"Stop Letting The Music Industry Pick Your Music For You"... Unless That Music Industry is Pantera

I was judging everyone's white people problems on my Facebook newsfeed this morning when I stumbled upon the gem you see above, shared by some scrawny limbed chump in my "Friends" list from the Official Pantera Facebook page. Unfriended. Eat a wood screw salad you repugnant spermwad.

While it's pretty audacious for whomever is in charge of Pantera's page to post probably one of the most hypocritical things ever written since the U.S Constitution, I'm going to direct this to the greasy-haired internet schmuck who actually took the 14 minutes in Photoshop to create this thing; without utilizing a fraction of any of those minutes to consider how his statement makes absolutely 0 fucking sense to anyone. Anyone, of course, except for the 25,xxx people who "liked" this post at the time of this writing. That's right, 25,000+ Pantera Fans agree with an online statement of how "underground" Pantera is on a single post. Just sit and let that digest for a little while.

First, let's talk about the "music industry".  The music industry consists of all the companies and individuals that make money by creating and selling music. An excellent example of such a company is Atco, a record label owned by the Warner Music Group. Ringing any bells yet? Atco was the record label that released Vulgar Display of Power, inarguably Pantera's most widely popular and best selling album. After last year's re-release of the album, its total sales increased to 2,177,000 making Pantera a double-platinum act based off one record alone.

The 2012 rerelease of VDoP sold 9,000 copies in its first week. If those were all purchased on iTunes, that's $90,000 dollars generated by the name Pantera in just one week. Even more if you consider the price of buying it on CD at a store. If you're a reader of this site, you probably don't even see half of that sort of money in a goddamn year. I don't know why anyone would go through life without realizing that all the ex-members of the band Pantera without bullet holes in their faces are fucking rich.

Here are some satellite photos of Vinnie Paul Abbot's home.  These are only attainable by such means, as all unauthorized people on the premises are shot on site in an effort to protect Pantera's status as a group of DIY-underground bad asses:

In-ground pool sized to fit exactly one Vinnie Paul.

Pantera is such an undeniably mainstream act, it hurts my prostate. MTV, Vh1, FM radio, and magazines are (or were) all major cogs in the music industry machine, and have been giving Pantera more than a fair share of exposure and lauding for decades. The members enjoyed an impossible amount of fame and even impossibly fatter wallets because of it all. Serious money was made on Pantera. To think that Pantera and the music industry are parallel entities by any means is to not think at all. 

I understand the point you're trying to convey because I was in middle school once myself. Popular music acts get way more recognition than the "music that deserves it". It's true that Justin Bieber sold way more in his fart of a musical career than Pantera ever did or ever will in all the time they were active and not murdered. But that's because Bieber is way more widely accepted by a much broader audience with more money to spend on him and his Vanilla Ice haircut. It's like you're comparing Budweiser to Flying Dog IPA. Just because a lot more people enjoy and buy Budweiser doesn't mean that Flying Dog is a truer, grass roots, underground beer that defies all traditions of the beer industry. Millions of dollars are made selling that shit thanks to a niche of people who prefer it over the bigger name stuff. It's still money. It's still business. The scale is irrelevant. If you want to listen to good metal that wasn't made for money so you can make some ham-fisted point like the one you attempted, it's all over the place. Get Googling, dipshit. Bands like Pantera are the last place to look. 

Working on another big update. This one was just some random inspiration of the day. Now go out there and tell some Pantera fans they love pop music.

- Brenocide \,,/