What happened to BANDS

[mcnach]

On 08/02/2025 at 11:29, Bass4real said:

Bands have completely disappeared from the charts in the U.S. and the UK

charts are dominated by Solo performers ,

Duos , collaborations of solo performers etc etc.

IN the first half of the 80s there was 146 wks in which BANDS were # 1  

In the first half of the 90s there were

146 wks that a BAND was # 1

In the first 5 years of this Decade 

Bands had only 3 wks at # 1 

Bands writing their own songs began disappearing 

 In the late 90s / early 2000s Boy bands starting appearing  like BS Boys - N sync 

had co writer/producers and writer/producers who would write their big hits.

It also started happening in Rock music this writer/producer  - co writer/producer 

We started seeing bands like AEROSMITH who had their biggest hit ,& only

# 1 written by someone else.

In the late 90s - early 2000s ROCK BANDS were consistently having a writer/producer write their songs.

People in the know are convinced this is one of the factors that led bands into oblivion.

By 2010 it just wasn't worth signing Band

 If you go to the top 50 chart for the U.S.

It's literally all solo artists.

Out of the top 400 artists in ranking of monthly listeners .

Out of the 400 artists there were only the first group formed in the last 10 years 3 bands were created in the last 10 yrs.

The first band created in the last 10 years is Grupp Frontera all the way down at #135 on the charts.

That's less than 1% that's 3 bands formed in the last 10 years out of 400.

Sooooo 

If you're aim is to be rich and famous 

DON'T JOIN OR BE IN A BAND.

YOUR CHANCES ARE BETTER  SOLO.

enjoy the life always wondering if ya actually have. 1 TRUE friend 

I wonder if thats what  ?

That must suk 

what a shame 

 

By Rick Beato

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strange type of haiku, that.

[Leonard Smalls]

2 hours ago, mcnach said:

haiku

My favourite haiku, courtesy of the great Dr John Cooper Clarke:

 

To freeze a moment

In seventeen syllables

Is very difi

 

[Wolverinebass]

In case anyone is interested. The OP text was Richard Osman. I can't remember if it was an interview or just on a show, but I've definitely seen it.

[Bass4real]

On 08/02/2025 at 07:41, 12stringbassist said:

The OP appears to be a cut and paste that once dropped into the forum has split all of the text up.

 

Rick Beato has a point. The major companies still control the charts and the independents hardly get a look in, unless they are really organised and build up sales in advance that all count in one week when the product becomes available and ships.

 

Too many young people today (certainly not all of them, though) are going down the road of accepting what they are sold, have little sense of music history and are content to listen to the warblings of Beyonce etc.

Where are the bands? They are still hacking away at it with diminishing returns.

Nope

Don't know how to cut and paste 

I simply posted the many points in the Beato video I agree with.

A few Solo performers have extremely high quality talents.

I don't listen to them 

I'm a fan of the bands  ,original bands 

It's my personal opinion and experiences

Bands are more fun than a solo performer

 

 

[Bolo]

Weird take.

 

What are the festival line-ups the past few years?

More bands than solo artists and the soloists nearly all brought a band.

 

How many bands name themselves after the bandleader? Solo artist in name but factually a steady group.

 

The perspective is skewed from only looking at "charts". And the charts are a worthless source for information as they are just an advertising platform.

 

[BigRedX]

9 hours ago, Bass4real said:

Nope

Don't know how to cut and paste 

I simply posted the many points in the Beato video I agree with.

A few Solo performers have extremely high quality talents.

I don't listen to them 

I'm a fan of the bands  ,original bands 

It's my personal opinion and experiences

Bands are more fun than a solo performer

 

Very few bands exist where every member is equally important. Most are vehicles for the singer and/or the main songwriter and the rest of the members are all replaceable without making any difference to the feel/sound/look of the band. That makes them little different to the solo performer and their hired hands in the studio and on stage.

[Agent 00Soul]

23 minutes ago, Bolo said:

How many bands name themselves after the bandleader? Solo artist in name but factually a steady group.

 

Exactly.  And they stay together and gel like a band over time.  It’s not a thing just for the kiddies either. Paul McCartney has played with the same 3 guys live since 2001.  They don’t usually appear on his recordings, but I think it’s a real stretch not to call them a band. 

[Greg Edwards69]

I blame two things for the death of creative pop/rock music - bands or not.

 

1. Simon Cowell/Fuller and their ilk for the death of creative pop music. Yes, I know that manufactured pop has been around a lot longer - such as The Monkees - but everything changed when the audition process was combined with the burgeoning reality TV format, and the talent show format very soon after. I remember watching Top of the Pops not long before it ended and seemingly most of the artists were pop idol/pop stars/x-factor people singing covers. Indeed, my brother was in a pup circuit covers ban some years ago with some younger people - one of them seriously believed that they were going to make it big playing the same laminated set list of cover songs. And why not, when the TV and airwaves are saturated with people doing the same thing?

 

2. Streaming services (and the iPod to an extent). Rock bands used to craft albums. Some, like Led Zeppelin, for example, were "album bands" (their singles chart performance is atrocious). Growing up, I used to listen to whole albums on a regular basis, usually via my personal cassette player and later MiniDisc. The iPod came along with "1,000 songs. iI your pocket" with a shuffle mode  - instantly breaking albums apart if you so wished. Then streaming happened - just ask alexa to play a genre and she'll comply - hours of shuffled music (I'm just as guilty of this myself).  How do albums compete in this landscape - where's the incentive? Maybe they don't. A lot of bands don't make money on recording music anymore, so they tour and sell tickets and merch at exorbitant prices to break even. I remember Motely Crue saying some time ago they weren't going to make albums any more, just release the odd single.

[diskwave]

The words.." Now with home recording anyone can get a professional result"  leaves me feeling dead inside. Its that very process which has killed just about everything.  Doing it at 'at home' and then publishing means you are not accountable to anyone.... no one is gonna tell you the truth.

Unlike back in the day where in the main you had schooled producers who underestood the need for melody and musicality.. the two ingredients which make great music.  Ive actually been on the receiving end of that as a young sprog.  "Sorry lads its lacking, it doesnt go anywhere....It ain't strong enough for us. Thanks for coming in, best of luck.

[BigRedX]

@Greg Edwards69

 

1. Have you forgotten about Opportunity Knocks and similar shows? They've always been there and there have always been people who think that they are going the "make it". TBH once you stop thinking that then then you go from a vanishingly small chance to no chance at all.

 

2. Most of time there is nothing special about album in themselves. Most are simply 8-10 songs whose uniting feature is that they happened to be written and recorded around the same time. They only exist as a whole because the artist and record label say so. Besides IME there are very few albums where every single track is worth playing every single time you listen to the others. And in the days of vinyl there was no law that said when you reached the end of side one you had to flip the album over and play side two.

 

The musical landscape has changed and it would be naive to think that the rules that applied previously should still apply now. My current band when we first started recording our songs made the conscious decision that we would release each one individually as a single because of this change. It has produced some interesting results in that one of our most popular songs is one that under the "old system" of releasing albums would have been tucked away on side two and been passed over by a lot of listeners. However for the last 18 months we've been continually asked when we'll have an album out, so we are in the process of recording one, although it won't stop us from also releasing singles at the same time.

 

The OP was all about the lack of bands in the current charts. And as I implied in my previous post if it wasn't for negative weighting being applied to "back catalogue" the charts would be full of bands. It just that they would all be from the second half of the 20th Century.

Edited February 11 by BigRedX

[Obrienp]

This reminds a little bit of the 70s. There was pop music that filled the charts and there was the “underground” scene, largely dominated by bands. If you were cool, you advocated the most obscure bands possible (like John Peel). Occasionally some decent bands crossed into the charts but it was fairly rare. It was mostly teeny bopper stuff. Admittedly there were more bands involved, even in the charts but a lot of it was very manufactured. Singles buyers were in their early teens and singles got played on the radio. Real music existed on LPs and appealed to an older teen/young adult market.
 

Now we are looking back on the chart music of the 70s and deciding that actually some of the bands like Sweet and the Bay City Rollers weren’t that bad after all. Remember ABBA was pretty uncool to start off with, after all they won Eurovision! Now they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and their song writing was pretty good (in retrospect).

 

There are lots of bands around now making good original music, it’s just we don’t hear about them much on mainstream media. Also they may not look that pretty, which seems to be a number one requirement for success in the mainstream (with a few exceptions). The money has disappeared from the recording market, so it is very hard for serious musicians to make a living plowing their own furrow. We can thank the streaming services for that: music has become devalued. Somewhere along the way we forgot to teach current generations critical thinking, so they absorb the stuff they see online without challenging it: politics, fake news, influencers and unfortunately music.

Edited February 11 by Obrienp

[Terry M.]

51 minutes ago, Obrienp said:

 Also they may not look that pretty

Great post and exceptionally important point here 👏 

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, Obrienp said:

This reminds a little bit of the 70s. There was pop music that filled the charts and there was the “underground” scene, largely dominated by bands. If you were cool, you advocated the most obscure bands possible (like John Peel). Occasionally some decent bands crossed into the charts but it was fairly rare....

 

There are lots of bands around now making good original music, it’s just we don’t hear about them much on mainstream media.

 

This. There has never been much good music on mainstream/mass media. It's pointless looking there for it. You may as well dig for gold in a coal mine.

 

I remember the 70s (and, sadly - I'm ancient - the late 60s). Most chart stuff back then was unmitigated tripe, just as it is now.

[Agent 00Soul]

If you are into following non-mainstream music, especially bands, the easiest way to do I’ve found is to join the mailing list of some of the few remaining indie stores left. I especially recommend https://www.resident-music.com in Brighton for this. 

[Leonard Smalls]

2 hours ago, Obrienp said:

we don’t hear about them much on mainstream media.

Apart from 6 Music!

They have Giles Peterson with obscure jazz on a Saturday afternoon. And Craig's funk'n'soul show is filled with gems both obscure and ancient. There's even bangin' choons for da kids with Jamz Supernova's show.

Even during peak afternoon shows I've heard bands like The Residents, Goatgirl, Gillaband...

[TimR]

There are a lot of bass players here that don't know theory. That's going to lead to bass lines that don't make musical sense. 

 

The claim that McArtney and Lenon couldn't read music is often cited, but they did have a producer, and they spent many years playing covers and learning how music theory worked. 

[BigRedX]

Just now, TimR said:

There are a lot of bass players here that don't know theory. That's going to lead to bass lines that don't make musical sense. 

 

The claim that McArtney and Lenon couldn't read music is often cited, but they did have a producer, and they spent many years playing covers and learning how music theory worked. 

 

Are you sure you've posted this in the correct thread?

[Bilbo]

It all depends on what you use music for. Most people have a very superficial relationship with it nowadays. In my day, it meant everything to nearly everybody but, now, it is mostly the soundtrack to computer games and box sets.

 

Let's face it. The market is saturated and most bands have an audience that is too small to generate an income. Like all marginal activity, it is economically unviable. Musicians are increasingly a minority interest, like poets and painters. We all have our favourites but no-one is generating the kind of universal interest that surrounded bands like The Beatles, Zeppelin, Maiden etc. That's all nostalgia now. 

 

You realise we are all turning into Jazz musicians, don't you? Our audiences are just other bands waiting patiently to have a go themselves before going back to the day job tomorrow.

Edited February 11 by Bilbo

[Frank Blank]

 

[Russ]

2 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

It all depends on what you use music for. Most people have a very superficial relationship with it nowadays. In my day, it meant everything to nearly everybody but, now, it is mostly the soundtrack to computer games and box sets.

 

Let's face it. The market is saturated and most bands have an audience that is too small to generate an income. Like all marginal activity, it is economically unviable. Musicians are increasingly a minority interest, like poets and painters. We all have our favourites but no-one is generating the kind of universal interest that surrounded bands like The Beatles, Zeppelin, Maiden etc. That's all nostalgia now. 

 

You realise we are all turning into Jazz musicians, don't you? Our audiences are just other bands waiting patiently to have a go themselves before going back to the day job tomorrow.

 

There's always been "scenes" - groups of people who'd listen to certain genres of music, dress a certain way and have interests and personal/political beliefs in common with other people in that scene. Thinking metalheads, goths, indie kids, teddy boys, skinheads, New Romantics, punks, beatniks, mods, rockers, etc.

 

They still exist, but one side effect of the whole streaming revolution is that, for people who actually listen to music instead of using it as audio wallpaper, they seem to have broader tastes these days. A lot of kids listen to a bit of everything and don't feel the need to partition themselves into a "scene". Anything from metal to R&B, to West End showtunes, to video game music. They just pick and choose what they like, and this extends beyond music, to fashion, etc too. This is a good thing since it means many of the prejudices that some of us faced for our taste in music is fading, but it does kinda dilute the influence a "scene" can have on attracting its own audience, and hence how many die-hard fans they can sell stuff to. 

[BigRedX]

All the things that have made it easier to be a musician/songwriter/band member have made it harder at the same time.

 

Decent quality musical instruments have never been cheaper or more plentiful but that means there are lots more people playing music. Access to recording and video making technology is there for anyone with a computer and/or a phone (which is pretty much everyone in 1st world countries) and you can make your music available on all the streaming services for about $10 which means that there are somewhere in the region of 40,000 new tracks appearing on Spotify EVERY DAY. So while anyone anywhere could listen to your music, finding your audience and maybe more importantly your audience finding you is much, much harder.

 

What could be described as current fashions and trends are far less important than they were in the 20th Century, you can be whoever you want to be, but that means audience sizes for all those different genres are much smaller. So these days it is perfectly possible for almost any gigging band to be self-sustaining, it is also far harder than ever before (and it was never particularly easy in the first place) to actually make a living out of being in a band, even if you are also the main songwriter.

[PigBass]

Noel Gallagher (who he?) makes an interesting point here even though he rants off a bit, but the point he made was about control, it's easier for "music management" to control a single artist than it is to control a band who may internally discuss and then resist the "do this do that" pressure that is applied to them. As many have said here, there are some great bands around but just in the mainstream media view. 

 

 

[PaulWarning]

7 minutes ago, PigBass said:

Noel Gallagher (who he?) makes an interesting point here even though he rants off a bit, but the point he made was about control, it's easier for "music management" to control a single artist than it is to control a band who may internally discuss and then resist the "do this do that" pressure that is applied to them. As many have said here, there are some great bands around but just in the mainstream media view. 

 

 

Noel is usually good value in interviews

[Terry M.]

1 hour ago, TimR said:

There are a lot of bass players here that don't know theory. That's going to lead to bass lines that don't make musical sense. 

That didn't stop Pino Palladino and Stuart Zender. Both can't read dots. Zender has said in interviews he relies on "shapes". There are countless others like that and their work makes plenty of musical sense. Forgive me if that's NOT what you meant.

[Russ]

16 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

Noel is usually good value in interviews

I dislike the guy intensely. But, when it comes to the music business, he does know what he's on about, since Oasis did start very much at the grassroots level and work their way up. The problem is, they started back in the 90s when the old music business model still applied - the whole grassroots > get management > get signed > put out album on CD > tour > get lots of press coverage > repeat cycle. I'm not sure many people of his generation have acknowledged or adapted to the new reality of this streaming world. I'd be more inclined to listen to some of the younger musicians who have succeeded in the current environment.