Red Mosquito

stip wrote:

Anders wrote:I can't look at all the great music that came out between 89-94, and think that it wouldn't have been a major success in 2014 as well. Metallica, Guns'N Roses, Pearl Jam, Nirvana in their prime would have tore up the charts. It's all about the music. Pearl Jam makes good music, but it's very understandable why Backspacer and Lightning Bolt will never climb to the mountains of early 90s rock, it's not only the times that have changed, the music isn't what it used to be either. Same with Metallica, while Nirvana is gone, obviously whatever Guns N'Roses are now, is nothing at all.

The infrastructure to capture an audience in that way no longer really exists.

Then you might argue that modern artists don't capture audiences the way artists used to, while I think they do. However, very few of them are rock stars (whatever that is).

They don't capture audiences the way they used to not as a reflection of talent and ability, but because access to rock music is no longer controlled by a few coherent gatekeepers. There is no MTV, no mutually reinforcing presence of rock radio throughout the country, no handful of journalistic sources to learn or talk about new music. If Pearl Jam released Ten today it wouldn't sell 11 million copies or be the cultural event it came to be because there is likely no way it would reach enough people to become one. Rock music is now largely a niche phenomena.

stip wrote:They don't capture audiences the way they used to not as a reflection of talent and ability, but because access to rock music is no longer controlled by a few coherent gatekeepers. There is no MTV, no mutually reinforcing presence of rock radio throughout the country, no handful of journalistic sources to learn or talk about new music. If Pearl Jam released Ten today it wouldn't sell 11 million copies or be the cultural event it came to be because there is likely no way it would reach enough people to become one. Rock music is now largely a niche phenomena.

How was Ten a cultural event? Aren't you exaggerating a little here? Selling 10 million copies at the time wasn't out of ordinary. Also it reached 10 million copies last year in February not in the early 90's. For the general public Ten is about as relevant as Jagged Little Pill is.

Someone was just writing about this stuff in the Vitalogy thread...

The 28 months following the end of the band’s tour in support of Vs included two full Pearl Jam albums, a complete Neil Young album and tour set, the introduction of Jack Irons to the band, the Ticketmaster thing, the pirate radio thing, the Mike Watt thing, the Dead Man Walking thing, and a spattering of events I’m not going to mention. So the thing is, it was a period marked by lots and lots of music but relatively little Pearl Jam...certainly little of the collaborative Pearl Jam that was the norm prior to that point.

It’s hardly gone undiscussed how frustrating and occasionally unenjoyable the band found the act of being the band during this era. But I think it's easy to overly simplify and therefore misrepresent the band's position in 1994.

The music industry experienced a state of almost perpetual growth from the late 1950's to the late 1970's. There's a lot of reason for this...the introduction of the adolescent as a mass market, changes in buying power, etc....but this growth also coincided with a massive power transfer from industry to artist. Especially from the mid-60's to mid-70's, the ability of the musician to spend large amounts of time and money preparing and presenting exactly their most recent artistic vision flourished and expanded.





Back in the 1950’s recording sessions were very tightly controlled events, and pop musicians expected (and generally received) short recording careers. By the 70’s, though, labels spoke in terms of “nurturing” niche singers, “embracing” legacy artists, and giving new figures the time to find their voice. Bruce Springsteen’s first two records had both cost the label substantial amounts of money when he set out to begin the month's long run of studio time that would produce just a single song (Born to Run), and yet the amount of pushback from the label during the majority of that work time was virtually nil. This was just "how it was done," by that point. Conversely, Neil Young’s label humored him through countless low-selling and sometimes extremely expensive projects during the tremendous span of time between his initial commercial success and his eventual successful return. And they did this fully realizing that he might never make such a return. It was fine, because the more the culture worshipped at the alter of pop music, the more those artist’s eventual successes resulted in big back catalog sales returns that more than made up for some short term losses.

Basically, at the same time labels had embraced the idea of ceding power to artists, returns had climbed ever upwards. This led to the existence of powerful figureheads who saw themselves as artist support champions as much as businessmen (Billy Graham, Ahmet Ertegan and David Geffen come to mind), and to artists who felt both justified and entitled to the amount of sway their sales afforded them. It also led to a situation where individuals could be seen by the general public as among the premiere artists of their moment, and yet also bask in the light of celebrity.





The 80’s represented a reversal of fortune. Sales dropped worldwide, and more specifically new product by established and highly paid artists was suddenly very hard to sell. This resulted in a lot of “shoring up” defense reactions by major record labels (David Geffen comes to mind again) and to new industry behaviors. The amount of influence and money demanded by established artists at this point far outstripped their returns. Even people like Elton John, who had multiple enormous hits during the 80's, was afforded such a tremendous amount of money and such a large recording and promotional budget that his "hit" records would cost the label a small fortune. Occasional exceptions existed, but this overall situation led to a renewed obsession with pursuing "trends," and to signing greater amounts of unknown talent. It would also eventually would kick-start the reissuing trend to acquire new cash from old stories and thus earn back the money that those big name artists were costing.

So we get to the 90's. The upward trend renews itself, taking on staggering levels of upward motion and the number of copies sold annually surpassing all previous figures by as early as 1994 (and continuing upwards right up until the turn of the century).





Which means that 1994 represented a very, very strange mix of conditions.

Artistic expression had become a powerful factor in the expectations people had of more “serious” musical acts thanks to the efforts of those artists who thrived in the '65-'80 era (and who still make up the majority of acts considered "classics"), and yet the industry as a whole was moving more and more towards a professional, tightly controlled system (this, along with the changes in technology that made recording more accessible, also influenced the rise of indie labels in the 80’s and 90’s). Meanwhile, the still fairly uniform nature of media at the time (pre-mass internet, pre-200 channel digital cable packages, etc) meant that being the “biggest band in the world” gave you a much larger cultural footprint than it might today, and the post-80's trend-chasing nature of the industry meant that there was more of that unspoken assumption about shorter careers that had been so familiar in the 1950's. Basically, you had a little less power than those bands you grew up admiring, but you sold more records and were under a much hotter spotlight.

Retrospect is always easy, but looking back it's not hard to imagine why the industry eventually had to start reducing. The shift from artist support to business management, the centralization of the industry into a small group of very large companies, the changes resultant from renewed focus on immediate dollar return, an ever-increasing focus on charging the living shit out of older fans who will pay jackoff prices because they followed a band for 20 years, and especially the ever-growing size and scope of the industry all combined to set the scene for a massive implosion…all that was needed was a catalyst.

Like the ability to download.

But the point is, that kind of perspectivist awareness is a conceit given to history. The inside of a tornado pretty much all looks the same, right up until all of the sudden it doesn’t.

The world is ever changing, and so are the ways to find and get music. We don't need MTV, it was a great asset before the internet.

Kanye West and Jay Z are modern equivalents to what major rock stars were in the early 90s, and probably more main stream, well known and richer. They are different from Pearl Jam, but not smaller.

The real question is if rock can get into that position again, not if the position exists, because there will always be megastars in the world of music. And the answer is definitely yes. Rock is here to stay, and there will be future rock stars.

Mine wrote:

stip wrote:They don't capture audiences the way they used to not as a reflection of talent and ability, but because access to rock music is no longer controlled by a few coherent gatekeepers. There is no MTV, no mutually reinforcing presence of rock radio throughout the country, no handful of journalistic sources to learn or talk about new music. If Pearl Jam released Ten today it wouldn't sell 11 million copies or be the cultural event it came to be because there is likely no way it would reach enough people to become one. Rock music is now largely a niche phenomena.

How was Ten a cultural event? Aren't you exaggerating a little here? Selling 10 million copies at the time wasn't out of ordinary. Also it reached 10 million copies last year in February not in the early 90's. For the general public Ten is about as relevant as Jagged Little Pill is.

Ten's chart run was almost identical to Adelle's 21 in America, both in terms of longevity and placement...so there's that comparison. Add Vs. as the third best-selling album of 1993, as well, and you do have something.

By comparison, Nevermind was the 8th best selling album of 1992, and the black album was something like #10. Neither Nirvana nor Metallica ever showed up on a year-end chart again.

We are talking only in the US now?

McParadigm wrote:

Mine wrote:

stip wrote:They don't capture audiences the way they used to not as a reflection of talent and ability, but because access to rock music is no longer controlled by a few coherent gatekeepers. There is no MTV, no mutually reinforcing presence of rock radio throughout the country, no handful of journalistic sources to learn or talk about new music. If Pearl Jam released Ten today it wouldn't sell 11 million copies or be the cultural event it came to be because there is likely no way it would reach enough people to become one. Rock music is now largely a niche phenomena.

How was Ten a cultural event? Aren't you exaggerating a little here? Selling 10 million copies at the time wasn't out of ordinary. Also it reached 10 million copies last year in February not in the early 90's. For the general public Ten is about as relevant as Jagged Little Pill is.

Ten's chart run was almost identical to Adelle's 21 in America, both in terms of longevity and placement...so there's that comparison. Add Vs. as the third best-selling album of 1993, as well, and you do have something.

By comparison, Nevermind was the 8th best selling album of 1992, and the black album was something like #10. Neither Nirvana nor Metallica ever showed up on a year-end chart again.

Vs. was also the fastest album to ever reach a million sales, and Eddie Vedder was a household name, or near enough to it. I can only speak to the experience in the United States, but Pearl Jam in the early 90s was every bit the rock institution that bands like Led Zeppelin or the Who probably were in their prime.

Anders wrote:The world is ever changing, and so are the ways to find and get music. We don't need MTV, it was a great asset before the internet.

Kanye West and Jay Z are modern equivalents to what major rock stars were in the early 90s, and probably more main stream, well known and richer. They are different from Pearl Jam, but not smaller.

The real question is if rock can get into that position again, not if the position exists, because there will always be megastars in the world of music. And the answer is definitely yes. Rock is here to stay, and there will be future rock stars.

the internet is, for the purposes of these conversations, exactly the opposite mechanism that MTV was. MTV controlled the music you could access, and so was able to focus attention on a comparatively smaller number of artists.


Why this did not impact other types of music in quite the same way (pop/rap) I couldn't tell you. Others could probably say more. But I don't think it is due to a lack of talented musicians out there.

Billboard 200 top rock act:

1989 Guns N' Roses 5th
1990 Aerosmith 4th
1991 The Black Crowes 3rd
1992 Nirvana 3rd
1993 Eric Clapton 3rd
1994 Counting Crows 5th

2008 Kid Rock 6th (Coldplay 8th)
2009 Nickelback 3rd (Kings Of Leon 11th)
2010 None in the top 10 (Jack Johnson 33rd)
2011 Mumford & Sons 8th (Kid Rock 16th)
2012 Mumford & Sons 7th (The Black Keys 10th)
2013 Mumford & Sons 5th (Imagine Dragons 6th)

I don't think the Billboard lists really prove anything in a discussion like this.

McParadigm wrote:

Mine wrote:

stip wrote:They don't capture audiences the way they used to not as a reflection of talent and ability, but because access to rock music is no longer controlled by a few coherent gatekeepers. There is no MTV, no mutually reinforcing presence of rock radio throughout the country, no handful of journalistic sources to learn or talk about new music. If Pearl Jam released Ten today it wouldn't sell 11 million copies or be the cultural event it came to be because there is likely no way it would reach enough people to become one. Rock music is now largely a niche phenomena.

How was Ten a cultural event? Aren't you exaggerating a little here? Selling 10 million copies at the time wasn't out of ordinary. Also it reached 10 million copies last year in February not in the early 90's. For the general public Ten is about as relevant as Jagged Little Pill is.

Ten's chart run was almost identical to Adelle's 21 in America, both in terms of longevity and placement...so there's that comparison. Add Vs. as the third best-selling album of 1993, as well, and you do have something.

By comparison, Nevermind was the 8th best selling album of 1992, and the black album was something like #10. Neither Nirvana nor Metallica ever showed up on a year-end chart again.

Ten never reached #1, 21 debuted at it and was billboards year end's #1 for 2 consecutive years it oversold Ten and it was released 20 years later.
Compare Adele to Whitney Houston and her Bodyguard OST from 1992/1993 as a probably better fit for Adele in that time frame.

The similarty that i see there is what you wrote in the post about the industry. They were the cool band - the band you had to like to be cool -in 1992/93 like Adele was the best singer ever a couple of years ago. I think there's a diference between being popular and causing a cultural event with an album.

Also interesting :
The Best Selling Albums Of All Time:

#1: Michael Jackson: Thriller (1982) 65 million
#2: AC/DC: Back in Black (1980) 50 million
#3: Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) 50 million
#4: Whitney Houston: The Bodyguard (1992) 45 million
#5: Michael Jackson: Bad (1987) 45 million
#6: Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell (1977) 43 million
#7: Eagles: Their Greatest Hits (1976) 42 million
#8: Bee Gees: Saturday Night Fever (1977) 40 million
#9: Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (1977) 40 million
#10: Shania Twain: Come On Over (1997) 40 million
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV (1971) 37 million
Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill (1995) 33 million
Michael Jackson: Dangerous (1991) 32 million
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) 32 million
Céline Dion: Falling into You (1996) 32 million
Mariah Carey: Music Box (1993) 32 million
Dirty Dancing: Soundtrack (1987) 32 million
The Beatles: 1 (2000) 31 million
Céline Dion: Let's Talk About Love (1997) 31 million
The Beatles: Abbey Road (1969) 30 million
Britney Spears: …Baby One More Time (1999) 30 million
Bruce Springsteen: Born in the U.S.A. (1984) 30 million
Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms (1985) 30 million
Guns N' Roses: Appetite for Destruction (1987) 30 million
Iron Butterfly: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) 30 million
Titanic: Music from the Motion Picture (1997) 30 million
Madonna: The Immaculate Collection (1990) 30 million
Metallica: Metallica (1991) 30 million
Nirvana: Nevermind (1991) 30 million
Pink Floyd: The Wall (1979) 30 million
Santana: Supernatural (1999) 30 million
ABBA: ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits (1992) 28 million
Backstreet Boys: Backstreet's Back (1997) 28 million
Backstreet Boys: Millennium (1999) 28 million
Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet (1986) 28 million
Spice Girls: Spice (1996) 28 million
Grease Soundtrack: (1978) 28 million
Norah Jones: Come Away with Me (2002) 26 million
Adele: 21 (2011) 25 million
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Legend: The Best of Bob Marley & The Wailers (1984) 25 million
Carole King: Tapestry (1971) 25 million
George Michael: Faith (1987) 25 million
Journey: Greatest Hits (1988) 25 million
Madonna: True Blue (1986) 25 million
Mariah Carey: Daydream (1995) 25 million
Queen: Greatest Hits (1981) 25 million
Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge over Troubled Water (1970) 25 million
U2: The Joshua Tree (1987) 25 million
Whitney Houston: Whitney Houston (1985) 25 million
Whitney Houston: Whitney (1987) 25 million
Kenny Rogers: Greatest Hits (1980) 24 million
Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory (2000) 24 million
Ace of Base: The Sign (1993) 23 million
TLC: CrazySexyCool (1994) 23 million
Oasis: (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) 22 million
Bon Jovi: Cross Road (1994) 21 million
Madonna: Like a Virgin (1984) 21 million
Andrea Bocelli: Romanza (1997) 20 million
Barbra Streisand: Guilty (1980) 20 million
Blondie: Parallel Lines (1978) 20 million
Boston: Boston (1976) 20 million
Britney Spears: Oops!… I Did It Again (2000) 20 million
Def Leppard: Hysteria (1987) 20 million
Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP (2000) 20 million
Eric Clapton: Unplugged (1992) 20 million
Lionel Richie: Can't Slow Down (1983) 20 million
Michael Jackson: HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995) 20 million
Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979) 20 million
Phil Collins: No Jacket Required (1985) 20 million
Prince & The Revolution: Purple Rain (1984) 20 million
Shania Twain: The Woman in Me (1995) 20 million
Supertramp: Breakfast in America (1979) 20 million
Tina Turner: Private Dancer (1984) 20 million
Usher: Confessions (2004) 20 million

The only album from the last 2 decades in the top 20 is a Beatles Greatest Hits collection which is classic rock.

Anders wrote:Billboard 200 top rock act:

1989 Guns N' Roses 5th
1990 Aerosmith 4th
1991 The Black Crowes 3rd
1992 Nirvana 3rd
1993 Eric Clapton 3rd
1994 Counting Crows 5th

2008 Kid Rock 6th (Coldplay 8th)
2009 Nickelback 3rd (Kings Of Leon 11th)
2010 None in the top 10 (Jack Johnson 33rd)
2011 Mumford & Sons 8th (Kid Rock 16th)
2012 Mumford & Sons 7th (The Black Keys 10th)
2013 Mumford & Sons 5th (Imagine Dragons 6th)

I don't think the Billboard lists really prove anything in a discussion like this.

when limited to the number of records sold is good enough though

stip wrote:

Anders wrote:The world is ever changing, and so are the ways to find and get music. We don't need MTV, it was a great asset before the internet.

Kanye West and Jay Z are modern equivalents to what major rock stars were in the early 90s, and probably more main stream, well known and richer. They are different from Pearl Jam, but not smaller.

The real question is if rock can get into that position again, not if the position exists, because there will always be megastars in the world of music. And the answer is definitely yes. Rock is here to stay, and there will be future rock stars.

the internet is, for the purposes of these conversations, exactly the opposite mechanism that MTV was. MTV controlled the music you could access, and so was able to focus attention on a comparatively smaller number of artists.


Why this did not impact other types of music in quite the same way (pop/rap) I couldn't tell you. Others could probably say more. But I don't think it is due to a lack of talented musicians out there.

I can't follow the logic of that. So it made no negative difference to pop/rap/hip-hop, but has ruined the chances of a rock band making it as big as Pearl Jam did in the 90s?

I saw Tuolumne's argument that the world has changed, but I don't agree with that, apart from that there will always be trends and certain breakthrough artists. Often due to talent, and sometimes due to other factors. We may have to agree to disagree, but I find it difficult to understand that you have sort of given up on rock making its mark in the future.

Even in 2013, the rock bands sell the most tickets in the US and around the world.

Mine wrote:

Anders wrote:Billboard 200 top rock act:

1989 Guns N' Roses 5th
1990 Aerosmith 4th
1991 The Black Crowes 3rd
1992 Nirvana 3rd
1993 Eric Clapton 3rd
1994 Counting Crows 5th

2008 Kid Rock 6th (Coldplay 8th)
2009 Nickelback 3rd (Kings Of Leon 11th)
2010 None in the top 10 (Jack Johnson 33rd)
2011 Mumford & Sons 8th (Kid Rock 16th)
2012 Mumford & Sons 7th (The Black Keys 10th)
2013 Mumford & Sons 5th (Imagine Dragons 6th)

I don't think the Billboard lists really prove anything in a discussion like this.

when limited to the number of records sold is good enough though

Obviously.

Anders wrote: Even in 2013, the rock bands sell the most tickets in the US and around the world.

Isn't this more typically older rock artists, though? I have no doubt boomers will be willing to shell out hundreds for tickets, but what are the newer rock acts that are selling more than anyone else? I don't know that statistics, I'm honestly curious.

I think it's possible we've seen the last of rock and roll being the cultural zeitgeist that it managed at various points in the past. I don't think that means it goes extinct, but I do think it means we're not likely to see a band with the cultural import and impact of something like Nirvana again.

Anders wrote:

stip wrote:

Anders wrote:The world is ever changing, and so are the ways to find and get music. We don't need MTV, it was a great asset before the internet.

Kanye West and Jay Z are modern equivalents to what major rock stars were in the early 90s, and probably more main stream, well known and richer. They are different from Pearl Jam, but not smaller.

The real question is if rock can get into that position again, not if the position exists, because there will always be megastars in the world of music. And the answer is definitely yes. Rock is here to stay, and there will be future rock stars.

the internet is, for the purposes of these conversations, exactly the opposite mechanism that MTV was. MTV controlled the music you could access, and so was able to focus attention on a comparatively smaller number of artists.


Why this did not impact other types of music in quite the same way (pop/rap) I couldn't tell you. Others could probably say more. But I don't think it is due to a lack of talented musicians out there.

I can't follow the logic of that. So it made no negative difference to pop/rap/hip-hop, but has ruined the chances of a rock band making it as big as Pearl Jam did in the 90s?

I saw Tuolumne's argument that the world has changed, but I don't agree with that, apart from that there will always be trends and certain breakthrough artists. Often due to talent, and sometimes due to other factors. We may have to agree to disagree, but I find it difficult to understand that you have sort of given up on rock making its mark in the future.

Even in 2013, the rock bands sell the most tickets in the US and around the world.

"Old" bands sell most tickets and make that worldwide not just the us.

digster wrote:

Anders wrote: Even in 2013, the rock bands sell the most tickets in the US and around the world.

Isn't this more typically older rock artists, though? I have no doubt boomers will be willing to shell out hundreds for tickets, but what are the newer rock acts that are selling more than anyone else? I don't know that statistics, I'm honestly curious.

I think it's possible we've seen the last of rock and roll being the cultural zeitgeist that it managed at various points in the past. I don't think that means it goes extinct, but I do think it means we're not likely to see a band with the cultural import and impact of something like Nirvana again.

Older in general. Cher is probably the oldest pop singer that still works and she must have sold more tickets in the last 20 years than in all her career before and she's like 70.

I don't dispute that, I haven't disputed that modern rock is mostly bad either. But it does show that rock is here, and all we need is quality.

stip wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

Mine wrote:

stip wrote:They don't capture audiences the way they used to not as a reflection of talent and ability, but because access to rock music is no longer controlled by a few coherent gatekeepers. There is no MTV, no mutually reinforcing presence of rock radio throughout the country, no handful of journalistic sources to learn or talk about new music. If Pearl Jam released Ten today it wouldn't sell 11 million copies or be the cultural event it came to be because there is likely no way it would reach enough people to become one. Rock music is now largely a niche phenomena.

How was Ten a cultural event? Aren't you exaggerating a little here? Selling 10 million copies at the time wasn't out of ordinary. Also it reached 10 million copies last year in February not in the early 90's. For the general public Ten is about as relevant as Jagged Little Pill is.

Ten's chart run was almost identical to Adelle's 21 in America, both in terms of longevity and placement...so there's that comparison. Add Vs. as the third best-selling album of 1993, as well, and you do have something.

By comparison, Nevermind was the 8th best selling album of 1992, and the black album was something like #10. Neither Nirvana nor Metallica ever showed up on a year-end chart again.

Vs. was also the fastest album to ever reach a million sales, and Eddie Vedder was a household name, or near enough to it. I can only speak to the experience in the United States, but Pearl Jam in the early 90s was every bit the rock institution that bands like Led Zeppelin or the Who probably were in their prime.

That is Nirvana now though. It only proves you how superficial this things are. Bands in the 60's didn't become big a couple of months after they were formed. In comparison Pearl Jam was a product the public liked for a while, just like Alanis Morisette was a couple of years later. I don't think you consider Jagged little pill a cultural event, or the Whitney Houston or Celine Dion albums that outsold Ten in the 90's for that matter.

Pop singer albums skewed old even at that point. It's the same reason Garth Brooks went from OMG big as Beatles to "remember him?" Cultural lasting records are a part of a different kind of ongoing story...The Monkees had the top selling album of 1967, but they weren't part of that story.