Why has Periphery had more commercial success than Monuments/Tesseract/Etc?

[Ordacleaphobia]

Misha. It's because of Misha.
I love all the other dudes, but Misha is one driven MF. He is always doing something, and that generates a lot of interest. Face time is super important. The whole band has a very social-media friendly style personality and the way that they shitpost makes you feel like you're part of the group. That works wonders for the numbers.

Of course, it also helps that as @Wucan said, the gear that they've attached their name to is actually....pretty solid- and they were savvy enough to land large-scale, major company endorsements early on due to how well known they were almost immediately due to all of the attention the early demos got.

I mean you compare Jackson / PRS / Ibanez to any other set of endorsements out there- how are you going to move more product?
Monuments had Mayones / Aristides on board, who make excellent equipment, but those are $3000 guitars. Your local music store will never have one on the wall.
When you think AxeFX, who do you think of? Right as modeling took off like a damn rocket ship.
They sling guitars, they sling basses, they sling pedals, they sling amps, they sling plugins, they started how many companies?


It was the right dudes, in the right place, at the right time, who knew all the right people and were prepared to make the push.

 

[SamSam]

Misha. It's because of Misha.
I love all the other dudes, but Misha is one driven MF. He is always doing something, and that generates a lot of interest. Face time is super important. The whole band has a very social-media friendly style personality and the way that they shitpost makes you feel like you're part of the group. That works wonders for the numbers.

Of course, it also helps that as @Wucan said, the gear that they've attached their name to is actually....pretty solid- and they were savvy enough to land large-scale, major company endorsements early on due to how well known they were almost immediately due to all of the attention the early demos got.

I mean you compare Jackson / PRS / Ibanez to any other set of endorsements out there- how are you going to move more product?
Monuments had Mayones / Aristides on board, who make excellent equipment, but those are $3000 guitars. Your local music store will never have one on the wall.
When you think AxeFX, who do you think of? Right as modeling took off like a damn rocket ship.
They sling guitars, they sling basses, they sling pedals, they sling amps, they sling plugins, they started how many companies?


It was the right dudes, in the right place, at the right time, who knew all the right people and were prepared to make the push.

The average music listener doesn't give a fuck about what gear these guys are using. They aren't browsing music going "Oh man, he's got a Jackson this band must be good!".

The endorsements they have now are as a result of their commercial success. The people putting them into the charts are not gearheads. This forum has just over 86k members, Marigold has over 12 million listens on Spotify. That's not because of us. They started off building a following here, but their reach went far beyond the forum. Back then they had deals with the smaller companies as well. The big deals came later on.

Remember Corelia? They had Music Man endorsements very early on due to online presence. Didn't get them far. Back then loads of bands were getting swooped up for some decent and some not so decent deals, but those deals don't put you in the charts.

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

The average music listener doesn't give a fuck about what gear these guys are using. They aren't browsing music going "Oh man, he's got a Jackson this band must be good!".

The endorsements they have now are as a result of their commercial success. The people putting them into the charts are not gearheads. This forum has just over 86k members, Marigold has over 12 million listens on Spotify. That's not because of us. They started off building a following here, but their reach went far beyond the forum. Back then they had deals with the smaller companies as well. The big deals came later on.

Remember Corelia? They had Music Man endorsements very early on due to online presence. Didn't get them far. Back then loads of bands were getting swooped up for some decent and some not so decent deals, but those deals don't put you in the charts.

I think we interpreted the question differently.
I group 'financial success' under the umbrella of 'commercial success,' I'm not saying their endorsements drove their music. I'm saying their endorsements made them money.

And their larger endorsements, relatively speaking, came together pretty early on in their career. They had a ton of momentum right out of the gate. I remember the earlier (and questionable) deals they had too.

 

[nickgray]

This forum has just over 86k members, Marigold has over 12 million listens on Spotify

Well, that's 2,400,000 every year for 5 years. Every forum member just had to listen to the song only 2-3 times every month. Entirely reasonable. Misha owes us a debt of gratitude, I should think

 

[VGK17]

The average music listener doesn't give a fuck about what gear these guys are using.

I'm pretty sure the average music listener isn't listening to any of these bands, no matter how good they are.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

The average music listener doesn't give a fuck about what gear these guys are using. They aren't browsing music going "Oh man, he's got a Jackson this band must be good!".

The endorsements they have now are as a result of their commercial success. The people putting them into the charts are not gearheads. This forum has just over 86k members, Marigold has over 12 million listens on Spotify. That's not because of us. They started off building a following here, but their reach went far beyond the forum. Back then they had deals with the smaller companies as well. The big deals came later on.

Remember Corelia? They had Music Man endorsements very early on due to online presence. Didn't get them far. Back then loads of bands were getting swooped up for some decent and some not so decent deals, but those deals don't put you in the charts.

12 million listens? that's like a whole 30$ from spotify

 

[X1X]

Sports team theme music

 

[coreysMonster]

I think we interpreted the question differently.
I group 'financial success' under the umbrella of 'commercial success,' I'm not saying their endorsements drove their music. I'm saying their endorsements made them money.

And their larger endorsements, relatively speaking, came together pretty early on in their career. They had a ton of momentum right out of the gate. I remember the earlier (and questionable) deals they had too.

Absolutely agreed, just want to add that more financial success can easily lead to more commercial success of the music. More money = more options, bigger and better shows, longer tours, more financial stability, less tension in the band, not having to break from music to go work day jobs, etc. all that stuff leads to making more stuff to attract more fans. It all works together.

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Question: "Why has Periphery had more commercial success than Monuments/Tesseract/Etc?"

Answer: Us. Sevenstring.org.

Seriously.

Aside from that, the other factors include:
- The right time when the metal community was wanting something new. (Then "djent" became the burgeoning hypetrain and Periphery capitalized on that hard.)
- The Sumerian deal during Sumerian's peak years when almost every big "-core" band was signed with Sumerian. (You have to admit that Sumerian really used to get their bands out there and give them a substantial presence in the music world.)
- Misha constantly creating some type of content and being unafraid to show his face and get out there.
- Smart songwriting choices split between the dudes, with each member being a skill performer/composer on their respective instruments. (They definitely have struck a great songwriting balance and ethic, as opposed to the usual problem of "having too many cooks in the kitchen".)
- The endorsement deals with ubiquitous, BIG brands that you can snag off the shelves at any music instrument store. (Jackson, Ibanez, PRS, Peavey, etc.) That is a ton of promotional/marketing power in addition to what promotional/marketing power the label brings to the table with their backing. Far more than what these little, boutique, one-man operations can offer. Sure, Misha (for example) did have some endorsement from tiny, boutique operations at one point (like ProTone, Mission Engineering, etc.), but none of the Periphery guys settled entirely with endorsement from these tiny operations. They kept pushing, convincing kids to buy the products, and ultimately, that landed the Periphery guys the big fish...errrr...big deals, I mean.

 

[GunpointMetal]

The average music listener doesn't give a fuck about what gear these guys are using.

As noted, the average music listener does not give a fuck about any prog/djent/whatever-core shit. The hype started because Bulb was putting out home-made demos with affordable equipment that didn't sound like total butt at the time, and people on nerd forums like this were all up his butt about production and shit, along with the AAL/Tosin association when they were starting to get more notice from all of us NERDS in the ERG world. Without gear/gear nerds/home recording they wouldn't have gotten to where they are the way they did. They got a good push from word of mouth and shit at the beginning.

 

[_MonSTeR_]

It’s all because they came up with a genre of music from the future, and also about that cover shoot for ‘Mocha Emporium’.

‘Periphery. Love that sh!t’

 

[Demiurge]

Obviously, it's a willingness to have fun with it.

I was just going to put that in as a joke, but in a way, maybe it's true! Periphery don't take themselves too seriously where the majority of djent genre achieved Tool-superfan-level of self-seriousness in literally no time. I hope everybody involved had fun when doing it, but there was that period of time where alternating threads of band-spam of cosmic lens-flare album covers & pretentious song titles and people talking about djent being the next level of music modern equivalent of bebop jazz was supremely exhausting.

 

[slan]

Obviously, it's a willingness to have fun with it.

I was just going to put that in as a joke, but in a way, maybe it's true! Periphery don't take themselves too seriously where the majority of djent genre achieved Tool-superfan-level of self-seriousness in literally no time. I hope everybody involved had fun when doing it, but there was that period of time where alternating threads of band-spam of cosmic lens-flare album covers & pretentious song titles and people talking about djent being the next level of music modern equivalent of bebop jazz was supremely exhausting.

This is a great point.

 

[chipchappy]

Adam "Nolly" Getgood.

Lock it up

 

[wankerness]

Obviously, it's a willingness to have fun with it.

I was just going to put that in as a joke, but in a way, maybe it's true! Periphery don't take themselves too seriously where the majority of djent genre achieved Tool-superfan-level of self-seriousness in literally no time. I hope everybody involved had fun when doing it, but there was that period of time where alternating threads of band-spam of cosmic lens-flare album covers & pretentious song titles and people talking about djent being the next level of music modern equivalent of bebop jazz was supremely exhausting.

Exactly. Periphery often had catchy choruses, pop-punky sounding vocals, and goofy song titles. In comparison to slogs of misery like Tesseract's Altered State or creepy-ass weirdness like Vildhjarta's Masstaden, it's no wonder far more people wanted to listen to it.

 

[bostjan]

Because they just have fun with it.™

 

[Ataraxia2320]

I found bulb via soundclick, and that got me into periphery.

I told every single person I knew about this guy bulb because the music blew my mind. I listened to Meshuggah but this was something fresher and with more pop sensibilities.

I was really bummed initially when chris left the band and I foolishly thought they were done but little did I know they were just getting started.

There are a million factors why periphery were THE band from that era but I think the main one is that they just wrote better, more accessible songs. The first album had a tonne of off the wall stuff going on that still had hooks. They managed to get the casual listener plus the elitist kids on board simultaneously and I don't think a band had done that since Pantera.

 

[Triple-J]

Their material is catchy but I also think it's cause they toured so much as they seem to be over here in UK/Europe quite frequently plus one of those tours was as support for Dream Theater which must have done them a few favours.
Touring is way more important than people think not doing it can harm a bands profile and leave them playing catch up with their career but doing it can make a band overnight.

 

[fantom]

Is Periphery even that popular? I figured they were about the same scale as The Contortionist, who really aren't too "commercially successful." A quick check on last.fm verified that suspicion.

I almost feel like the premise of this thread is that being a successful band means you sell more than 500 tickets per show or have a youtube channel...

I'm not trying to knock on Periphery, they are making a better run than I will ever pull off in the music industry, but I wouldn't say they are commercially successful. Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, or Opeth are considerably closer to that than Periphery. I know maybe one friend who has heard of Periphery. Maybe I'm just too old for the new kids in town.

 

[Amenthea]

Is Periphery even that popular? I figured they were about the same scale as The Contortionist, who really aren't too "commercially successful." A quick check on last.fm verified that suspicion.

I almost feel like the premise of this thread is that being a successful band means you sell more than 500 tickets per show or have a youtube channel...

I'm not trying to knock on Periphery, they are making a better run than I will ever pull off in the music industry, but I wouldn't say they are commercially successful. Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, or Opeth are considerably closer to that than Periphery. I know maybe one friend who has heard of Periphery. Maybe I'm just too old for the new kids in town.

Everyone I know has heard of them, and I'm 45 and my main music social circle are mostly a few years older or younger. My first PRS was the Holcomb model and at that point I'd never heard a single song of theirs, I just liked the guitar (it was signed on the back as well lol).
Last night I had on the djent playlist on Spotify as VOLA were on there, and it had TesseracT, Unevenstructure, Oceans Ate Alaska etc and also Periphery. I was struck by how 'normal' sounding the Perip stuff was in comparison to almost everything else on the djent playlist, so like mentioned above I think making their sound a bit more accessible along with their social openness has helped them far more than the bands around them.
They are a bit like Jack Sparrow, in that everyone knows of them even if they don't exactly know what it is they really do or how they sound.