12 ms·
How long does music stardom last? A statistical analysis
- wizardforhire 2y agoThis is worth the read if you happen upon it.
- dpee123 2y agoOh wow, thanks a bunch! I wrote this :) Cool to see this show up here.
- entropicdrifter 2y agoDid you enjoy the new Weird Al parody biopic? Seems to me that if you enjoy Walk Hard you'd enjoy the Weird Al one as well
- bombcar 2y agoAs an aside it’s interesting to note that by some metrics Weird Al is the most successful long-term musician alive.
- jtwoodhouse 2y agoThis realization is what made me get my life together. I recognized that striving for success as an artist requires you to abandon the rest of your life while counting on being an outlier, and no rational person would bet their life on that. I still make art and I still swing for the fences sometimes, but I decided not to starve and my life is all the better for it.
- tightlycoupled 2y agoright there with ya. i think you have to be a bit insane to be a musician.
- ghaff 2y agoMuch of the article really focuses on (more or less) "one hit wonders." However the intro on music biopics really hits home. It's not even just music. I find a lot of biopics suffer from fairly predictable story arcs that are constrained by the subject's actual trajectory while often not being that true to life.
- dpee123 2y agoYeah, Back to Black (the movie) was really disappointing. Wish they could have done better by Amy Winehouse.
- doytch 2y ago> Using this "cross-verified database," we find that music stars have one of the shortest lifespans of any profession, with an expectancy comparable to boxers, military figures, and race car drivers. Although according to the chart directly below, the life expectancy is more comparable to chess players and poets. Probably isn't as fun a sentence to write though.
- dpee123 2y agoYou're not wrong lol
- pvaldes 2y agoDisagree. A profession lasts for how much time you receive money for your activity. Music stars receive money for their songs during their entire lives (and part of the lives of their children).
- bryanrasmussen 2y agodepends how much you receive. If they receive the same amount of money you might expect someone to get if they are picking up cans they see laying about and recycling them then I don't think it really applies as a profession.
- pvaldes 2y agoWaiting for the yearly royalties of your songs is different than picking cans because it don't require any effort. All free money is still money. And in the long term still would be much more that a scientist receives for publishing an article. Stardom duration is also relative as you are always losing fans and earning new fans. Is more like an echo machine. A good videoclip is paid once but the people will want to watch it for decades.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago>Waiting for the yearly royalties of your songs is different than picking cans because it don't require any effort. is this one of those xkcd mentos moments here? You are not familiar with any situations where artists have been screwed out of royalties, underpaid, lied to etc. and have to spend time with lawyers to get their loyalties. Given the well known financial reporting patterns of the various media industries any artist who does not put any effort into getting their royalties is an artist who essentially does not get their royalties. >Stardom duration is also relative as you are always losing fans and earning new fans. I mean you are saying these things but they seem to go against the data in this study as well as the data provided by people who also make references to their experience in the relevant industries - do you have any data and or experience to back this up or are these just your opinions of how it must work based on reasoning about the problem using nothing but logic to derive a conclusion? Because I too would expect it works the way you say, but I would default to expertise of others who say no you are misinformed about how the situation is in our industry - discounting outliers like Taylor Swift.
- jmyeet 2y agoJust one note on Elton John's Cold Heart: its reappearance on the chart was due to a remix that featured the (very current) Dua Lipa [1]. I liken this kind of prolonged success as similary to winning the lottery twice. It happens. But it's a lot more common to only win once. With music you never really know what's going to resonate with audience. It can be a complete accident. It could be a song being featured in a movie or TV show that completely blows up. It could be used in a Tiktok that goes viral. There are many enduring artists from the 1960s through 1980s. I'm talking the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Queen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Prince and so on. In their times they dominated the airwaves in a way that doesn't really exist anymore. It's a bit like how TV used to be a shared cultural experience because it was broadcast at the same time before streaming. Non 21st century TV show has hit (or will probably ever hit) the kind of numbers you saw from Seinfeld, MASH, Cheers and the like.. Taylor Swift is obviously massive. But she's the outlier among outliers, almost the exception that proves the rule. And even though Taylor Swift has incredibly popular music, she doesn't produce enduring "hits" in the way the aforementioned artists did. Will current music have the same cultural power in 50 years that Bohemian Rhapsody or Billie Jean? My thesis is that we don't have the same shared cultural experiences anymore because of the Internet and I suspect this will make the likely duration of a music artist even shorter. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qod03PVTLqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qod03PVTLqk
- ghaff 2y ago>It's a bit like how TV used to be a shared cultural experience because it was broadcast at the same time before streaming. Non 21st century TV show has hit (or will probably ever hit) the kind of numbers you saw from Seinfeld, MASH, Cheers and the like.. I couldn't even name current scripted network/basic cable shows unless it's something that has been around forever and I assume is still on.
- dredmorbius 2y agoI can't name the networks any more.
- 2y ago
- brentm 2y agoHaving worked closely with a number of artist that achieved notable level of mainstream success (multiple Billboard Top 40 hits, years of touring) I have to agree with the authors conclusion. Even for those that have successful careers spanning a number of years it's more or less over as soon as it starts. They then spend years chasing what they had but it's near impossible. By the end most end up financially not well off and with little to no career options. It's amazing while it's happening but the candle burns quickly, that being said I doubt many artists would agree.
- paulpauper 2y agoMaybe this is why Kanye West does so many stunts and make controversial remarks, to stay relevant when the odd are so stacked
- throwup238 2y agoI think his antics could be better explained by manic episodes. He'd have stayed far more relevant if he had just stuck to his music.
- paulpauper 2y agoI somewhat disagree. Many artists who were hot in the early 2000s still put out music, but hardly any media attention anymore and much lower sales by the 4th or so album. The public only has a finite attention span. Rap has gone through so many changes over the past 20 years since his career began yet afik he is still able to put out new material and get a lot of media attention and sales for such an old act.
- wisemang 2y agoI’m not actually a huge fan of his (I think he’s a weak rapper but admit he has a golden ear for production, not to mention his highly objectionable public outbursts). But to call him an old act seems a bit ignorant, the material he’s continued to put out is a big part of some of the “many changes” seen in hip hop over the years.
- tylerrobinson 2y agoI really enjoyed this. I think about this a lot, especially with young famous artists or social media creators. How long can they sustain the act that got them famous? Will we want to see Olivia Rodrigo at age 30, 40, 50, performing her hits from today?
- BJones12 2y ago> Will we want to see Olivia Rodrigo at age 30, 40, 50, performing her hits from today? Yes, but in the form of a Vegas residency or multi-act nostalgia tour.
- nemothekid 2y agoI think ti mantain longevity for decades requires being a generational artist. It's not also about performing well, but having an certain kind of taste that can hook newer generations (while also competeting with those generations rising stars). I can't really think of any artists who really enjoy multi-generational, mainstream, success. Maybe Beyonce?
- bananaboy 2y agoStevie Wonder, maybe Herbie Hancock
- WalterBright 2y agoBee Gees
- biftek 2y agoI'd argue Taylor Swift has done it too, and to a less mainstream degree Trent Reznor who has kept his career rolling along forever. A core audience who will buy what ever you sell is key, and also not being afraid to change your style from album to album
- bitwize 2y agoYou forgot the intergenerational ur-artist: "Weird Al" Yankovic.
- the__alchemist 2y agoGreen Day + Rancid are still filling stadiums to capacity. And that is such an outlier.
- slater- 2y agoYeah but Operation Ivy is done.
- paulpauper 2y agothis is why the arts are underrated when people try to show charts of how 'STEM people' earn more. Yes, they earn more initially, but the humanities and the arts have the benefits of residuals, branding, and legacy. A top -40 hit can generate $ forever. Same for a book.
- chrisco255 2y agoA SaaS product with low churn can generate revenue for decades. The songs and books that actually last for decades with a high amount of revenue (enough to live off of) is a tiny fraction of 1 percent.
- paulpauper 2y agobut the product has to be updated , no . The song or book does not have to be changed at all.
- NeoTar 2y agoIt’s maybe less so in the digital era, but certainly before 2000-or-so so you needed to republish books and songs.
- ghaff 2y agoMost books don't even earn out their advances. While STEM covers a lot of ground, it's a lot more reliable career path than the arts in general.
- deleted 2y ago
- black_13 2y ago[dead]
- the_cat_kittles 2y agoon the flip side, improvised instrumental music (which has relatively no market or fame) is kind of the opposite- the top dogs basically stay there their whole life. but thats in terms of status, not money, which is mosty nonexistent.
- autoexec 2y agoIf all you have is "status", but no one knows who you are and most people don't care either (no market or fame) that's a very small consolation.
- the_cat_kittles 2y agoi think the respect of your peers is one of the best rewards
- thefaux 2y agoYes, I am reading James Kaplan's 3 Shades of Blue which tells the biographical story of the main players on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. It is almost shocking, even though I knew, how impoverished these musicians were even though they were widely acknowledged to be at the top of the art form. Miles did ok financially but most of his peers did not. And yet people still listen to Kind of Blue 70 years later (and hardly anyone listens to modern jazz).
- __mharrison__ 2y agoTop jam bands do quite well, but most are not played on the radio. Phish, Dave Matthews, Dead and Company. Up-and-comers Billy Strings and Goose appear to be following the pattern. But like many things content-wise, the outliers get the majority of the money. These are the outliers.
- looknee 2y agoI think this is very interesting about Billboard Top 100 artists, however there are TONS of artists and bands that have never cracked the Billboard Top 100 yet have been making music and doing live shows for years/decades successfully. I would guess/assume that these artists vastly outweigh the # of artists who have had a Top 100 song or album. While I'm sure most artists would love to have a Top 100 album or song and the associated wealth it brings, I feel many would also love continuing to create music and tour on it while making a decent living for years. Leaving out these artists in the discussion I feel skews the point of the article.
- paulpauper 2y agoAll you need is a small and loyal fanbase to make a living with touring and merch , plus you keep a greater % of revenue instead of the manager taking it
- joe_the_user 2y agoI've heard the claim you have a whole new crop of musicians making reasonable money with tours and Patreon. I'm skeptical - any references for how many. It's a bit different but I watch a lot of D&D advice youtube channels. The single most popular of them (the entertaining Ginnie D) can make a bare living at it but nearly everyone else has a day job. It's hard to believe the situation for musicians would have a different distribution of results (money made from fame just naturally follows a Pareto distribution).
- shmel 2y agoI don't know if it is really comparable. I listen to a lot of music, if any of my top 50 favorite musicians tour in my city, I don't hesitate to pay 50 quid for a ticket. For some I am willing to fly out. If Spotify didn't exist, I'd have bought many albums. But I can hardly think of a YT channel I like enough to pay money. I guess I bought a couple of online courses made by relatively popular YT creators, but that's about it.
- joe_the_user 2y ago
- AlbertCory 2y agoBillboard Top 40 is a poor measure of "stardom lasting." "Money earned" would be a better one. If they can get a steady residence in Vegas or Branson, or play the state fair circuit, they're still getting decent money. Other stars managed to move into producing or guesting on other people's records. Norman Greenbaum lived off "Spirit in the Sky" for many, many years. > "Rock 'n' roll is a young man's game" That's why Taylor Swift credits herself as co-writer of songs that other people write for her. That way she gets some the publishing royalties, which last a long time. "Change a word, get a third."
- m463 2y agoI wonder if "money earned" correlates super well. The amount of money available and the way music was pushed might have favored a few groups represented by big record labels. Nowadays with streaming and algorithms I wonder where the money goes and if it makes it to artists in the same uneven way. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-revenues-by-format/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-revenues-by-...
- khazhoux 2y agoYour metric is worse. Playing Vegas, Branson, or the summer winery circuit makes you a working musician, but no longer a "star".
- AlbertCory 2y agoYou're right, they're not "stars." They're still better off than the group struggling to gig at the local bar.
- 082349872349872 2y agoOdd, for a site named "statsignificant", that they didn't try to fit a distribution or two?
- dxbydt 2y ago> they didn't try to fit a distribution or two? Since mu is 28, and 13 is the min, you have 28-13=15 = 3*5, which makes sigma 5, so use rnorm(n,28,25) to generate n samples from the gaussian. https://www.desmos.com/calculator/mlwm7mke16 https://www.desmos.com/calculator/mlwm7mke16
- vinnyvichy 2y agoMight be purely a side-effect of avoiding damage to the site (or group) https://neurosciencenews.com/knowlege-group-welfare-psychology-27535/ https://neurosciencenews.com/knowlege-group-welfare-psycholo... (EdIT: Nth gen Weibull, NJW most recent common ancestor?? Haven't seen the paper yet but it had better reference "price of anarchy" haha )
- 082349872349872 2y agoSee also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox I think in practice these are both only second-order effects, as the uncertainty of the future*, acting as a low-pass filter, tends to force a bit of Kantian Categorical Imperative on most actors. Erich Honecker was taking a tour of East German institutions. Shown the mental institution, he said "increase their budget by 5 million marks". Shown the jail, he said "increase their budget by 10 million marks". Shown a few kindergardens, he said "increase their budget by a thousand marks". — But, Chairman Honecker, why so little, when you gave so much to the others? — Do I look like a Depp to you? What are the odds I'm going to wind up in a kindergarten? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_91hU6LDjoA&t=94s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_91hU6LDjoA&t=94s * compare ὄλβιον / εὐτυχέα.
- vinnyvichy 2y agoSeems like it, though could be worth reading the paper to see what they might have missed (OR not missed but we did).. well I'm going to.. (Edit: do we still love the RS? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240358 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240358 Pps Re: lagniappe.. Don't worry it's just the adrenalin.. the terror will come to me soon, you can bet on it, I shall prostrate and undignify myself and fugget abt it all lol
- merciBien 2y agoInsightful article, music celebrity is fascinating. I have a musically-gifted friend in her twenties who got a full-time job singing and playing in a band in a live-music nightclub, she's the only musician I've met who plays music for a living, without a non-music side gig. Her own band has never toured and has a tiny instagram presence, she seems happy with that.
- kasey_junk 2y agoI have a friend who has been a working musician with no side gig for over 20 years. He makes money in a wide variety of small band types (pipe & drums for funerals and parades, Jimmy Buffet cover bands for festivals, jazz groups for events, etc). What I take from his experience is that the things that make him successful are the same as many other jobs. He’s dependable, competent, on time and has a large professional network.
- merciBien 2y agothat's good to hear! I always wonder when I see a band playing a live gig how they're doing. My friend's bandmates are very creative, but struggle with the professionalism part.
- HPsquared 2y agoIt's kind of cruelly ironic that a jobber artist needs to be very strong on "business qualities", while the stereotype is that artists are bad at those things.
- dxbydt 2y agoI know of atleast three software engineers who quit programming to pursue music fulltime. This lady[1] got a Computer Science degree from UC Berkeley, as even an intern at one of the faangs I believe. Quit the whole thing and caught a flight to India. She's sung about 100 songs now and is quite famous. This guy[2] got a Computer Science degree and worked as a Visual Basic programmer. Also wrote some FoxPro and Clipper code. Was working at Leading Edge in those days. Quit software and started singing. Has sung over 7000 songs. Very rich, 9 figures. This guy[3] got a PhD in Computer Science and wrote an algorithm to reduce non-standard matrices to approx Hermite Normal. Wrote a bunch of NLP papers, even published in a pure math journal! Then quit software and started writing songs. Has written over 1000 songs now. Very busy songwriter. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manisha_Eerabathini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manisha_Eerabathini [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankar_Mahadevan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankar_Mahadevan [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhan_Karky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhan_Karky
- khazhoux 2y agoThis applies to any ultra-bright success and not just music, no? I was briefly a "star" in silicon valley for a project I did. Random people at conferences knew who I was and would smile when they met me. But the years roll by and despite a nice career, I understand that work is now forgotten and my (real) name will never be in the press again.
- NBJack 2y agoIt sounds like you still had a day job independent of it. It's probably a great highlight on your resume that is celebrated when brought up and opens doors. For most artists, this kind of fame sustains the day job. Loss of fame means loss of royalties, tours income, etc. We even have a somewhat derisive name for it: the one-hit wonder.
- khazhoux 2y agoI marvel at the one-hit wonders who pivot into behind-the-scenes mega success. Linda Perry is a top example. Had a minor early-90s hit with 4 Non Blondes What's Going On (title is actually "What's Up?"). Then exited the spotlight and became a songwriter and producer with major hits like Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful." Or Ashton Kutcher, who parlayed earnings from his Kelso role (plus a few forgotten movies) into an gigantic pile of money courtesy of angel investing in Twitter and more.
- bitwize 2y agoSharona Alperin, a real estate agent in California, uses her fame as the subject of The Knack's song "My Sharona" to promote her real estate business. https://mysharona.com https://mysharona.com
- ilamont 2y agoKind of curious about Tommy Tutone's programming career. It would be cool if he had an HN account! What's interesting to me is the nostalgia boom for artists who either kept going or reunited, and the crowds now are far larger than what they were back in the day. The Pixies filling a 5000 person venue? Morrissey with a Vegas residency? I don't think either charted on the Billboard Top 40. I knew a musician who was a star overseas, and during the 90s could regularly sell out large venues. He packed it in after about 10 years. To him it really was a grind, there were diminishing returns as his core audience grew up and moved on, and he was operating in a relatively small market. He ended up doing real estate and business development in a second country where the economy was booming, and had a moderately successful career doing that. He doesn't seem to be interested in performing anymore.
- nolamark 2y agoNot Tommy Tutone's, so less a direct connection to the article, but I love the tech career of James Williamson of the Stooges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Williamson_(musician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Williamson_(musician) "In 1997, he was hired as Sony's vice president of technical standards; in this capacity, he liaised with competitors and helped to codify nascent industry standards, most notably the Blu-ray Disc" I remember shopping at record store in Claremont, CA in early 80s and finding all these rare Iggy and the Stooges albums. Clerk says Williamson comes in the store every now and then and brings in more, and that I should check back from time to time. I shrug and think nothing of it. Turns out he was going to nearby Cal Poly Pomona and graduated in 1982 with an EE degree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMHStOPPte0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMHStOPPte0
- vermilingua 2y agoAnd of course Rivers Cuomo of Weezer has a github https://github.com/riverscuomo https://github.com/riverscuomo
- soperj 2y agoI've had an HN account for years! (kidding, but fully expected there to be a reply saying exactly this, and disappointed there wasn't).
- larkinnaire 2y agoThis feels like a question that would really benefit from talking to some musicians, instead of basing your framing on biopics and data. Some musicians are in it to be rich and famous, and become computer programmers when riches and fame leave the picture, but most of them are musicians because they like writing and playing music more than anything else. I'd bet that Of Monsters and Men is perfectly happy to make an okay living off of their remaining fanbase, because they still get to tour and make new albums. They might be even happier about it if they could get a second hit, but there are so many musicians who have never had a breakthrough hit, who make a happy living opening for other bands, meager royalties, Patreons, etc. Basically, this post assumes a causal link between chart success and life satisfaction that probably doesn't exist.
- vizzah 2y ago"If you're reading this and thinking to yourself, "What's Of Monsters And Men?" then you've proven my point." Not proven, sorry. Actually prefer their other tracks, like 'Empire', from the 2nd album.
- whatevertrevor 2y agoOr Organs, or Mountain Sound, or Dirty Paws. That point didn't land with me either, especially since I discovered Of Monsters and Men in 2018.
- niccl 2y agoThere's the 'long tail' aspect to ephemeral stardom and what people get from it. Most musicians I know (and I know a lot from the local music scene) want foremost to perform. Money and fame would be really great, but getting up in front of an audience is what they most want to do. A lot of 80's and 90's bands come through the 200-500 cap venues where I mostly work. People like Midge Ure, Nik Kershaw. They're still happily performing and touring despite (as far as I know) not being in Billboard top 100 for some time (tm) So the fact of having been super-famous once and then not again is probably disappointing but not crushing, and no reason for other people not to try for the 15 minutes of fame
- WalterBright 2y ago> I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would aspire to become a mainstream music star Perhaps the author should check out the song with the lyrics "money for nothing and chics for free." Quite a number of musicians are open about being in a band makes for easy sex.
- AlbertCory 2y agoThis isn't exactly music but an adjacent career: acting. About 20 years ago, I was in the chorus for a community theater production of La Boheme. The director was a moderately successful Hollywood actor, Ken Tigar, whom you've probably seen: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0863024/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0863024/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 AFAIK he's never the star, but he continues to get acting gigs, because as someone said about a musician: he shows up, he hits his mark, he doesn't cause any problems for the director. He's a professional, in other words. So I have a lot of respect for the musician who might or might not have had a hit record, but they know their craft and they take it seriously.
- nox101 2y agoI don't know if this is relevant but your post reminded me of Keith David. I don't know if he's ever been the star but he's been in something like 378 movies https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0202966/?ref_=tt_cl_t_2 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0202966/?ref_=tt_cl_t_2
- HideousKojima 2y agoI'd say he at least co-starred in They Live, which also has the single best street fight in cinematic history: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dN8Z7y_QcwE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dN8Z7y_QcwE
- underlipton 2y agoRarely the intended star, but steals the show regularly, especially with his voice-over work. He's well-known as Goliath's voice in Gargoyles, was pretty much everyone's favorite part of The Princess and the Frog, and recently took a ton of people by (pleasant) surprise with his interpretation of Pluto (Astroboy)'s Dr. Tenma.
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoNow there's a man who knows how to have a stable acting career!
- AlbertCory 2y ago
- nonameiguess 2y agoI think you're missing an enormous part of being a musical act if you're only looking at Billboard chart placement. My wife and I have made a hobby of going to concerts and festivals for the past few years. Just in the last three years, we've seen KMFDM and NIN multiple times, Tool, Madonna, Judas Priest, Kreator, Queensryche, Slowdive, Echo and the Bunnymen, Metallica, Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Filter, New Order, Ministry like five times. We've got Slayer, Weezer, and Flaming Lips coming up in the next couple months. I have pretty badly wanted to see Massive Attack, Juno Reactor, and Spiritualized, but their tours never hit the US. Some of these were multi-generational megastars. Some of them charted once or twice 30+ years ago. Some of them never charted at all. All of them have devoted fanbases and they sell out venues. Some of these are 80,000 seat arenas, some are small clubs with standing room only, but they're all enough to sustain the band for decades. You don't need to be on the Billboard top 100 to make a living. A whole lot of fans continue to be fans and will love you their entire lives regardless of whether a single one of your songs hits the mainstream ever again or even if you don't release new material at all. KMFDM thankfully does release new stuff damn near all the time (now 40 years of conceptual continuity), but my wife and I met at one of their shows. We've gone to see them every single time they come within 100 miles of us ever since and we always will. They're a far more important part of our identities than Icona Pop is to the casual radio listeners that sung along to their one popular song for a summer and then forgot about them.
- punk-coder 2y agoI have a friend that is the drummer in a band that had a couple big hits in the 90’s, not going to drop names, but their contemporaries are bands like Collective Soul, Gin Blossoms, that kind of stuff. They have a few gold records. To this day they still tour every year and make enough money off touring and royalties to make a good living. I grew up on punk and thrash metal, so had never heard of his band, so it surprised me how close to 30 years later they still get booked at Disney and on rock cruises, but happy he still gets to keep doing that.
- golergka 2y agoOnce you get into a heart of a teen, you remain there for the rest of his life. Many bands well past their peak have a revival of private bookings now, as people who were teens back then become rich people who can book a band for a party.
- verisimi 2y ago[flagged]
- pvaldes 2y agoBoth. There are a lot of fascinating women in music also. But is a valid point
- Gettingolderev 2y agoHe wrote it from his perspective. come on...
- agentultra 2y agoJust do it because you love it. I know plenty of people who went for it. Had fun. Some went on to become programmers even when it was all over. Doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing, rise-and-fall type of story. Aiming for hits is a sure fire way to burn out. Even in programming, maths, making video games, films, books… don’t compare yourself to others and don’t look at the stats and think, why bother? As long as you’re surviving and not throwing away your life or those lives that depend on you or care about you… just make music. Doesn’t have to be top 40. Just make the stuff you like and as much of it as you want.
- bitwize 2y agoAgain, my mind goes back to that bike shop manager: "Just... fuckin' ride, man."
- realkiddredd 2y agoThis is kinda bullshit. He’s basing everything in his “analysis” on having a “hit.” There are many working musicians who sell seats and make a good living, and many stars who have toured their way to success without ever having a Billboard hit.
- Struyck363 2y ago[dead]
- verisimi 2y agoI'm surprised to read so many comments that think a 'natural' phenomenon is being described. As with famous actors, it seems to me that certain faces are heavily promoted for some reason, and others are not. Certain people get endless publicity. The attention they get from the public is due to time they are gifted on TV, in newspapers - its not a natural phenomenon. Eg Elton John and Madonna have got some good songs, but are they that good to merit the limelight they are given for so many years? And if you take anyone really, but give them access to the best producers and musicians etc, surely you will come up with lots of hits that would be associated with that act, even though the talent is in the group?
- bezier-curve 2y agoI think they're talented, but they got their rise in a time when social mobility was generally easier. Once entrenched in popular culture, it becomes a matter of maintaining momentum. Digital music production has democratized discoverability, while people's attention spans remain the same.
- Struyck363 2y ago[dead]
- rob74 2y ago> Throughout this analysis, I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would aspire to become a mainstream music star—to achieve professional success that bears a near-immediate expiration date. I think this quote demonstrates that the author hasn't really understood what they're writing about. Many musicians (especially those that have only one hit, or even no hits at all) simply make music because it's what they love to do. If enough people are interested in them for them to be able to make a living out of it, that's enough "professional success" for them. That's the reason why many bands stay together (or artists stay active) for decades after they had a top 40 hit. If they were just chasing stardom, they would have probably given up after a few years. For example, this band I went to see a few weeks ago in Cologne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INiKwU2JPF0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INiKwU2JPF0 (the concert recording is not mine) - they were pretty big stars in the nineties with two hit albums (and a James Bond title track), then had two less successful ones, had a fallout with their record company, went on hiatus, then reformed in 2012 (with the original lineup!) and since then had three more albums (recorded in their own studio, published by their own record label) which were critically pretty well received, with a fourth one apparently on the way. Most people probably don't even know they're still around (or rather, around again), but as long as their loyal fans keep listening to their music and going to their concerts, they're happy...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chiefalchemist 2y agoLike most everything else, "success" falls under the Pareto Principle (aka 80/20 rule). That is, unicorns are rare and most are (naturally) bunched around the middle of the curve. People knock one-hit wonders but that's not easy. Any band with longevity was at one time with only one-hit in hand. Get that "hit" (product). Figure it out from there.
- jollyllama 2y agoBy the time you play the Super Bowl half time, you're already past the peak.
- underlipton 2y agoI came to the realization a bit ago that musical stardom is essentially a finishing school for a personal brand. Most of the extremely successful artists seem to use their career as a springboard to some other venture; your time touring and putting out albums is more about networking and showing that you're dynamic, poised, attractive, etc. Basically, that you're qualified to be the "face" of something else. If you don't seize that once-in-a-lifetime marketing opportunity... Well, it's once-in-a-lifetime. You should essentially have some plan ready to go the moment you realize your name is on everyone's lips. Fashion partnership, acting gig, merchandising deal, something.
- cmpalmer52 2y agoA friend of mine is a wonderful musician who never “made it”, but continues to play bars and restaurants and small venues weekly, as he has for 30+ years. He’s done some session work as well. Another friend said he feels bad for him because he never lucked into greater fame, but he’s too good to give it up. As long as he’s happy performing, I don’t see this as a bad thing. I can go see him perform regularly, he seems happy, he has a dedicated local following.
- PepperdineG 2y agoI watched The Beach Boys live at county fair a few years ago, which it was the official band but basically a cover band since most of the originals had moved on or passed on. The main headliner Beach Boy actually talked about why he was still on tour, like he mentioned that he drove a Bentley...he wanted to maintain the style of living that he had become accustomed to. Certain musicians/bands can be even more successful even if they're not at the top of the charts anymore, like multiple bands make more money now on tour than they did when they charted. I kind of disagree with the premise due to this in that you can be more successful not charting new songs, but touring with past hits to your now more-affluent fan base. The Rolling Stones for instance have a lifetime tour gross of over $2B. I think it's like the ultimate musician longevity plan where if you have one or more iconic songs that are part of culture, you can make a good living touring for as long as you're willing and able to tour, perhaps even making more touring your hits than when you were charting.