Shit it's crazy, I saw them play the Camden barfly in London which is basically a small bar before three cheers was released. The tickets were £10 each. Good for them though, we'd all go for a higher salary if we could!
Fun Fact: Ruston Kelly (Kacey's husband) covered Helena on his latest emo cover album, and it's quite good. In case you didn't know about him...
For real, god forbid a band profits off their hard work. The price is justified by the demand, hell they could’ve charged $1000 a ticket and it would still be an instant sell out. Y’all so quick to call out bands for this when literally every pop star does this?!
And as others have said, either the band/promoters/venue get the money, or scalpers get the money (yes, I know there are ways to mitigate scalping), and I know who I prefer in that situation. Would I pay $150 to see anyone? No, but fair play to those that do - I'm sure people would have been offended by how much I spent on Jays playoff tickets a couple seasons ago.
My Chem sold 3 million and 4 million copies in a time where streaming virtually didn't exist. You know what album is immediately behind The Black Parade in album sales for 2006? "If Only You Were Lonely" by Hawthorne Heights. For 2007, they were the 51st best selling record. The one immediately ahead of it? R Kelly's "Double Up". Correct. A platinum album + 4 million monthly streaming listeners in 2019? Kacey's huge right now.
I had to look this up since I love looking up numbers for stuff like this! So it looks like The Black Parade went double and triple platinum in 2016 and 2017(!!!), which is insane, so there is definitely a case for a resurgence as of late. Looks like both Hawthorne Heights and My Chemical Romance went Gold in a similar amount of time, but TBP had double the longevity. (Just want to let you know I have no animosity in this convo, it's awesome to give and get numerical context to the convo we're having). I'm curious to know what events drove the numbers that high between 2015 - 2017 that caused the album to go platinum again. Was it due to a change in the platinum certification criteria? I remember that happening around that time.
I was never huge into MCR, but I was definitely the age to be in the thick of their hayday, and there will be no definitive way to quantifiably compare the success/popularity of an artist then vs. now. But what needs to be captured in this conversation is MCR's impact on popular culture - how people dressed, how bands sounded/looked, they were influential in a way uniquely their own, for better or worse depending on your tastes at the time.
Well also that false reunion turned out to be a 10-year reissue of TBP which dropped like 5 days before that 2x platinum cert
I think they were re-released too (and the platinum cert was changed to incorporate streams, a format that MCR has done really well in). I take nothing away from My Chem; they're one of the few bands from the "scene" who broke out and found mainstream success and were EASILY bigger than Warped in the years that they were booked alongside Fall Out Boy. They've got a near cultlike following and a couple of classic (at least in terms of the scene and rock music) albums. I still think in 2019, Kacey Musgraves is bigger than they are.
Complete side note about a pet peeve, and I know you'll hate on me for this (ignore me plz), but I don't get these types of metrics. The show sold out immediately for all intents of purposes. 5 minutes of course is just due to the ticketing process. It always makes it sound as if everyone wasn't trying to buy a ticket on the exact second it went on sale.
Just out of curiosity, how do we know it was less than 5 min if people were in line for 30 min to an hour before it was announced as sold out? Not that I'm in disbelief or anything, just curious how something like that is known
And to your last point, I think it's hard with a band that has the cache MCR does, who may be returning from a significant hiatus, to differentiate or measure who is bigger right now, when one of the two artists can be measured against how big they once were. That previous fame can so quickly influence their present popularity.
Hawthorne Heights went gold in March when thenalbum was released in Fen, TBP was released in October and went gold in December