Band:	HolyHell
Album:	HolyHell
Style:	Symphonic power metal
Release date:	June 26, 2009
A review by:	Jeff

01. Wings Of Light
02. Prophecy
03. Revelations
04. Eclipse
05. The Fall
06. Angel Of Darkness
07. Holy Water
08. Mephisto
09. Gates Of Hell
10. Resurrection
11. Last Vision
12. Apocalypse
13. Armageddon

Welcome everybody, thank you for being here and welcome to this marketing lesson. Today we will talk about an interesting case, the case of HolyHell which is a perfect way to represent the modern music industry. So let's talk about them and I hope that you'll understand that it can be easy to make money with a simple marketing plan.


Chapter 1: What kind of music can I do to make money?
A) "Euro" Power Metal
We saw lately that a lot of bands chose to play simple and absolutely tedious and repetitive Power Metal to catch potential fans who don't even try to listen to other kind of music and buy everything in the genre to be happy. In the case of HolyHell it is a perfect way to demonstrate that music industry is interested by those people. Just build a band, let them write absolutely boring and bland riffs and melodies and you finally get something ready for stores. The interesting point here is that some people will find the way to buy it. You could talk about it with your psychology teacher.

B) "Symphonic" Metal with female singers.
Another perfect example of a good marketing method in the music industry is the numerous so called "Symphonic Metal bands with female singers". Even if this method was absolutely powerful and worked perfectly in the 90's and beginning of the 00's, the HolyHell case demonstrates once more that it's possible to play this kind of music again in the hope to earn money. Obviously the success of the pioneers of the genre is still convincing and some people thought that it was a good idea to do it...again. The problem, and I hope that you'll understand it my beloved students, is that it doesn't work anymore. HolyHell doesn't propose anything new and will not convince you otherwise. The fact that their music is boring with, in addition, a singer who doesn't sing badly but who doesn't have a really special voice either will not save us. Though one more time, in a economic point of view, it's obvious that HolyHell's first album will find fans. Sadly...



Chapter 2: Case of "HolyHell", positive and negative points.
A) Positive points.
If you want to produce this kind of "powerful" album, you must have good production which is the case with HolyHell. Add some good musicians too and maybe it will work if the compositions are ok. Here the songs are well played without any doubt but they're too simple and weak to be convincing. Too bad the only positive point of this album cannot be convincing. If you really want to be persuasive don't forget to write catchy choruses and melodies at least.

B) Negative points.
In the case of "HolyHell" we can notice that the combo clearly lacks inspiration. It's obvious that this release has been written in a hurry and we can even imagine that a new future album is already in production. The songs are not deep and they are repetitive and boring. This is poor Power Metal which has been done a million times before this release. The people behind this project probably thought that it was cool to do this kind of music and that the result would have been perfect, breaking the trend. This is not the case. Too bad for HolyHell and the ones who will still buy those kind of releases despite the recommendations.



Conclusion:
With HolyHell, you can understand that music industry can still make sacrifices. Some good and interesting bands will never find a way to be produced, when some others will have the chance to be recorded and distributed all around the world. The paradox of this method is that the first bands will perhaps not release their CD on a major label but they will remain pure and original when the second ones will be sacrificed for the single fact to make money. HolyHell is probably not composed of the worst musicians but their compositions are so easy and simple that it was a mistake to release this album. Still nobody forced them to do that either and in the end, their first album is just a good example of a marketing product. Bad for them, good for some others, I hope at least that this lesson will teach you what you'll have to do if you want to be rich or want to do (and listen to) good music.