Back in 1977, in a song called “1977,” the Clash railed against over-the-hill rockers who blocked the way of a new generation: “No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones!” Joe Strummer snarled.
Twenty-eight years later, Elvis may be dead, but the Beatles and Stones are very much with us.
Fall 2005, in fact, is filled with classic-rock acts. Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and the Stones are Rolling Stone magazine cover boys. Bob Dylan hovers over the cultural landscape, and Neil Young is back with a haunting new album.
And the concert box office continues to be dominated by all these white guys old enough to be grandfathers.
You’d think the wizened rockers are moving boatloads of CDs too. But the sales figures tell a different story.
The biggest album of the year is 50 Cent’s “Massacre,” with 4.6 million copies sold. Two rock albums are in the top 10, though neither of them is by a geezer–they’re Green Day’s “American Idiot” (2.6 million) and Coldplay’s “X&Y” (2.2 million), at No. 3 and tied for 5, respectively.
Hip-hop and pop artists rule the recording roost, with Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, the Game, Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas being joined by one country act, Rascal Flatts.
It’s enough to make you think the music industry is divided in two–which it is, in ways that often fall along racial lines.
“It used to be that there was a pretty good relationship between a big-selling concert act and big sellers on the charts,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert industry watcher Pollstar. “But over the last 20 years, there’s been a real divergence.”
You could go back further to the rise of disco and hip-hop in the 1970s and the advent of MTV in 1981. To rock fans, this was when music started to be about how you looked, not what you could play.
Nearly all of the oldsters doing bang-up concert business either began their careers in those pre-MTV glory days or, like Pearl Jam, make music that brandishes its classic-rock connections.
Rock bands build followings by touring, but hip-hop and pop careers are made elsewhere.
Innovation happens in the studio. Charismatic rappers blow up on the radio and MTV, then go on to be movie and TV stars. And name recognition plus a hot song do not guarantee ticket sales.
Live performance isn’t emphasized in hip-hop the way it is in rock, or, for that matter, country. Talk to a hip-hop head, and he or she will tell you stories of lame shows in which rappers, as Eminem did on tour this summer, weakly rhymed over their own records while clutching at their private parts.
The acts that consistently do huge business on the road are typically ones with a history, ones whose fans recognize the soundtrack of their own lives in the music.
Last year’s top concert grosser was a 1980s throwback: Prince. Recent Pollstar listings show Neil Diamond–not even a rocker–at No. 2 in concert tickets sold week to week, behind the Dave Matthews Band but in front of 50 Cent’s Anger Management Tour.
More Top Picks Home Electronics
And Bongiovanni predicts U2 or the Stones will top the year-end list, with McCartney nearby.
———-
Edited by Curt Wagner ([email protected])