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Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
While it’s not uncommon for Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx to share his thoughts and opinions with his fans through social networking, his latest words encompass something that impacts the music industry as a whole – the growing trend of purchasing single songs in lieu of the full album through digital outlets.
As technology continues to advance, the process for purchasing single songs on iTunes and similar outlets has become increasingly easy and convenient for music fans resulting in the decision to buy a full album more and more uncommon.
Sixx is encouraging fans to take the time to experience a whole album and body of work, promising that the pay-off is a much deeper love and appreciation for the artist’s music. He’s definitely got a valid point! Read his words below:
When I was scrounging through record shops as a kid you usually (unless you just shopped for single’s) bought the whole album. I always fell deeper in love with the band because “ALL” their songs spoke to me. Of course some jumped out at you right away while others grew on you but you didn’t skip any songs, you would listen from top to bottom over and over again.
When I started making albums I always believed the WHOLE album was the adventure. Of course there is the lead single for radio but when did THAT become the whole experience?
I talk to more and more people every day who tell me they only buy singles now. iTunes hasn’t helped for that of course. We have asked them many times to bundle our album as one download so fans wouldn’t cherry pick the hits and miss the hidden gems but it’s not part of their business model. I love iTunes and buy music almost daily from it but it still frustrates me. I just wish more people clicked “BUY ALBUM”. Maybe I am old fashioned in how I believe music should be listened to but I refuse to ever buy just a band’s single. I always buy the WHOLE album. I encourage you to do the same. Technology may have changed but the fact that a band makes a WHOLE album for you hasn’t. Dig deep and I promise you, you will fall deeper in love with the artist than you ever could only listening to one song.
Thoughts?
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I have to agree with Nikki here, there's something about listening to a full album.
More and more, I find people telling me they're big fans of an artist, but who can only name a couple of their songs. If I'm a fan of an artist, I have their entire catalog and I love everything they do. If I only like a few so songs, I wouldn't call myself a fan.
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I've always been a full album guy, so agree wholeheartedly.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
Completely agree even though I'm no angel to certain compilations and eventually come around to getting the full album. I'm getting better. Bands work a ton to make sure they don't have that one good song; but a whole album that could be hits. Def Leppard did that with Hysteria making sure that most of their songs on it weren't afterthoughts or filler; so the listener could enjoy everything. Which bands still do to this day.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I have to agree with Nikki here, there's something about listening to a full album.
More and more, I find people telling me they're big fans of an artist, but who can only name a couple of their songs. If I'm a fan of an artist, I have their entire catalog and I love everything they do. If I only like a few so songs, I wouldn't call myself a fan.
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I personally think it runs deeper than Nikki's logic. I think we are so over-indoctrinated in consume, consume, consume, produce, produce, work, work in our society, that we just find it far quicker to download 2-3 singles of one artist, and move on to the next. Suddenly you have an iPod or Droid full of crazy ass mixes from GaGa, to Queen, to NWA to The Cult to GN'R to Metallica to Elvis to Daft Punk to Michael Jackson, etc. 'cause you're trying to have it all.
You're phone can only hold so much room (unless you Cloud stream), and so you just do singles. Plus music lovers buying singles was WAY more common 40-50 years ago. If anything we've gone back to the "olden days".
I still think it comes down to the artist. I will ONLY purchase an album, then and now, if I like the singles. If I hear a rocker I kinda think is okay, and a ballad I love... that's not an album buy. Period. It comes down to money.
For example, I LOVE The White Buffalo. But honestly? His more up-tempo songs don't do much for me. I've bought his EP's (because they are tight), and a handful of singles or album cuts, but not a full album. Why? Because I don't find his albums to be as well-rounded of an experience. Half of them I love, half of them i'm bored. His ballads own, but his rockers (if we can call them that), are a bit more phoned-in folk.
Even with GN'R. When I first owned the albums, I listened to the singles the most. Then I dug into the rest. I didn't like it all, but I grew to love it. There was so much richness there. Not every artist is like that.
So I can understand why people skip the albums, but normally when I DO BUY music, I usually buy full albums.
- Bloodflower
- Rep: 8
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I believe it comes down to this. Most people are not true music fans. They like music, they'll listen to what's fed to them but they are not true music fans in the sense that they crave music and want to hear all that is possible. They are not willing to seek out quality music. If you hear a song that you like or even love by an artist yet you are not inclined to go out and dig deeper into that artist's catalogue you are not a true fan of music. It's not a good or bad thing it's just how I view it personally. Myself I am a true fan of music so if an artist catches my ear I will dig deeper and I will buy full albums. I always do with the artists I like and in fact when I purchase a new album I often skip the singles on first listen because I've already heard them and I want to see what more the artist has to offer me.
The problem now is true music fans are becoming less and less and it has a lot to do with what Axlin just talked about. Consume, consume, consume, produce, produce, produce, work, work, work and on to the next thing. Sadly now more than ever people are fake and strive so hard to be what other's want them to be. I honestly believe a lot of people load their ipods with music they don't really enjoy but they have it because they think others enjoy it and that's "what matters" these days. Thus creating an entire generation of single consumers who are for the most part not really fans of music but simply fans of collections of songs that they may or may not like but that they think others will. It's shocking how many people get into my car and love the music I play yet they've never heard any of it. Remarks such as "This is way better than what I have on my ipod" or "Why isn't this stuff on the radio?" are common yet these same people aren't willing to do anything about it by supporting the artists I have in my car or by searching out music they'd actually enjoy without being told to enjoy it. They are content to listen to what's fed to them and be manipulated into thinking they really enjoy it. That's fine, that's their choice but I think it's a problem and does have an impact on the amount of quality music being released.
And then there's the big problem of artists knowing that this is the case and not taking the art of making full albums with 12 or so great songs on it seriously. They know as well as we do people consume singles and if they can focus on making one great single than the rest is just filler.
Some may think I'm way off in my opinion but I believe there's a lot of merit to what I'm saying.
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I think you're completely spot on to what you're saying. I remember people I grew up with who had a "favorite song", and they were like "that's my favorite song EVER!"
I bring it up 10-12 years later, and they don't even know what i'm talking about.
Look at Creed. Perfect example. People shit on them constantly--NOW, when I was shitting on them in the late 90's. Yet everyone say they suck, then how the fuck did they sell like 100 million fucking records? Somebody bought those albums. Somebody liked it, or they had a damn smart label. Nickelback is shit on now, yet they were huge. Ja Rule was massive when I was in high school, now? A punchline.
Alot of these people owned Creed's entire catalog at the time, including bootlegs, now? They can't even remember their singles, let alone their "not so" deep cuts.
I completely agree with your assessment. A few years ago when Michael Jackson died, I met this girl who had a MJ memorial shirt on who was talking about how much she loved him. I told her my favorite MJ song ("Stranger In Moscow"), and ask her what her favorite album of his was... she answered "Number Ones". Which had JUST been released.
I've met other people who wear Beatles shirts and then say their favorite albums are hits collections. Other than The Eagles Greatest Hits or CCR Chronicle, I don't think Greatest Hits sets should ever count.
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I believe it comes down to this. Most people are not true music fans. They like music, they'll listen to what's fed to them but they are not true music fans in the sense that they crave music and want to hear all that is possible. They are not willing to seek out quality music. If you hear a song that you like or even love by an artist yet you are not inclined to go out and dig deeper into that artist's catalogue you are not a true fan of music. It's not a good or bad thing it's just how I view it personally. Myself I am a true fan of music so if an artist catches my ear I will dig deeper and I will buy full albums. I always do with the artists I like and in fact when I purchase a new album I often skip the singles on first listen because I've already heard them and I want to see what more the artist has to offer me.
The problem now is true music fans are becoming less and less and it has a lot to do with what Axlin just talked about. Consume, consume, consume, produce, produce, produce, work, work, work and on to the next thing. Sadly now more than ever people are fake and strive so hard to be what other's want them to be. I honestly believe a lot of people load their ipods with music they don't really enjoy but they have it because they think others enjoy it and that's "what matters" these days. Thus creating an entire generation of single consumers who are for the most part not really fans of music but simply fans of collections of songs that they may or may not like but that they think others will. It's shocking how many people get into my car and love the music I play yet they've never heard any of it. Remarks such as "This is way better than what I have on my ipod" or "Why isn't this stuff on the radio?" are common yet these same people aren't willing to do anything about it by supporting the artists I have in my car or by searching out music they'd actually enjoy without being told to enjoy it. They are content to listen to what's fed to them and be manipulated into thinking they really enjoy it. That's fine, that's their choice but I think it's a problem and does have an impact on the amount of quality music being released.
And then there's the big problem of artists knowing that this is the case and not taking the art of making full albums with 12 or so great songs on it seriously. They know as well as we do people consume singles and if they can focus on making one great single than the rest is just filler.
Some may think I'm way off in my opinion but I believe there's a lot of merit to what I'm saying.
I think you're being a little over judgemental of the casual music fan. The casual music fan listens to what they listen to because it's the soundtrack to their lives. It's what's on the radio, playing at the parties they go to, their summer anthems. There's nothing wrong with that IMO.
Now stuff that's on the radio today being crap is a different story. It's crap because media today panders to the least common denominator, so that's all we get. For the casual listener, it doesn't matter that its crap, it still does its job. It still takes them back to that time and place where they enjoyed it. And it doesn't really matter to us passionate fans either, because we're wiling to seek out the good stuff. There's still a lot of it out there.
What sucks for us is, if we can't appreciate the crap, and just enjoy it for what it is, a soundtrack to our lives, than we lose a little bit of the experience.
- Bloodflower
- Rep: 8
Re: Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx Encourages Fans to ‘Dig Deep’ and Purchase Fu
I don't think so. I think we're almost saying the same thing but worded differently. I said it's not a bad thing or a good thing. That's what they choose to listen to BUT it does have an impact when they are not willing to seek out anything more than what they hear on radio. In my opinion people who listen to what they are fed and nothing more are not true fans of music. They are fans of songs, often times because it's what other's like and that's it. You'll be able to see the evidence of this 20 years from now when NOTHING that's being released now is being listened to then. Not even the so called soundtracks to their lives will be listened to because it's crap. Nobody is driving around listening to Fall out Boy or My Chemical Romance o Limp Bizkit anymore and those were soundtracks to people's lives. Nobody is gonna be pumping Lil'Wayne 15 years from now. Nobody pumps 50 Cent now! That's the difference. When the general public accepts crap and only crap(which is the case for the most part in 2013 and has been for a while) as a soundtrack to their lives then when they are 15 years older that soundtrack is going to sound terrible and nobody will be listening to it.
