Gobby Blog #1

Hi! 

My name is Harry. I am the vocalist for UK Metal band Collapse.

There we are, looking all sweaty and shit!

Collapse have an album due out in the next month (30th November - http://tinyurl.com/ozcr7o9) and it got me thinking about album releases and the industry in general. How strong is the UK metal scene? Where have our venues gone? How does a new band succeed in todays market? I wanted to hear what other people thought and share my own experiences and hopefully learn a thing or two so I made like a hipster and started a blog.

Releasing 30th November

Album Release - Nerves - Critics

An album is many things to many people. It can be a chapter in your life, an event that shaped you, a destination to escape to, a force that motivates you to greater things, a scything assault, a desperate plea or a proud, defiant statement. It can be a cautionary tale, a warning to the future, a summary of the present and a reminder of the past.

It is also a product, an item to be sold and marketed, an investment, an artistic expression and an intensely personal creation. 

It is with some trepidation that I face the release of my debut album with Collapse. What will our album be? Will it mean anything to someone? There is so much content available now that most albums have a tragically short spin life. Your album will be grabbed, chewed up and spat out again like a toddlers toy in a very short space of time and unless there is something special there that transcends the generic and the predictable it will fade into the obscurity from whence it came. 

Making an album is a long process, and it can be very different from band to band. I look at the big boys and the bands that influenced me to become a musician and wonder how much of the music they are releasing is genuine expression and how much is based on sales figures, demographics, current trends and whats selling well. I have nothing but respect for those musicians who brave the turbulent world of the music industry and make it their sole career and income, especially in the metal genre where money is as rare as people attending your shows.

Safe to say, I am exceedingly nervous. I have faith in the thing we have created. I can hear the passion in it, I was there for the discussions and the debates. The agonizing over this riff or that fill, this lyric or that palm mute, and being there means that each song has its own special identity to me. I wonder whether critics understand this? I wonder whether, when sitting down with an album, they take into account where the band has come from, how the album was made, the time taken and the effort extolled. I wonder if they should? Should those things matter or should the album be judged purely on its stand alone merits?

Critics play an important role in music, I am looking forward to feedback and constructive criticism, I want to get better at what I do and one of the best ways of doing that is to take heed of the opinions given by those that have given their time to listen and review what you have created. There will be some who dismiss it out of hand, there will be some to whom it is just an annoyance, but I hope there are some out there who will listen to what we have made and hear the effort and honesty that was put into it and out of respect, offer us their honest critical opinion.

Regardless of how our album performs, writing, recording, organizing and preparing it has been an epic experience. Sometimes hard, often times stressful, ultimately satisfying, it is something I recommend anyone with a musical bone has a go at doing.