| MontanaHatchet said: You the man Stickball! The sad thing is that we'll likely never see another artist ever again that is on the level of The Beatles, Elvis, or Michael Jackson. While movies continue to raise the bar in profits and videogames are breaking new records all the time, it looks like music's best days are past it. And it depresses the shit out of me. |
I don't know. I think we can have another artist or group to reach those levels - it's just not going to come in the way that we think it will.
We live in the age of the internet - songs and albums are distributed differently than they have (obviously) been for ages. The real key to a band reaching uber-status is going to be one word: longevity. If you look at the best-selling artists of all time, it's also synonymous with either longevity or a bunch of fantastic albums capped off by one specific masterpiece.
If I gave you this list, what would you think about the quality of the band(s) and albums:
- Michael Jackson
- The Eagles
- Led Zeppelin
- Pink Floyd
- AC/DC
- Garth Brooks
- Billy Joel
- Shanaia Twain
- Fleetwood Mac
- Guns & Roses
You would think that they are acts synonymous with genres (pop, rock, country) and decades (60s, 70s, 80s and 90s). Guess what? They own the 10 best selling albums of all time.
What it really comes down to is if and when there will be another band that is the definition of a decade and genre. It may be voiced differently than what we know (e.g. they may do most business over MySpace, YouTube videos and iTunes), but they will end up being *that* popular compared to some of the older bands. Furthermore, we're in transition from physical media to digital media, when tends to skew popularity between older, disc-based fans and newer download-based fans.
The problem has to do with metrics. How we define success today is different than yesterday, which presents the problem. It's not that music sucks (we have more bands in various genres reaching success more than ever), but it's the form that it takes - we can't really say how popular Paramore is compared to No Doubt which was at least popular in the last decade discs mattered. However, as time passes, we will be able to look back, as we did with Zeppelin, Floyd or AC/DC and realize they stood the test of time, continue to buy, visit or solicit their material, and they'll end up on the list of greatest acts ever. Remember, iPods get sold - not Walkman CD players, so the way we quantify popularity is different. Heck, if I'm gonna listen to music, I will either pull up a YouTube video or listen to it on my cell phone. The industry doesn't quite know (due to how old and retarded they are) how to say 'oh, they're popular because of this' because it's not always monetized properly.
Having said that, I think we've had bands within the decade emerge as pretty big artists. It may take another 10 years to sift through them and say 'man they really were that great when they were around'. I'd hate to argue them, but I really think a band like Rascal Flatts is there give than they have released 5 albums hitting multi-platinum status this decade.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
