Thanks to Red Roger ("I'm in the pod, Hal!")--thanxx dude!

Off the top of my head, I'm going to say it's sort of a class issue--a musical class issue, if you will. To take the example of early Metallica, metal bands tend not to get much immediate critical ass-kissing, or at least they didn't used to. Unlike so many media-feted bands, they don't usually win instant approval for things like a nifty style gimmick, a quotable frontperson, or simply the right connections. It's All About the Music, and past that, it's All About the Fans, who appreciate that it's All About the Music. So if you feel entitled to attention, you thank no one in your liner notes. If you're grateful for every last person who tells you you're cool and comes to see your unfashionable ass, you thank every last mother-lovin' one of them. Until, of course, you start to feel entitled to the attention, at which point you start to lose your core fan base, put out Load, etc.

I think country music (another genre with put-upon class issues) is very similar in its relationship with its fans, in some ways, although they seem to do without the massive thank-you lists. Probably because all the behind-the-scenes stuff is fairly corporate to begin with. Of course, country artists must suffer through stuff like Fan Fair for their penance.

Anyway, that's one idea. Didn't TLC somehow thank, like, every human being on earth as part of the Fanmail package?

Billy and the Boingers had a hilarious quote-laden thank you list, I seem to recall...

On the other thread, Sasha, I mentioned that the level of acclaim pop stars reach—if only fleetingly—is so mind-blowing, and the luck involved so lottery-like, that no matter how confident they are any normal person is going to look outside themselves for why the hell this thing has happened to them.

Tracer:

I think I follow. Meaning, the artist feels a need to thank everyone because it seems almost undeserved, their success? Am I following, or no?

Yeah, like they'll never know exactly which air molecule bumped into which butterfly-wing to make which rainstorm come down, stranding Record Exec X on the freeway with time to actually kill listening to her demo. Or which word from which person jostled which neurons into position to spring out and act, or think, or decide to take which audition. So might as well cover ALL them bases. I think "God" is just like a short-hand for this, I mean hey if God made everybody then thanking God is like killing 6M birds with one stone.

Great take on it. My idea was lame, and I'm glad I didn't post it.