he still had a decent-sized following and STILL struck out, sales-wise. This isn’t the case at all. Here’s how L.O.G.’s rant SHOULD have gone: “Holy fuck, I can’t believe Marilyn Manson managed to sell almost 40,000 copies of his new album in 2012, without a label, and with a good 10 years of an ever-shrinking fanbase. He sold 25,000 more than most would’ve thought at this point in his career. I am inspired by Marilyn Manosn’s success here, all things considered.”
you have to read this… genius and insightful by david lowery.
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/