If you were the biggest crabcore factory around, churning out the same stuff day after day, would you be surprised if your fans finally said enough?
That is what happened to Victory Records in May 2011. They announced their new band, Design the Skyline, with this video.
The backlash
The comments poured in on Victory’s Facebook page. Thousands of them. Almost all negative. It turned into one of the biggest online pile-ons a record label had ever seen. People compared it to the Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black hate that was going around at the time.
Design the Skyline mixed screamo, electronic beats, and breakdowns. To a lot of fans it felt like a parody of the scene. Victory had built its name on hardcore bands, and this felt like a step too far.
About Victory Records
Tony Brummel started Victory in Chicago in 1989. The label put out records by Earth Crisis, Snapcase, Hatebreed, Thursday, and Taking Back Sunday. In the 2000s it leaned hard into emo and screamo.
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