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Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
James Lofton wrote:Everything is spread too thin in this culture. Everyone wants to be a star. Do you realize that would possibly be the next Appetite for Destruction could be lying in obscurity on Spotify with 12 streams? There's nowhere for it to go. The labels don't even know what to push and if they did....how to push it. If they invest money in it and push it to the moon will anyone even care or will they spend their time on youtube watching a video of a dog farting instead?
Nah, the problem isn't the overabundance of content out there, the problem is that the labels aren't willing to take any risks any more. Everything is designed by committee to appeal to as broad an audience as possible without being offensive. If it's not a safe bet, then the music business (or movie business, video game business, ...) isn't buying it. Unless that changes, the current decline will continue.
People are looking for something fresh, and paradoxically, the great music of the days of yore is actually fresher than the formulaic shit the labels are pushing these days. It's fresh not because it's new, but because it's out of the norm of what they're used to hearing on the radio. They're discovering this old stuff now, and to them it's exciting 'cause it doesn't sound like anything they've heard before.
This should be a major wake-up call for the labels. The only way they're going to be relevant again is if they get their heads out of their asses and reward risk and uniqueness in new bands/acts. Of every 10 new bands they sign, 9 should fail spectacularly and one has to set the world on fire. Now, of every 10 new bands they design somewhere in an office, 7 of them need to have a hit single or two and they're happy 'cause they haven't outright failed. They're not shooting for greatness and willing to fail along the way, they're covering their asses and afraid of failing.
A&R used to be a lot harder, you had to roam the clubs, try to pick up on the newest buzz in the scenes and make a ballsy decision to support a group of drunk nobodies that happened to be doing something special. Nowadays, everyone with a budget of 2000$ can create a pro-sounding album, and lots of talented people do. They self-publish, and have a decent fanbase. It's not extremely hard to find those bands, but the labels just aren't looking for that anymore.
That's a great point. We don't have any Nirvana's or Soundgarden's today because the big players aren't interested in backing them anymore. Why that is I think is two fold. Downloading devastated the market, and I think especially the male market (mostly males had computers). It seems somewhere down the line people realized that guys are spending more money on games. I know that's true for me and probably a lot of people on this board. So they are shifting popular music over to the female demographic. Maybe because girls are considered less computer savvy, or because it is easier to sell them mass produced music, who knows. But it's definitely a trend when you look at the big artists in music today, all of them female. Adele, Beyonce, Perry, Rhianna, Swift, Gaga...even Cyrus is a bigger celebrity than any male artist I can think of, and all I know about her is that she plays the slut.
The other is business culture. Used to be the music industry was about finding a good product and sell that product. Now they can engineer products and it is considered a much safer, stable and probably more profitable business model than striking dead 9 times out of 10 to find that special talent. With the advent of home studios it also means there aren't thousands of real artists clamoring on the doors of labels to record an album. So everyone is basically happy. And that's the real problem, it's not a dying industry, it's a changing one. This shit is here to stay.
Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
Maybe because girls are considered less computer savvy, or because it is easier to sell them mass produced music, who knows. But it's definitely a trend when you look at the big artists in music today, all of them female. Adele, Beyonce, Perry, Rhianna, Swift, Gaga...even Cyrus is a bigger celebrity than any male artist I can think of, and all I know about her is that she plays the slut.
Interesting point, I hadn't thought of that.
This may come as a bit of a shock, but does anyone else think rock music is just gonna die? Realistically it's likely not gonna last 300-400 years. So what is it's shelf life? It's at 60 years pretty much, and likely has a good 20-30 years left in it's dwindling phase, but is that it?
Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
You'll be lucky if it lasts 20. Once all these iconic bands are gone there is no one to take their place. Country has been the new rock for a long time.
Generally speaking, girls don't care about music either. If they did.....guys would care. Girls less computer savvy? Not buying it. In this era you don't need to be some spazzed out nerd to play around on a computer, console, or phone.
Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
Same as my cousins then. The guys though just play counter strike or collect some type of digital basketball cards on their smart phones, but like fantasy, I don't really know. If they are into music it is stuff like Kiss or AC/DC. Old stuff.
Generally speaking, girls don't care about music either. If they did.....guys would care. Girls less computer savvy? Not buying it. In this era you don't need to be some spazzed out nerd to play around on a computer, console, or phone.
Whatever it is the labels aren't marketing much towards boys besides tits and ass these days.
Who said they care? Music is a product now. Perhaps the industry can only reach the casual or very easy to please listener, or primarily cares about doing so. It's probably the biggest market. Click and drop.
Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
Country has been the new rock for a long time.
In the relatively small market that is the US maybe, the last country hit in Europe was Achy Breaky Heart... not even Taylor Swift was a blip on the radar before she went pop.
Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
You'll be lucky if it lasts 20. Once all these iconic bands are gone there is no one to take their place. Country has been the new rock for a long time.
Generally speaking, girls don't care about music either. If they did.....guys would care. Girls less computer savvy? Not buying it. In this era you don't need to be some spazzed out nerd to play around on a computer, console, or phone.
Agreed on all fronts. That's the reason this GN'R reunion thing caught on so fast, and the reason Glenn Frey, David Bowie & Lemmy's death's were all front-page news. Rock IS STARVED for SOME-THING. Now all these acts are out there, old, and being told "irrelevant" (like Guns), and yet GN'R is commanding more per show than in the fucking history of live performing. Ain't too irrelevant. But look at the rest. Look how much Sammy Hagar works. But Sammy refuses to do new albums. Why? Because there's no money in it, and Hagar has beat the pavement trying to promote NEW music, and he walks into a rock radio station, they play his song once, humor him, and as soon as he leaves they're playing Winner Takes It All from Over The Top for the 8 billionth time. Sammy says there's no point. Plus, look at Hagar... ain't he like 68 fucking years old? Look at David Coverdale touring Whitesnake as a Deep Purple coverband right now at 63 or 64. Frey died and was like 67. What will The Eagles do? Some are saying Bernie (forget his last name), one of the founding members is gonna come back. Too much money to be made. Look at KISS. Paul & Gene have already conceptualized how to retire, and replace themselves in their own band and keep it going, ala Mick Jones and Foreigner out there with no original members. And guess what? Foreigner still does REALLY GOOD business. And yet no one cares.
But when these guys, like KISS, like the Stones, and others start dying off perminately. Rock my die forever with them. I don't see this business propping up rock and keeping it alive after these guys are gone. I just don't. The entire business model is totally different, even though there's a whole market out there for classic rock/metal.
Girls have NEVER cared about music, because that's girls. Unless you're fucking a Lzzy Hale who plays guitar and could tell you every cut off of Ultramega OK & Kill 'Em All, most girls don't know shit about music, because girls aren't like that. Girls are all about the singles. Because it catches them. They also tie their musical tastes in with the social scene, and thus -- ONLY listen to what's popular, and never listen to an artist that's against the grain. Even if you have an Emo who digs Paramore, because she's an outcast, she still has TONS of other Emo's that listen to Paramore, because that's what they've been told to listen to.
For example, I meet a girl shortly after Michael Jackson's death, and we were introducing ourselves, and she had an MJ shirt on, like all the bandwagoners in 2009 did. So I asked her about it, and she just went on and on and on about how Michael Jackson was her favorite artist ever, and MJ is her life, and she's gonna go to NYC and become a dancer, he's just such an inspiration to her, and blah blah blah.
So I told her my favorite MJ song was "Stranger In Moscow", which is kind of a MJ deep cut. She had no clue what I was talking about. That's okay. Not all MJ fans do. So then I asked her favorite and I got the classic, "ohhh, I don't know. I couldn't say. It's hard to choose. I love that one song, what's its name... umm... darn I can't remember it". So I asked her, what's her favorite album? She said, "oh, Number Ones"
I had my answer. Folks... THIS is your typical female music fan.
watching old Matlock episodes on netflix
This statement is completely untrue. Matlock is NOT on Netflix.
I know...
I spent the $100 large to buy the Complete Series 9-season set for my Dad for Christmas. 
*cue Matlock end credit producer card Dixieland bullshit*
Re: Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history
I haven't bought a CD in years and the only thing I remember buying was a copy of NIN's Year Zero because I didn't have it already. And Cee Lo Green's Lady Killer because Robin contributed to a song. That was back in 2011, I think.
I have absolutely NO idea which bands are doing well at the moment... The rock industry has lost its appeal.
Like many other people I am looking toward the past. It was either this or spending ages on Soundcloud trying to find someone (very likely a solo artist) who can spark some interest in me.
