3 ms·

> you can't control what's popular. Artists don't, but someone does.

• kerkeslager 9y ago
  Eh, I believe that to some extent. Someone decided that Black Sabbath would be more popular than The Pixies. But I don't think anyone decided that shared style of music would become popular: that was a function of sentiment at the time. From the perspective of a hypothetical overlord, controlling what people want costs money. It's cheaper to predict what people want and sell them that. Of course if you predict wrong, you have to exert some control to make sure you recoup your investment. But music isn't an industry where you have to manufacture demand, so it's cheaper not to.
• dahart 9y ago
  Yes, consumers do, they ultimately have the most control. The guitar manufacturers don't, they are the "you" I was referring to. No one person or company can reverse the decline of Rock music, the public is buying less of it over time despite large scale marketing efforts. Publishers certainly have some limited influence over which specific artists get traction through promotion and marketing. They can milk extra sales of declining genres for a while, but no amount of promotion and marketing can ever make renaissance or classical or ragtime or doo-wop appeal to the young mass pop-music consuming market again. Rock will eventually be part of that same past. No amount of money can be spent to create a new style of music that will be guaranteed to be popular. Nobody has the ability to restore the electric guitar to it's former prominence by design. It could happen organically, but it can't be forced.