The harder they fall, the better. Kids adored those artists. Those same young fans also helped destroy them, because young attention spans are painfully short. After we saw Vanilla Ice do a music video with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we had enough. The magic of underground status and the integrity of quality music therein is completely compromised when the subject of record sales comes into question, and all too often, suit-wearing record executives sitting behind a desk think in numbers.
Art never factors into the equation.
But music is just that, it s art. The Fragile, a brilliant, rich, and seductively dark body of work, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts in September of 1999. Now, no one ever said selling an ample amount records was a bad thing. Commercial success is great for an artist, only if the quality of the music is what s moving your product, not your McDonald s campaign. But second week s sales saw The Fragile fall to the number 16 slot, and the record soon vanished off Billboard s top 200.