The Warner Hate; What's Your Excuse?

A7X and Disturbed are two bands who have the same sound for a large majority of the career (in Disturbed's case their whole career). Everything both bands have done break no ground musically. They make the same songs and the same albums every single time. And THEY MAKE MONEY. Soooo yeah

 

This. Everybody seems to forget how sucsessful Hybrid Theory was.

 

They're on RoadRunner, a WB affiliate, which they speak very negatively of because of not enough support. My point though was over whether or not labels actively interfered with their output.

So Mastodon aren't watered down because it'd be insane to think they'd make hits, but they're probably doing it anyway. What's the proof that getting more melodic has anything to do with label pressure as opposed to the band trying something different (Like Linkin Parks rational for ATS sounding the way it does).

System of a Down, a not-Warner band, drifted away from their more spastic songs and worked more and more mellow sounding songs with each subsequent release, aer we left to assume they too were pressured by a label to do that? What about Metallica? They released Death Magnetic under WB, and this being years since their last "back to safe ground" bomb St Anger there was no telling whether or not a second shot at it would work. Did Warner interfere with the making of that album too? I'm going to follow this up with...

Avenged Sevenfold aside, Disturbed's first album was much heavier than most of what they released afterwards, especially considering their second. Every subsequent followed the seconds album more "mellow hard rock" formula and the band has never done another pure hard rock album again, and has not sold as many copies of another album either. Why has Disturbed never gone back to what sold millions and millions of copies? Which I need to follow with...

Linkin Park have never had another hit anywhere near as big as Hybrid Theory. Hybrid Theory is ten years old. Why would WB, being the huge mega conglomerate, keep trying to make a band who had their biggest success a decade ago, try to make the same music again despite the change in musical trends as opposed to just looking for the next big thing?

Meteora, which sounded the most 'Hybrid Theory 2' of anything, sold a little over half of what half of Hybrid Theory did overall, Minutes to Midnight sold a little under half of Meteora. So "forcing" them to do another Hybrid Theory wasn't successful, and "forcing" them to do more mainstream rock was even less successful, so what would be incentive for forcing them to do anything as opposed to just letting them milk themselves dry and finding something else?

If the rest of Green Day is to be believed, Billy Joe Armstrongs shitty band leadership for years is why Nimrod and Warning were underwhelming and group therapy is why American Idiot was different and a massive success.

That band is 30 years old and is more than likely just bored, which is why By The Way and Stadium Arcadium sound the same and why John Frusciante left the band. That's not due to label melding.

I Brought You My Bullets sounds different from Three Cheers, which sounds different from Black Parade which sounds different from Danger Days, so what about MCR? If anything MCR is a case of a band doing the exact opposite of caving to label pressure by releasing an album that would possibly (and a lot of times did) alienate a good chunk of their fanbase every time and then did it anyway? If anythign MCR are doing exactly what Linkin Park tells everyone they want to do and don't have the balls to go through with.

That too can be answered by Fred Mascherino, who was with them on Louder Now, leaving in 2007 before their WB album came out. That'd have a lot to do with a shift in style I'd say.

Like before, when do we pinpoint when a band is pressured by a label to change in a way and when they want to go that way anyway?

We can talk about how popular Hybrid Theory was, it sold a fuckton a decade ago and nothing they ever did again was anywhere near as successful, and if we're to assume WB's at fault for every problem in a LP release, the label has forced them to do literally everything with no payoff, so at which point do consider maybe it's not that the label is forcing them to do something they don't want over and over again and that the band just isn't nearly as talented as we like to believe they are?

 

Has anyone said LP would put out better, more skilled material if they broke away from WB? I don't know if they would, I just want them to have that option.

 

I made it pretty clear that I was playing devil's advocate there, with regards to suggesting that they've watered down other bands on the label. My point was that

a) I can posit pretty much the same thing about things that go on behind the other scenes with plenty of other bands at the label, with about as much credence, and I can make the same sort of excuses about Linkin Park for the most part if I were to defend them.
and
b) basic logic dictates that they wouldn't necessarily treat more niche bands like Mastodon and Glassjaw the same as they treat their more popular bands, so bringing them up is kind of moot.

Edit: I originally had more to say but I'd rather not be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.

 

I think people just use WB as an excuse when the band doesn't do as well as they'd like. Second album sounds too similar? Label made em do it. Third album sounds too different? Label made em do that, too. Fourth album isn't nearly the masterpiece we hoped it be? Label must have tampered with it.

And given there's no real evidence that indicates the label has done really anything (besides not giving them as much money as they thought they deserved years ago) it seems like a childish way to compensate for the bands shortcomings.

 

Sometimes excuses are, well, good excuses. The case of Meteora especially can definitely be blamed by opposing forces to the band, at least to me.

 

Well, I'm not saying it's definitely how it happened but as far as Meteora is concerned I can see why people would come to that conclusion. There are the stories of Don Gilmore having them rewrite songs over and over and the way that a lot of the songs on the album ended up more formulaic than the demos that have been released (although you can probably say that about HT too to some degree) and pretty much like what people would call typical Linkin Park at that point. So it follows that people would suspect that something like that had happened. Then again, maybe they were just kind of lazy and uninspired with the final versions of some of those songs.

But yes, even if they have been pressured at some point to rehash stuff or whatever it's not like you can blame every single shortcoming they might have on the label and I agree there at least.

 

Out of all the records to be watered down, Road Runner is definitely not one of them a prime example are the podcasts they produce and the language and content featured each podcast.

I think I only hate Warner because I hear so much negativity about them and their reputation that I end up not hating them, not caring about it. Warner produced Linkin Park to be radio and chart worthy unlike many other bands they've signed up. I guess the band got caught in desperate mode to sign with a label and let Warner do all the laying the rules down. I mean I can understand why, a new band afraid to stand up to a major label like Warner.

 

I actually don't hold hate towards the label because we really don't know the truth and probably never will. It's easy to just blame the label because they're the business side of it all.

 

I recall when Linkin Park's performance from somewhere was supposed to be streamed, and at the last minute we heard Warner decided not to let it happen.

Also recall Linkin Park complaining that they weren't making enough money on their albums due to the label taking it.

Those are the only times that come to mind of Warner doing something negative, and we don't really have the whole story. It is Warner's job to take care of the financial side of things with the band, so even if they are trying to make Linkin Park more mainstream, I can't really hate them for it. It is the reason they exist.

 

^^^

But what about Disturbed. Sorry but i find all your posts really interesting.

 

I think if LP wanted off Warner, they would have done it already. LP is a pretty peaceful band, and I think if they felt something need to be resolved they would have done it already. Mike's said a few times on his blog not to let labels screw you over, so maybe during the HT and Meteora days they were put under a little pressure, but if A Thousand Suns means anything its that Warner is pretty chill with them doing what they want to.

I don't hate Warner, but hey no one particularly loves major labels.

 

Disturbed has never ever changed their sound or even their public image. So I'm pretty sure Warner's done some messing around with their contract.

 

I hate Warner for no reason

 

I forgot about that, but I agree now you've brought it up.