For one thing Metallica had top-notch management. Before we get further into this, I have a public service announcement for you:
Success in the YouTube channel business doesn't typically come to dilettantes. For Draven to take a two year break and somehow not think that was going to wreck his YouTube channel...that level of naiveté is staggering. I told him last August the only way out of his predicament was to start an entirely new YouTube channel and this time, actually treat it as a business.
He will not and cannot take advice though. His insecurity dictates that if it's not his idea, there's no merit in it. Well, look at what his channel has done since last August. It's not exactly setting the world on fire is it?
How do you get only 22 views for a podcast?!?!?
Look at the quality of people the community "leader" has attracted. There is a protocol for joining. Instructions are given as to where to introduce yourself. There are three questions one is asked to answer. The vast majority of the people this place attracts are running on such a low level, intellectually, that they fail to post their introductions in the correct place and they also fail to answer all three questions. Wow. All three, boatload of questions that it is.
Serious people take their channels seriously and attract serious people as a result. Channel owners upload new content on a regular schedule and they rarely if ever deviate from that schedule. Some upload content two or three times a week. Their businesses thrive because they treat their businesses as businesses.
Don't you think double digit views for your podcasts give potential students or even potential community members reason to feel wary of taking you seriously? At least some must think: "If he's got any value to offer, why is he doing so poorly"?
If Draven could never get himself to where you would like to be in the entertainment industry, why would you ever think he could get you there? You'd better think about that.
Chris Liepe makes a killing because he treats his business as a business. He uploads videos three times a week - not twice a month. He does one-take covers of songs by vocalists like Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington.
He doesn't even have a particularly aesthetically appealing voice, but unlike Draven, at least Liepe's voice has some moxie to it. At last Liepe can sing with conviction and he has a way of describing how to create grit in a way most people can grab ahold of, as opposed to Draven's painfully analytical approach to where there is little or nothing left to intuition. Draven claims he teaches 30 type of grit! Liepe says he teaches four types. It's not hard to see why there a canyon sized gulf between the amount of business the two men do.
End of PSA.
Metallica's third album, Master of Puppets is now certified platinum six times over in the United States of America. That's despite their first three albums not getting radio play! Who else have taken such a blatantly non-commercial approach and ended up as the kings of the mountain in their industry?
Metallica have a whole lot of gold and platinum records to their credit now and really, the other thing that separates them from many artists their size is just how few artists their size there are!
If you look to some of the classic bands of the 60s and 70s who are still around, you can find the occasional band that compares in size. The Rolling Stones have had even more commercial success than Metallica, but the Stones are rock royalty and bands of their stature are very few and far between.
Only a handful of bands in rock music are as big or bigger than Metallica and not one of them started out as a thrash metal band!
It was only with 1988’s …And Justice For All that they made a video for MTV for One. Of course, the video for One did incredibly well. It was ranked at #1 on MTV not long after it started getting played.
One was also their first song that any of the big rock radio stations would play in regular rotation and even then, there were some markets where rock radio wouldn’t play One.
Those rock stations that still wouldn’t play Metallica finally gave in when in 1991, Metallica released what is known as “the Black album.” That’s the album where Metallica took a creative risk, deviating from the style that had made them stars despite the lack of help from radio.
The Black album took Metallica from stardom to megastardom. To date, it has sold over thirty million copies. It’s not thrash metal album but compared to other albums that have sold in excess of 30 million copies, there is nothing close to it in heaviness.
You can’t name one other rock band that got as big as Metallica did and started off with such a blatantly uncommercial approach.