80s bands now the only way to fill venues

James Brown · 10-10-2018 08:07PM

Young folk and their hip hop, am I right?

I remember many moons ago the Irish musical Illuminati having a discussion on RTE about how now that home recording was accessible we'd be flooded with all kinds of bands, like it was a bad thing. Shower of d*cks. It's not like we don't get reams of 'the next big thing' forced on us weekly by industry musos and press hacks.

Anesthetize · 10-10-2018 08:17PM

Whenever this topic crops up, people usually point the blame at the music itself. As if human beings have stopped being creative when it comes to music.

Few people focus on the fact that there are less people today controlling what gets heard by the masses. For example, in 1998 there were 6 major record labels. Now because of mergers there are only 3 (Sony, Warners, Universal). Less people controlling the market is going to lead to an element of stagnation.

rossie1977 · 10-10-2018 08:52PM

eviltimeban wrote: »

Britpop is the last "movement" I can think of, perhaps the "garage rock" early 00s but that didn't really breakthrough. It's not like the Datsuns ever had a number one!

Probably nu-metal. But it seemed to fizzle out rather quickly after a few years.

Your Face · 10-10-2018 09:03PM

Sometimes up and coming bands don't do themselves any favours.

I knew a good few bands and musicians that were very talented but their attitudes were poor.

No manager or record company would want to deal with them.

Lyle Lanley · 10-10-2018 09:14PM

Yamanoto wrote: »

Some talented bands mentioned there.

What irks me more is nostalgia alone seems enough in & of itself to transform what was utterly anodyne crud like Westlife into pure gold 15 years down the line.

Westlife were selling out massive arenas in their prime, they're coming back next year and they'll do the same again.

grindle · 10-10-2018 09:30PM

Lyle Lanley wrote: »

Westlife were selling out massive arenas in their prime, they're coming back next year and they'll do the same again.

That doesn't negate the point tbh - nostalgia is the reason they'll sell those arenas. Same for most poppy legacy acts. People who now have more money than sense & loved an act when they were 10-15yo may hop a nostalgia bandwagon to check it out. Grand.

Their music was fairly awful, it contributed nothing to the world of music only $$$ to some corporation, it's subsidiaries and partners & warm fluttery feelings to young girls who're older now and seemingly want to relive that and maybe have a laugh with their now-35yo mates about how dim and gushy they all were.
Which is fine, let them all give and take money. It's musical backwash. It's not something any musician will aspire to or even listen to if they actually want to leave a legacy, it's what they'll aspire to when they see easy money being made in a market that wants more of the same and a terribly low barrier for entry.

demanufactured · 10-10-2018 09:34PM

The problem is what joe soap considers to be great music,
I don't consider Coldplay to be great , they are good...but far from grwat.
Joe soap likes ordinary music, ordinary isn't good enough...I want extraordinary, bands like COG, karnivool, Mastodon.

I don't want to hear the latest "song" by some x factor wannabe pop star.
I want to hear the next amazing piece constructed by someone who gives a ****.

riclad · 10-10-2018 09:36PM

Young people use youtube ,or other websites to listen to music or watch videos.
Its as easy to listen to kpop or latino music as it is to listen to american hip pop or pop music.
I do,nt think its the fault of the record companys,
any one can put up songs on youtube or facebook at zero cost .
Maybe young people have phones ,consoles, satellite tv,
theres so much competing for everyone,s time and attention.
IF you get a million views on youtube a record company will sign you
up, or you can put your music up on soundcloud.
When i was a teen a group would have to appear on tv , top of the pops,mtv, etc in order to get into the charts ,
you could only become a success with a record company promoting you
and sending your cd to radio stations .
The nearest thing to a movement is singers becoming international stars
just from using youtube or other websites .

BTS a korean pop group is in the american charts now because all their
videos are on youtube or other websites.

rob316 · 10-10-2018 09:39PM

You have be an actual good sounding live act to fill a stadium and there is really very little out there that can. The big nostalgic rock bands have the presence and character to fill these but sadly that's a dying breed.

Music is so disposable these days too, bands just don't have that longevity. Stadium shows are so expensive production wise, an arena is cheaper.

thesultan · 10-10-2018 10:01PM

grindle wrote: »

sameoldname wrote: »

...how many times has a band from the last 15 years made you say "Wow!" when listening to their stuff. Very few for me...

Of course, it could be because I'm in my 30's now...

This is particularly depressing - the past 15 years have been phenomenal for music. Many many acts have made me go "Wow!" since 2003.

Arctic monkeys and fleet foxes for me..

thesultan · 10-10-2018 10:02PM

The best artist out there now is Paul Weller and he is sixty.

eviltimeban · 11-10-2018 10:30AM

thesultan wrote: »

Arctic monkeys and fleet foxes for me..

Fleet Foxes
Fr John Misty
Tom Misch
Band of Horses
Warpaint
Gaslight Anthem
Haim
Ty Segall
War on Drugs
The Internet
Sigur Ros
Kiasmos
(Thee) Oh Sees
This Is The Kit
Vampire Weekend
The 1975

All more recent acts that have made impressive albums, though even some of those have been around for donkeys years.

Littlehorny · 11-10-2018 05:25PM

Lyle Lanley wrote: »

Westlife were selling out massive arenas in their prime, they're coming back next year and they'll do the same again.

Westlife to me are what McDonalds is to food. Sure they both sell millions but that doesn't mean its any good! :P

James Brown · 11-10-2018 05:37PM

Littlehorny wrote: »

Westlife to me are what McDonalds is to food. Sure they both sell millions but that doesn't mean its any good! :P

Shane lost his arse at the building..now they've 'more to say'

Some Swedish lad has more like.

They have those reality shows like it's hard to find new artists, when it's all about the advertising and phone charges. Then you get the usual culprits, fat lad with reasonable voice singing soul, mammy's boy country fella and so on. Bland conveyor belt stuff.

leakyboots · 11-10-2018 05:48PM

Interesting debate...

I've posted on here before that I don't subscribe to the view that 'music isn't as good as it was back in _____' - it's just that now we're saturated with methods to find it, but if you only engage with day-time radio prepare to be met with the same stuff day-in day-out. There's so much choice - YouTube, Spotify, Bandcamp, Deezer, iTunes, GoogleMusic, Amazon, Mixcloud... thousands of Podcasts online... that's before you get to ol' fashioned radio shows.

The good music is out there, it's just a bit harder to find. I've a few go-to podcasts/(online)radio shows (there isn't a single Irish radio show worth listening to for music in my opinion, but maybe that's just my own taste) that I listen to.

Mainstream pop/radio music has been filtered so much it's unrecognisable as to what band is who. But it's not hard to scratch the surface and find the good stuff (if you consider what's on the radio to be crap... each to their own, whatever floats your boat).

There has never been so much music to get through. I listen to music up to 8-10 hours a day, every day, because I'm able to with work/life etc and I still feel like I'm not listening to enough

As to who'll headline in 20 years time... The Rolling Stones of course!

leakyboots · 11-10-2018 05:49PM

thesultan wrote: »

The best artist out there now is Paul Weller and he is sixty.

On his 14th(!) studio album since finishing with The Jam... heard a couple of tracks, great stuff as usual!

Grandeeod · 11-10-2018 05:58PM

leakyboots wrote: »

On his 14th(!) studio album since finishing with The Jam... heard a couple of tracks, great stuff as usual!

On his 14th studio album since the style council.;)

Greyfox · 11-10-2018 07:41PM

leakyboots wrote: »

I've posted on here before that I don't subscribe to the view that 'music isn't as good as it was back in _____' -

Yes there's good music if you look for it but nothing in the last decade is in the same league as Guns n roses, Oasis, Beatles, Queen, M Jackson, Fleetwood Mac etc. Amazing music that will still be played in 100 years from now is no longer been produced by anybody

silverharp · 11-10-2018 08:07PM

i'd have the impression that music isnt as important to younger teenagers now then back in the 80's, for boys in particular, watching gaming and other channels on youtube has higher priority

Anesthetize · 11-10-2018 08:19PM

Greyfox wrote: »

Yes there's good music if you look for it but nothing in the last decade is in the same league as Guns n roses, Oasis, Beatles, Queen, M Jackson, Fleetwood Mac etc. Amazing music that will still be played in 100 years from now is no longer been produced by anybody

Are you talking the same league in terms of album sales, or in terms of your own personal musical enjoyment?

Firstly, if somebody isn't willing to include artists who haven't sold over a million or so albums among their favourite artists, I struggle to take them seriously.

Secondly, those artists you've mentioned have had the benefit of time putting their music into perspective, acquiring legendary status (perhaps undeserved), and also the element of nostalgia. Music released within the past decade has not been around long enough to be put into that sort of perspective. Give it another two decades and reassess.

nlrkjos · 11-10-2018 08:32PM

Going to Rod Stewart next May, not my favourite but he does a good show..also the Cure, seen them many times, great music. There are some good groups out there but like someone said earlier you got to find them..Crow Black Chicken are good.Unless they are a rock/blues band at a live venue I tend to associate new groups with those tools Cowell and Walsh and x-factor, mainly because they have radio saturated with tripe !!!! Good radio is Planet rock, you get a lot of new music there but mostly Uk/US.

Wrongway1985 · 11-10-2018 08:47PM

Greyfox wrote: »

Yes there's good music if you look for it but nothing in the last decade is in the same league as Guns n roses, Oasis, Beatles, Queen, M Jackson, Fleetwood Mac etc. Amazing music that will still be played in 100 years from now is no longer been produced by anybody

I gather amazing music from this era will be played in 100 years all you need is one person on earth to press play really?

As music is indulged differently certainly in a country like Ireland masses of people are not on the same wavelength as they could be in the past it looks less likely for bands to gain traction like those did whether they were music to your ears or not.

sameoldname · 11-10-2018 09:06PM

Anesthetize wrote: »

Are you talking the same league in terms of album sales, or in terms of your own personal musical enjoyment?

Firstly, if somebody isn't willing to include artists who haven't sold over a million or so albums among their favourite artists, I struggle to take them seriously.

Secondly, those artists you've mentioned have had the benefit of time putting their music into perspective, acquiring legendary status (perhaps undeserved), and also the element of nostalgia. Music released within the past decade has not been around long enough to be put into that sort of perspective. Give it another two decades and reassess.

I don't think he was giving an exhaustive list, just a few examples.

But he has a fair point, those bands were huge at the time (maybe with the exception of Fleetwood Mac, I'm not sure) and in a lot of cases transcended not only genre, but age group as well. CCR another great example of that.

A lot of the contemporary music that's been mentioned here isn't listened to by the majority of today's youth, never mind any other demographic.

Tastes may change, but great music is still great music. It must be one of the hardest skills in any art, to make something appealing not only to people who are dedicated to the art-form, but to the casual as well.

Even within a niche, the quality levels of current music are way down. Metal for example, has as a genre, been completely flogged to within an inch of its life, and yet yes, if you look, you can still find some quality tunes. Nowhere near the older stuff though.

grindle · 11-10-2018 11:20PM

I don't understand the fascination with music appealing to casuals. It can be good for the band's and/or record company's wallet but it doesn't mean anything. It probably works well as a gauge, maybe the music's been dumbed down or given a glossy makeover - plenty of early Metallica fans were and still are disgruntled that Metallica shifted from thrash to the s/t record.
This thread could be retitled to "Why are some older people obsessed with stadium gigs?" and the thread would have followed the same path.

What is the obsession with stadium gigs, sales figures and wanting every teen to coalesce to the same sounds? Genres grow branches. Many scenes can exist. Kids are still going out to see great live music all the time.
Given the choice I'd rather be in a 1000-capacity crowd listening to this than at Slane listening to this.
That's my personal taste, I wouldn't give out about anybody who wants to see Metallica at Slane cos it'll be a cracker of a show but there's not an innate need for some band to reach that stature again. It was their initial innovation, mid-career radio-friendly sound-switch and a healthy dose of good luck and timing that has them headlining Slane. If they'd never ditched thrash and made those 90s heavy rock albums they wouldn't be playing there at all, it'd be as laughable as Slayer or Converge headlining Slane.

sameoldname · 12-10-2018 12:01AM

grindle wrote: »

I don't understand the fascination with music appealing to casuals. It can be good for the band's and/or record company's wallet but it doesn't mean anything. It probably works well as a gauge, maybe the music's been dumbed down or given a glossy makeover - plenty of early Metallica fans were and still are disgruntled that Metallica shifted from thrash to the s/t record.
This thread could be retitled to "Why are some older people obsessed with stadium gigs?" and the thread would have followed the same path.

What is the obsession with stadium gigs, sales figures and wanting every teen to coalesce to the same sounds? Genres grow branches. Many scenes can exist. Kids are still going out to see great live music all the time.
Given the choice I'd rather be in a 1000-capacity crowd listening to this than at Slane listening to this.
That's my personal taste, I wouldn't give out about anybody who wants to see Metallica at Slane cos it'll be a cracker of a show but there's not an innate need for some band to reach that stature again. It was their initial innovation, mid-career radio-friendly sound-switch and a healthy dose of good luck and timing that has them headlining Slane. If they'd never ditched thrash and made those 90s heavy rock albums they wouldn't be playing there at all, it'd be as laughable as Slayer or Converge headlining Slane.

No one is saying that all bands should be massively successful or that being massively successful is the sole measure of artistic merit. Being into lesser known artists or more challenging music isn't being attacked.

What people are asking is why there is such a lack of equivalent bands from this era of music.

Rothko · 12-10-2018 12:18AM

sameoldname wrote: »

What people are asking is why there is such a lack of equivalent bands from this era of music.

The industry has completely changed. The internet is the main reason for that.

Greyfox · 12-10-2018 12:32AM

Anesthetize wrote: »

Are you talking the same league in terms of album sales, or in terms of your own personal musical enjoyment?

Firstly, if somebody isn't willing to include artists who haven't sold over a million or so albums among their favourite artists, I struggle to take them seriously.

Secondly, those artists you've mentioned have had the benefit of time putting their music into perspective, acquiring legendary status (perhaps undeserved), and also the element of nostalgia. Music released within the past decade has not been around long enough to be put into that sort of perspective. Give it another two decades and reassess.

Im talking musical enjoyment. I never said they were my actual fav artists and in any case music sales/popularity is always a factor in measuring greatness, its not the only factor but its idiotic for anyone to pretend it doesn't count. Yes what you say has helped older music but been perfectly honest I very rarely hear people getting passionate about recent music. When you talk to people about films, tv series or games people rave on about recent stuff but with music at least 90% of the time it's about old songs.

Wrongway1985 · 12-10-2018 12:58AM

Greyfox wrote: »

Im talking musical enjoyment. I never said they were my actual fav artists and in any case music sales/popularity is always a factor in measuring greatness, its not the only factor but its idiotic for anyone to pretend it doesn't count. Yes what you say has helped older music but been perfectly honest I very rarely hear people getting passionate about recent music. When you talk to people about films, tv series or games people rave on about recent stuff but with music at least 90% of the time it's about old songs.

This is nonsense, you cant get musical enjoyment from new music because the people you're surrounded by don't talk about it??

grindle · 12-10-2018 09:39AM

Rothko wrote: »

The industry has completely changed. The internet is the main reason for that.

Precisely this. More bands, more scenes, more methods to digest new music, less monolithic tribes of people who go on 5-10 year binges of a certain genre. The scenes nowadays are much more fluid.

People have been having these misgivings about new things for decades - look at Miles Davis vs Wynton Marsalis! Miles had itchy creative feet and saw new pastures to graze from and contribute to, Marsalis treated him like he was a Blue Note Judas.

Nowadays experimentation is seen as a given, having Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington and Kendrick Lamar collaborating is seen as a big deal but for good reasons rather than bad.

Greyfox wrote: »

I very rarely hear people getting passionate about recent music. When you talk to people about films, tv series or games people rave on about recent stuff but with music at least 90% of the time it's about old songs.

This is definitely down to the people you talk with and if you're not contributing new finds to the conversation it has to do with yourself as well. Maybe life is getting in the way - this is usually responsibility/child-related.
Any friends I know with kids have strayed from keeping their finger to any pulse and think the music they heard from 15-25 is some kind of golden age. All the friends without kids have a huge appetite for new art. If people don't have time to consume art due to responsibilities it's unfortunate but predictable. I make playlists for those friends & they stay updated with what's going on while at work or whatever.
Getting out of a rut is easier work if you have somebody guiding you, otherwise you have to put in time and energy in that should probably be spent stopping a 6 month old from inadvertantly topping itself or bringing a 6 year old to one of a vast array of "activities". I remember my activities being "get out of the house and be in before tea". Nowadays kids are wasting their time if they're not getting some kind of after-school cert for landscaping or becoming proficient coders.

seamus · 12-10-2018 10:01AM

I'd like to interject here with a short essay about suvivorship bias and why it leads people to believe that "music/TV/art was better when I was young".

Think about all the mainstream stuff being played today. In fact, here is last week's top ten
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/

In a years' time, probably 6 or 7 of those songs will still be getting regular airplay. In five years' time, 3 or 4 of them. By 2030, you might hear two of them every now and again on a "classic hits" station. (I'd go with George Ezra and Calvin Harris)

Expand that out across the year and across the decade, and what happens is that you forget about the crap. You forget the other 8 songs because you haven't heard them in 10 years. When you think of "songs from 2018", you only remember the "classic songs" that are being played.

Thus, compared against the current chart, it feels like there were more classic songs written in the past; that everything which came out of a particular era was pure gold.

Case in point, here is the top fifty from this week, fifty years ago:
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19681009/7501/

Look at that top ten. Two of those bands would still be household names - The Beatles and Status Quo. Even then I imagine plenty of people under 30 would have no idea who they are. The rest are names mostly lost to time.

Only one song that your average Joe would recognise and that would get any airplay - Hey Jude. The rest of the songs, which were at one point "mainstream" and no doubt playing everywhere that they could be, you don't hear any more. They're gone and forgotten.

I've no doubt someone will go, "Hey, I know who Mary Hopkin is!". But you're in a minority. She was a one-hit-wonder, the "rubbish, manufactured pop music" of her day.

This is the survivorship bias - you focus on the songs which "survived" from that era as being representative examples of the whole. When they're not. They're the best of the best from that era of music. 99.9% of the music produced in the 60s, 70s & 80s was at the time also considered "bland rubbish , incomparable to the brilliance of the past", and as a result we don't hear it any more.

80s bands now the only way to fill venues

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