"The underground..."

[kontinual]

...has been reduced to a marketing term as has been pointed out on this site for some time now.  Here is but another highly visible (and amusing) example:

from Relapse news:

"BEST BUY SUPPORTING THE UNDERGROUND

For a limited time, choose 2 CDs from a select bunch of furious mosh-pit makers — including Dillinger Escape Plan, High on Fire, Nile, Mastodon, Nasum, Throwdown and Zao — 2 cd's for $16.66."

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=category&id=pcmcat81100050009

ROCK ON

[Iconoclast]

16.66?

For TWO CD's?

Wow!

That's a bargain!  

[FIAT]

LOL METALCORE LOL

[Wolfbane]

DUDE U GUYS R LOSERS MAN!1 mETALCORE IS EXTREME AND BRUTAL!!!1! cHRISTIAN TOO MAN!!111 U FAGGOTS NEED TO GO GET A LIFE AND GET SOME NORMA JEAN MAN!!11

Metalcore in my opinion is worse than rap-metal. I can't stand these fags. To the camps with them.

[Kaliphobic Psychoblack]

DUDE U GUYS R LOSERS MAN!1 mETALCORE IS EXTREME AND BRUTAL!!!1! cHRISTIAN TOO MAN!!111 U FAGGOTS NEED TO GO GET A LIFE AND GET SOME NORMA JEAN MAN!!11

Metalcore in my opinion is worse than rap-metal. I can't stand these fags. To the camps with them.

Metalcore is just fucking metal without the attitude, spirit, or intent of metal. Which is why they just rip off Slaughter of the Soul I guess.

Man, that was a waste of a great name for an album.

[Darkened Ascent]

no wonder those metalcore bands suck than.

[in abyssia]

Well, what's worse, childish bickering or whoring yourself to the market?

Uhhh.....

[death metal black metal]

Metalcore is emo, death metal, nu-metal and AOR in a blender. That is to say: it's a compromise genre.

kontinual, great point: the underground is obsolete. This has been addressed in the latest article on metal, to be found in the "metal opinions" section.

[Iconoclast]

no wonder those metalcore bands suck than.

yeah, man, but the cd is, like, cheap!!!

[Grizzlyclambert]

Man, even the local bands are trying to imitate the market instead of developing their own sound. We have one black metal band in Jackson that sounds like nothing more than Immortal, Darkthrone, and Bathory thrown into a blender.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the sound and appreciate the time the guys in the band put in, but it'd be great if they managed to come up with a form of black metal that reabsorbed some of metal's original blues roots and made something NEW and TOTALLY UNSELLABLE.

[kontinual]

reabsorbed some of metal's original blues roots and made something NEW and TOTALLY UNSELLABLE.

Even if your assertion about metal's roots was true, how does the last statement ever follow from it?

Quality is the goal, not inaccessibility; there are infinite examples of the latter at this point in time.  The notion of quality through inaccessibility is the kind of marketing idea which produces absurd situations such as the one quoted at the start of the thread (huge corporate chain "supports underground music" without contradiction) or, on a smaller scale, keeps teenagers busy writing black metal alone in their bedrooms.

[Grizzlyclambert]

Perhaps I should revise that statement. By unsellable, I mean unmarketable in the traditional sense.  A band that refuses to sign with a label but still distributes their music through other channels might fall under this definition.

I'm not quite sure that "the underground" is obsolete though. The internet still presents options for those bands that wish to assidously avoid record labels. A band could, if so inclined, purchase recording equipment and run the recorded sound through a home computer to finish the recording and then release the music as an MP3 album online.  However, such an effort would be consume much time and money, and that may be why most bands don't attempt it.

[Krutiis]

Like everyone here, I hate the metalcore scene, the utter sameness of them all, the unoriginality.  That said, I don't mind bands like Mastodon, Nile and Dillinger Escape Plan.  None of which are metalcore, by the way.  Although DEP are to blame for some of the metalcore bands out there right now.  Three of the only Relapse bands I like to any extent.  

[death metal black metal]

DEP is metalcore by my definition.

The underground no longer exists because it is obsolete. That's the point the original poster made.

[Krutiis]

The underground is little more than a fashion commodity these days, a term thrown around with alarming regularity, but I fail to see how it is non-existant.  Maybe I just don't understand the full meaning of the term, but there still seems to be a real underground out there.  Bands that have no exposure, want none and could never get any even if the wanted.  Isn't that the real underground?