The quality of music can be independently assessed. Either it's good or it isn't. It is wholly unnecessary to factor fame or wealth into this analysis. Discussions about "selling out" have never made any sense to me.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]Discussions about "selling out" have never made any sense to me.[/quote] Well, it started to make sense to me actually . . .

[quote="a fish"]The band is reveling in their newfound success, their sales are through the roof and have been since Wake up x3. And now that there's a gigantic following, the music revolves around what those fans want.[/quote] In the very past Sawao just went his own way, but now it seems he compromised with popular vote.

Songs like Ice Pick don't sell as well as ones like Ladybird Girl, even if the former type is more palatable to the discerning listener. Sawao has forsaken this type of fan in order to court a wider, less-discerning audience and, therefore, rake in more of the almighty yen. Of course this is merely speculation which anyone is free to dismiss, but it does make sense.

Think of your taste in hamburgers. Maybe there's a hamburger restaurant that serves finely-crafted burgers that take a while to prepare, and they have high-quality service, but you have to sit down, order, and wait. Well, one day the owner decides he's not getting enough business ($$$) because his burgers appeal only to a small eatership (yeah, I get to make up words) of highly-selective burger enthusiasts. Thus, he goes the route of McDonalds and makes "okay" burgers inexpensively and serves them quickly in a drive-thru.

If you loved the old burgers, you'd rightly feel that the restaurant owner has "sold out," compromising the quality of the burgers in order to get more business from customers who can't tell the difference or even prefer the blander taste.

It's a good thing IM is critically reflecting the state of the pillows.
Haha, and that just after we settled things with "the current state of IM"

...oh oh, Jomei took out his hamburgers. . .
and Sheer is looking hungry . . .

[quote="Ashinow"]It's a good thing IM is critically reflecting the state of the pillows.
Haha, and that just after we settled things with "the current state of IM"

...oh oh, Jomei took out his hamburgers. . .
and Sheer is looking hungry . . .[/quote]

They're OOPARTS burgers, though.

Hamburgers would be a perfect example. The quality of a hamburger can be independently assessed. It's either good or bad; it doesn't matter why. To further assess the reasons behind a hamburger's quality (or lack thereof) is not only unnecessary, but such an assessment is founded exclusively upon circumstantial evidence.

People are foolishly gullible. I don't know how many times I've heard quality explained as the artist somehow infusing their own honest emotion or passion or heart into a work (or hamburger). You couldn't possibly know that. Similarly, no one can know if a band "sold out" or why or what that even means.

Needless to say, it is sufficient to say "this is good" or "this is bad." Doesn't matter why. It's a valid discussion, I guess - it's just ultimately pointless.

So you're simply saying, for some people some burgers are just too raw for their taste, while others are overcooked?
If people are easy they will eat it anyway, but if they pay close attention to the taste they may reject to eat it.
It's not how the chef prepares them, but how the customer eat them and judge them.
Sounds, kinda simplistic to me. . .
Off course, you also may choose to become a vegetarian.

I would respond, but I'm not quite sure I understand your post.

A McDonald's hamburger wouldn't appeal as much to a person with discerning hamburger taste, but McDonald's is immensely popular. I don't think it's a stretch of imagination to see that McDonald's intentionally makes their burgers to appeal to a wide demographic rather than to people who have a sophisticated palate. This isn't the burger McDonald's wants to make. It's the burger they think they can sell to the most people.

Of course there's only circumstantial evidence on the subject, but I don't think it's meaningless to ask: is Sawao Yamanaka making the music [i]he[/i] wants to make, or is he changing his art to appeal to more people? Most of us agree that the music quality has gone down, but it's undeniably clear that sales are up.

So, then, just why is a man capable of Strange Chameleon putting out songs like Your Order?

[quote="Ashinow"]So you're simply saying, for some people some burgers are just too raw for their taste, while others are overcooked?
If people are easy they will eat it anyway, but if they pay close attention to the taste they may reject to eat it.
It's not how the chef prepares them, but how the customer eat them and judge them.
Sounds, kinda simplistic to me. . .
Off course, you also may choose to become a vegetarian.[/quote]
[quote="sheerheartattack"]I would respond, but I'm not quite sure I understand your post.[/quote]
Okay, let's say the way the hamburgers are baked stands for how the music of the pillows is crafted.
Raw burgers stands for the raw sound of the pillows, when it wasn't fully developed, when they were under a minor label.
Overcooked stands for the latest music of the pillows, it has the same structure of their older tracks but it is used so many times already before, it also stands for the way their new music is produced under a major record label. (overdone, like general pop music)

You can still find it tasteful, both raw sound as polished sound. (you may learn to listen to it, and forgive the little downfalls, or just gradually came to like the taste) But it would be best if the chef (Sawao) just makes burgers that are fine, not too raw and not overcooked. Most of us agree that was the time of The Golden Years.

You may also choose to just don't eat the burgers/listen to this genre of music, because you don't like their general sound/taste or refuse to for other reasons.(vegetarians)

edit: hmmm, this doesn't make much sense. So just forget what I wrote

OK, getting away from this whole hamburger thing (making me hungry), I agree to an extent with what Jomei is trying to say. But I don't think it has anything to do with Sawao being greedy and wanting more money. I truly think what Sawao wants is to be a popular musician. After My Foot's release appears to be when the pillows really hit the mainstream in Japan. What about the 16 years before that? Moderate success obviously, but from my memory they never topped the Oricon charts as they do now. Do you think they were making that much money then? Sawao could've called it quits, just write for big pop stars like Puffy if it was all about the money. I feel he keeps going and so prolific because he loves making music and giving that music to as many people as he can.

And now, it seems like people are finally catching on to it after all these years, with some help from Avex's marketing. Now the pillows have charted in the top 10 numerous times over the past 5 years when a new single or album comes out. Sawao's going to keep writing whatever makes him most popular. That's not to say he doesn't have any musical integrity. He obviously does. But this is the reason why we get more Doggie Howls as opposed to more The Third Eyes. Like he said in that video interview posted on the first page, they've always wanted to be this kind of band, and after so long they finally got there. And people are lapping it up. What reason does Sawao have to stop? This is what he wanted for the band all along. I can't blame him at all, no matter how much I wish it was different.

[quote="Jomei"]A McDonald's hamburger wouldn't appeal as much to a person with discerning hamburger taste, but McDonald's is immensely popular. I don't think it's a stretch of imagination to see that McDonald's intentionally makes their burgers to appeal to a wide demographic rather than to people who have a sophisticated palate. This isn't the burger McDonald's wants to make. It's the burger they think they can sell to the most people.[/quote]

Well, that's it - how do you know that isn't the burger McDonald's wants to make? How do you know they don't want to make the burger they think they can sell to the most people at the highest profit margin. To say, "Well, they [i]really[/i] want to make a better hamburger, but they are compromising that desire in order to make more money," well - that takes the discussion to a whole new level of circumstantial presumption that doesn't satisfy the basic standards of reasonable discussion, in my opinion.

But either way - it may make for a discussion, but it's still irrelevant. All I care is if McDonald's makes hamburgers that I like. And that's all I care about. It doesn't matter why.

[quote="Jomei"]Of course there's only circumstantial evidence on the subject, but I don't think it's meaningless to ask: is Sawao Yamanaka making the music [i]he[/i] wants to make, or is he changing his art to appeal to more people? Most of us agree that the music quality has gone down, but it's undeniably clear that sales are up.

So, then, just why is a man capable of Strange Chameleon putting out songs like Your Order?[/quote]

It isn't meaningless to ask or to wonder or to explore...but any attempts at answering this question [i]are[/i] ultimately meaningless. Maybe he's doing exactly what he wants to do. Maybe he sees the sales as vindication as to the quality of his work. Maybe he's just plain compromising his artistic integrity in order to make some more money.

However, all that's important to me is that the current output of music isn't consistent with my tastes. I would like the pillows' music to be consistent with my tastes. I don't care [i]why[/i] such an inconsistency has arisen, I only care that it has.

[b]Furthermore, if they could reach a result more consistent with my tastes [i]by[/i] selling out, I would prefer that to Sawao adhering to an artistic integrity that puts out shitty music. [i]That's[/i] why it's irrelevant.[/b] The fact that they've sold out to produce music I like doesn't count against them in the slightest. I think that's the best way I could explain my point.

Whether Sawao has sold out or not is irrelevant. All that is relevant is the quality of his music. If selling out were relevant, it would count against them regardless whether it led to better music or worse.

As for Ashinow...I think you're just taking my analogy in the wrong direction entirely...I hope this post clears up my point.

@Sheer from earlier: Just because his songs HAD a blend of those styles before doesn't mean he set out with that as his GOAL. You see? That wasn't too hard.

Re: "Selling out"/doing it for the yen - I find this a little silly and hard to accept; if you read interviews with Sawao and see the way he talks about music, you'll see that he's very smart, but that the style shift appears to be more towards him trying to get the pillows' music to more people because he would like to share his music with them in hopes of making them fans ("I'd rather make one person have the pillows be their very favorite band than have a ton of people like the pillows as their 15th favorite band."). Clearly the pillows believe they're making good music still, and a majority of the fanbase (and I'm not just talking new fans) enjoys the new work well enough to still buy and listen to the CDs (though the recent albums being not as great as the older ones is a pretty widely-held opinion; interesting side-fact - the Japanese fans rip on the albums much less and much less harshly, and there generally seems to be a more positive response from long-time fans there with the new albums than around this board). If it were a DRAMATIC shift in style (rather than a slight stylistic change over time that really seems to be simply a progression of the direction they have been taking for a while combined with a large change in production), it'd be an acceptable hypothesis, but at the end of the day not only does it not matter because of the two points I listed in the previous sentence, but it's also just difficult to believe from reading interviews, going to shows, etc etc.

Edit: and yeah, tl;dr at the thread, I'll read and catch up on it later, lol, hope I'm not re-iterating anything.

[quote="sheerheartattack"]I am not sure I agree with the initial premise of "maturity" in the first place - neither that "experimentation/complexity = maturity" nor that bands tend to improve in experimentation/complexity as they grow older. I think you're just sort of making stuff up there.[/quote]

Well, to an extent, I think it's right to say that the longer you keep making music, the more experienced you become, and the more such experience will be reflected in your music. Honestly, the pillows' latest albums don't unfold such a perception. They sound more like a band trying to make music for the sake of it.

I think Jomei and Son Goshin have made some really good points, about how 1) Sawao makes music nowadays only to appeal to a wider audience, and 2) how this has been the band's goal from the very start, and all those wonderful albums in the way were just an ongoing process of arriving where they've gotten today.

[quote="Marekenshin"]@Sheer from earlier: Just because his songs HAD a blend of those styles before doesn't mean he set out with that as his GOAL. You see? That wasn't too hard.[/quote]

I find it utterly perplexing how you have somehow read a rhetorical quip to mean that I did not understand what you initially meant.

I even gave you the opportunity to save face by providing another quip shortly thereafter.

[quote="Marekenshin"]More circumstantial evidence pertaining to a moot point.[/quote]

And this is further evidence as to why I think discussions of whether a band has sold out are irrelevant.