Cheers, at least someone sees what is happening. Every worthwhile new direction in modern music has arisen from ordinary creative people. Folk, Jazz, Country, Blues, Rock, Reggae, Rave, Rap, and many more. The "industry" doesn't create or advance anything. It just appropriates, sanitises regurgitates and exploits. Had past generations settled for the recycled pap now being served up, there wouldn't even be a Rod Stewart. We now have generations who have never experienced any youth driven revolutionary shift in music. That is not only sad for them, but it stifles creativity and individuality and leaves us with only these pantomimes of recycled aged performers, tribute acts, synthetic boy bands and BGT. And what happens when all the original genuinely creative artists end up in the celebrity death fetish thread. Tribute act to tribute bands and perhaps holograms of dead stars? You may well be but I would leave that dull old intellectual stuff in the ivory towers where it belongs. Popular culture need not be any less valued than whatever you might consider to be "proper" culture. In fact there is no doubt that it is more valid, touches more people and gives more pleasure to a far greater audience ****ing snob!.
There always been pop stars even in the 1920s. Some kept their audiences through the 30s, 40s and into the 50s. As you popular artists maintain an audience. Nobody knows whether all 24,000 bought Rod Stewart records. The people I know who went never owned a Rod Stewart record in the 1970s. Its very unlikely that I'd every go to a Donny Osmond concert. Even though I've heard he's very professional and is in good voice. Midge Ure also plays weird instrumentals, plays his favourite songs which are not necessarily his hits and talks about his inspiration. The guy who bought the tickets didn't want to hear all that he just wanted the hits so he walked out. How many obscure b-sides and album tracks did Rod Stewart play? What about some of his minor hits like I've Been Drinking and Cindy Incidentally? I have no problem with 25,000 old people going to watch Rod Stewart. Although old people continue to have a significant impact on record sales. We are more likely to buy physical product rather than downloads. More likely to buy full albums rather than singles. And more likely to go to concerts to hear live music. Rod Stewart was part of a very talented group of British artists that cut their teeth in the 60s and found success in the 70s. The 60s and 70s were just as full of manufactured pop as it is now. Jonathan King was no better or worse than those churned out of x-factor. The difference is that the musical community that sustained the likes of Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Elton John is no longer there.
I'm no expert on Rod Stewart, so I've no idea what was an A or B side, but he did a bit of Motown and a Hendrix and a Dylan song. Not on breakthrough acts they don't.
Maggie May was a B side. Rod has always done good covers of other people's songs as well as writing some decent ones himself.
Ironically, the one song that I knew all the words to was 'I don't want to talk about it' and that was because of Everything But The Girl's cover of it. He didn't do Gladrags, which was disappointing for my lad, as that's the only Rod song he knew.
Angel was a hit single. So was This Old Heart of Mine and First Cut is the Deepest. Forever Young may have been after I stopped taking an interest in his career so I'm not sure if it was a single or not. A great song for old people though. If the bulk of the market is old people then the record industry isn't going to spend money nurturing young talent like they did in the 60s and 70s. They put out endless re-issues of established acts and formulaic singles that are guaranteed to sell.
I don't remember the Faces doing that. They didn't nail it did they. Hendrix and his band's version was massively better than than that ****.
Always thought Chris Farlowe's was the best version of Handbags and Gladrags. He was another I saw back in the 1960s, a fantastic live performer. Only 800 there.The week after some one hit wonders appeared in front of 4,000.
You think the bulk of the music market is old people? Most music is downloaded, you think there's millions of silver surfers out there suppressing new music? This is getting surreal, I've never read so much claptrap.
Oh, the irony! It might help if you got someone to translate your epic posts into everyday English, and read them out loud to you. Or not.
"But the 45+ age group is actually the largest music buying demographic according to a Consumer Trends survey by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)." - That's not actually what it says in the report they reference (in fact, the over 45's aren't even a category they included)... http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/NPD-Music-Consumer-Profile-2015.pdf
Over 36 years account for 58% of all music buyers and 66% of all cd buyers according to that. They are the market the music industry aims to please because that's where the money is.
People over 35 are 'old people' now? The report is American, where country music and christian music account for 50% of all record sales, it's a complete irrelevance to what happens here.
Here's the UK stats for 2014 http://www.statista.com/statistics/325097/age-distribution-of-physical-music-consumers-in-the-uk/ Over 45's account for 51.5% of physical sales. Over 35's were old when I was 16. No reason to change that now I'm in my fifties.
You'd expect that, the majority of music sales aren't physical, they're downloads and the vast majority of those are young people.
