Times Online – October 25 2006:
Kurt Cobain is now the world’s top-earning dead celebrity after beating Elvis Presley into second place.
The estate of the former Nirvana frontman, who committed suicide in 1994, brought in an estimated £26 million last year, beating The King by over £4 million, according to a study by Forbes magazine.
Elvis, who has topped the rankings for the last four years, was toppled after Cobain’s wife sold a quarter of her stake in the singer’s back catalogue.
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Your economics lesson for today, die early and you to can be a success in life.
No, that’s “Live fast, die young, and leave a drug-riddled corpse for your family to feed off for decades.” Jeez, get it right huh?
“i wonder, will cobain be the last rock-n-roll icon?”
We could hope, but I have a feeling the powers at be will keep releasing at least one “new” Jimmy Hendrix CD every year until eternity.
What’s wrong with having a rock&roll icon? Or are you talking about the merchandising of an icon. That we could do without, that’s for sure.
But let’s face it, rock is pretty much dead. It died years ago. When I was growing up, there were protest songs everywhere. Where are today’s protest songs? Oh, what’s that…you say something political and then WHAM you get death threats and are vilified. Don’t you DARE speak your mind unless it follows the party line.
Now it’s just crap. It’s all hip-hop where it’s no use trying to get into someone because they’re gone tomorrow. To hear critics and fans these guys come out with some ground-breaking CD, then are never heard from again. There’s really no chance in hearing someone grow musically because they come out with one CD, then leave the industry.
Before, you could chart a band like The Beatles…from first album to last and see how they grew. Same with Led Zeppelin or Miles Davis or Frank Zappa. The list goes on and on. Name a band started like 5 years ago and have released 5 CDs since then…and I’m talking quality CDs. Bands today seem to put everything into their first CD, then have nothing left to continue. One trick ponies.
What’s the big thing now? It was Eminem…but he’s gone now, and I doubt you’ll never hear from him again. Where’s the longevity? Where’s the growth as an artist?
Name a band started like 5 years ago and have released 5 CDs since then…and I’m talking quality CDs. Bands today seem to put everything into their first CD, then have nothing left to continue. One trick ponies.
Not their fault.
For a LOT of reasons, bands tend to make NO money off of their first hit album; bad contracts, naiive management, and just the excitement of getting signed at all tend to leave most of the profits in the hands of the record company. Which means… in most cases, it’s simply easier for the record company to subtly abandon the band and find a new act with a similar (identical) sound that they can exploit for the next big thing.
There are exceptions but not many.
“Or are you talking about the merchandising of an icon.”
Yep, that’s what I was talking about.
“Before, you could chart a band like…”
Adding to xrayspex’s comment, the problem with letting an artist grow is that the artist demands more and more money. They it finally gets sick of having a label and will simply set up its own.
Like xray said, why allow that to happen?! It makes much more sense to keep a revolving door of starving musicians than to have any one get big enough to demand to be paid fairly.
Like xray said, why allow that to happen?! It makes much more sense to keep a revolving door of starving musicians than to have any one get big enough to demand to be paid fairly.
But thinking like that, we wouldn’t have had albums like Revolver or Physical Graffiti or even Kind of Blue.
If we didn’t allow the Beatles to grow as artists, we would have only have had “Love Me Do” for example. But record companies aren’t looking at this as art or thinking of the future…all they want is to line their pockets with cash while standing on the backs of artists.
Maybe the rock icon should fade away for a few years. This way, the up and coming rock artists won’t have anything to aspire to. They won’t be “dude, we have to be rock starts like Mick and Keith and get tons of cash and get the chicks”. Maybe they’ll go with the self-publishing over the web and grow as artists….though not having an experienced producer helping guide them, they’ll have an uphill battle. For example where would the Beatles have been without George Martin?
We’ll see what happens.
“But thinking like that, we wouldn’t have had albums like Revolver or Physical Graffiti or even Kind of Blue.”
Why would the music industry care about quality?! Their sole concern is profit. In fact the president of Europe’s version of the RIAA was asked about how song writers are almost always screwed over by the music industry. He replied that the need for song writers is totally over-rated. That the sole reason a song becomes a hit is marketing and nothing else.
As far as the current music industry is concerned they might as well be selling widgets. The idea of forming a label because you love music is dead.
It’s the same with radio. People used to run radio stations because they loved music. Now it’s a pure business.
But let’s face it, rock is pretty much dead. It died years ago. When I was growing up, there were protest songs everywhere. Where are today’s protest songs?
Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, John Fogerty, The Eagles, CSNY, Bob Dylan, Allman Bros. are just a few of the acts I’ve seen recently that are standing up and speaking out. Old school bands, yes, but I bet some the younger bands are standing up too. But you do have a point about new bands not lasting long. Cobain, I think, would still be kickin butt if he hadnt burned up so fast.
I thought the Rolling Stones would have garnered the best selling dead artist crown.
#12…Mr. Fusion….your on a roll today Fusion…..lmao
>the sole reason a song becomes a hit is marketing
Sounds right to me. Just plug someone in, put them on lots of covers, TRL, etc., call them ‘hot’,’cool’ and whatever, and they become famous, and people will buy the CDs.
“Off the top of my head, here are a few modern acts you might wanna check out…. There is great music out there. To find it, first, turn off your radio.”
But you’re proving the point. Most of these artists don’t get on the radio. Most of them do not have hit CDs. They exist despite the music industry, not because of it.
#16 –
Maybe 12 artists on my unscientific list have had top 40 hits, it’s true… Beck being pretty notable with multiple hits, and Radiohead who’ve put a pretty good crack into the mainstream.
But, the Dandy Warhols, to name one, have not only managed to squeak out two reasonable hit singles, they’ve also managed their career so that they own their own means of production and are not dependent on the studio to ply their craft.
The radio has ALWAYS sucked. The music industry has never been about music. In 1969, The Velvet Underground was not in heavy rotation on stations around the country. A list of bands who released debut albums in 1977 wil include Depeche Mode, The Talking Heads, and The Simple Minds whose career making hits didn’t come until the mid-80s as a result of the emerging college radio market and connection to movie soundtracks.
Bauhaus, an underground goth/punk band with a minor footnote of a hit (Bela Legosi’s Dead) in like 1981, enjoyed not one, but two successful reunion tours in 1997 and 2000. Air Supply did not.
You can’t find a musician today who didn’t like The Smiths in the 80’s, and you won’t find a radio station who played them. Good music is like the dinosaurs on Jurassic Park… You know… Frog DNA, life will find a way…
You are right about studios. They are usually wastelands, where creativity goes to die. Spears and Timberlake are just manufactuered brands… Even Madonna, as middle of the road a talent as she is, at least created herself without the excessive handling of a studio. In many ways, it is worse today, like you all are saying…
But all those bands I listed have one thing in common. They can all pick up their own bar tabs, so I figure they are doing something right. Many of them helped pack the Austin City Limits Festival or the North By Northwest… A few were on Lollapalooza… Most of them can sell out clubs in any of the 20 largest markets, and do respectable business elsewhere.
I know I’m rambling, and I apologize, but I love these and many other bands…
Finally, the thing these guys have going today that that never had before is global communication and the Internet. Local radio is dead. Satallite radio and the Internet and MTV2 and other specialized niche markets allow these acts to get everywhere. In 1983, my friend’s brother in New York had to mail a cassette tape to us in rural Ohio so we’d learn about New Order. We were grateful because Styx sucked. Today, we just point and click and all the music of the world is available. So you can be a working musician today in ways you never could before… and THAT is killing the old industry and painfully birthing the new industry.
Agree about the industry, disagree about no good rock today.
American Idiot? That’s a great flippin protest record…Coheed & Cambria, Nickelback, Avenged Sevenfold, then new stuff by Korn, RHCP, and lots of others.
This is where satellite radio shines. I’ve got 15 channels of rock to choose from on my computer while I’m here in the office
goofing offworking like a dog.#2, why so bitter 😛
#18 –
I’ll bet you mean 15 channels of rock that are not all the same 🙂
By the way, it’s going a few years back to 2002, but if you haven’t heard it, pick up an album by McClusky called McClusky Do Dallas.
Yeah, 15 channels of different stuff, most of which will never be on any radio station where I live. And several of the channels play unedited versions…so when “Crazy Bitch” or Puddle of Mud are on I hafta run to the volume control. 😉 I’ll look through my kid’s stuff for McClusky.
And don’t forget that the younger generations are realizing that Elvis is the greatest thief of black music ever.