Comments

Steve - I rest my previous case on The Eagles - argued long and hard on TP Blog and I was shouted down by supposedly patriotic US citzens who were eager to 'knock' your geatest musical asset....just joking guys ... no 'shouting' allowed :-)

The Eagles remain your greatest ever musical export from the States. They are loved and appreciated enormously here in the UK - they have just gone to number 1 in our UK Album Charts! I guess we have always been more appreciative of great bands ..after all we invented them ...

The Eagles - Class is permanent my friend.

Posted by Trevor Gay at November 8, 2007 10:16 AM

One of the things that we older folks can remember is the stadium bands. Bands like the Eagles, Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc could fill up a stadium with fans. Can you name one act that could do that today? Britney? The Long Tail impact is that you can get any music you want, how you want it and when you want it. I wonder if there will ever be another Eagles!

Posted by RTodd at November 8, 2007 11:01 AM

RTodd - agree with you 100% (as a fellow 'oldie')

'Fashion' is temporary, 'class' is permanent.

'I wonder if there will ever be another Eagles!'

Answer: No :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at November 8, 2007 11:11 AM

The Eagles are a Baby Boomer (70 million buyers) group - so almost anything in a non-UK-punk & non hip-hop/rap vain sells fast - even mediocre products - though I am an Eagles fan & may buy the CD @ Wal*Mart.

Trevor Gay - the USA is a melting pot of World citizens - radically diverse - so believe it or not people here are free to not like USA bands & it is patriotic freedom of speech & assembly at Eagles'/Stones' etc. venues that makes the free world great. :>}

Posted by Michael at November 8, 2007 11:37 AM

I read the story about Billboard's chart methodologies as well and also thought it very interesting. I can remember when Billboard needed to make phone calls to record stores and then assumed they were getting honest numbers from the person on the other end of the call. This happened to me in the 80's when I worked in a record store and took a call from Billboard asking what was selling. I was honest, of course.
For more than a few decades I've wondered how a song could sell a couple of million copies, but never get radio airplay and/or not show up to any great degree on Billboard's charts. This was especially the case in the 70's and for what was then called "Soul" music.
Billboard changing it's methods I don't think means the market is less fragmented or dynamic. It's a long overdue acknowledgment of buying habits. I don't shop at Wal-Mart because I don't have to. I don't want to either. But, where I grew up, it's almost the only game in town. People who shop there and buy CD's DO "count" in the marketplace and I'm glad to see Billboard finally admitted it. And I'll (legally) download that Eagles album.

Posted by nextgenradio at November 8, 2007 11:47 AM

'Michael' - wonderful to hear you welcoming and celebrating diversity - you will soon be as diverse as UK my friend :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at November 8, 2007 11:52 AM

Anytime you see reports of sales, increases or decreases, think about this from Rex Nutting writing for MarketWatch about the 13.8% increase in new home sales reported way back on April 26, 2006:
"The government cautions, however, that its housing data are subject to large sampling and other statistical errors. The margin of error is so large, in fact, that the government cannot say with confidence that sales rose at all in March. While sales were reported up nearly 14%, the margin of error was 15%."

Still love the Eagles, especially the full live version of Hotel California.

Posted by MikeC at November 8, 2007 12:27 PM

Surely bands like The Eagles managed to gain exposure in an era when the only 2 key media were TV and radio. No doubt they are class, but also they had an opportunity to exploit the limited media outlets there were. Just an example, their success became a self fullfilling prophecy as good ratings resulted in more exposure etc etc ... Now bands have to compete across all media and Wal Mart have stocked a product that meets their customers demand - how many teenagers shop at Wal Mart ? Surely they are buying on the web ? These figures aren't a reflection of who is best in the charts - just who is buying from where ? Maybe ?

Posted by chris at November 8, 2007 3:23 PM

What interests me more than this type of mega sales stuff is what bands like Marillion are doing. Big in the UK in the 80s they then went their own way. No recording contract - everything done themselves via the web. I don't know if they still do this but I heard that fans could help fund new album production and in return were listed in the credits - talk about relationships with your customers!

Posted by PaulH at November 9, 2007 2:50 AM

Marillion are still ploughing this route, but one of the more interesting stories of recent weeks has concerned Radiohead. For those who don't know, their new album came out exclusively for download only and won't have a physical presence in shops until the end of the year. Buyers could name their own price for the product (there is an admin fee to pay if memory serves me right) but it has come to light that others are looking into going down the same sales route.

Are record shops as we know them heading for oblivion? Quite possibly. The Music Zone chain of shops went into liquidation last year and a recent visit into my local branches of Virgin and HMV was quite disappointing as both had appeared to have dispensed with a few stands, not something that you'd expect in the run-up to Christmas.

What may be the final death-knell for the music business though is the relative lack of genuine talent that's coming through. Too many bland acts are coming through along with several who are trying to be original, but who are in fact sounding like acts of old. I've worked on the fringes of the music business here in the UK by managing/promoting and publicising bands and venues and as a reviewer for regional newspapers and magazines and there's precious little good new music coming through.

As one who has been known to spend a fair amount on singles, albums and CDs every month, my spending this year has amounted to buying Jarvis by Jarvis Cocker, What's Going On by Marvin Gaye, Hot Fuss by The Killers, An Other Cup by Yusuf Islam and Thin Lizzy's Greatest Hits. Just under sixty tracks have been downloaded from iTunes though, largely old stuff that I'd either been reminded of by radio plays or tracks that I'd heard once years ago and finally tracked down.

I don't have any teenagers, but my partner does and I've never seen either of her sons coming in with a bag of CDs as they download from a variety of sources or borrow any of my albums that are lying around the house. Whilst a few co-workers still listen to music, most don't apart from in a club situation, which is a bit sad really but could account for one asking me who Stevie Wonder is recently...

To slightly misquote REM - is it the end of the world as we know it?

Posted by Keith Rickaby at November 9, 2007 3:44 AM

The problem with all these, "Who needs the big, major record company" acts like The Eagles and Radiohead is that the majority of them are established acts that were built up by the majors in the first place - biting the hand that fed them, or what?! Sure, the majors have their faults (in spades, in some cases) but ultimately they're like venture capitalists: they take a chance on unknown acts, develop them and then - if they're lucky, with 1 or 2 in every 100 - they actually make some money. The successful acts might complain but what about all the debts and costs the majors write off on acts that don't make it?

Bands like the Eagles and Radiohead are very, very talented but without the support from the record companies in the early days, you wonder if they might have split and things panned out differently. Also with these two bands, they are still doing a deal with "The Man" in some way, however they might try to present it: Eagles with WalMart and Radiohead have now assigned their recent "download only" CD to a traditional record company for physical distribution.

The question will be: where are the really major, long-term acts coming from if not via the majors?

PaulH: good point about Marillion, who are one of the few bands who have really thought this one through. Like getting fans to buy in to the recording process as well.

Posted by Mark JF at November 9, 2007 3:51 AM

Steve, you already are in that marketplace - and a Wal-Mart/ Sam's Club-only Billboard #1 does no longer challenge the new business world we live in! http://www.felgner.ch/2007/11/th_long_tail.html ...

Posted by Harald Felgner at November 9, 2007 7:49 AM

Super Spawl Mart built in our town several yrs ago and I have never set foot in it, I prefer the Michigan owned Meijers right next door, however the Eagles CD is on my list to pick up this weekend.

Posted by TJW at November 9, 2007 2:05 PM

The biggest problem with music is that there is too much good stuff. To make it a buisness, marketers have to figure out a way to limit the product -
If you don't think there is too much good music, subscribe to sirius or xm satalite radio.
The most important person in rock and roll is whover it was that invented the electric guitar.
Once that happened, rock was inevitable.

Posted by frank at November 9, 2007 5:27 PM

There IS too much good music. A visit to a large folk festival is an awe-inspiring experience. The dispiriting thing is how the big machinery can invent a mass audience for dreck.

Artists like Ani Defranco have elevated themselves and their own record labels to a point where they can make a good living while keeping control of the process and the sound.

No one has mentioned Prince's tactic of giving away his new album in the newspaper in the UK and at his live shows. It will be interesting to see how it affects sales . . .

There are very few acts that can reliably fill a stadium anymore unless it is a nostalgia hit as Led Zeppelin's 2008 tour will be. The only ones with staying power at that level who are turning out regular new material are U2 and Bruce Springsteen - the latter is rumored to be playing as many as 15 nights at Giants Stadium alone next year. Springsteen is, 36 years later, still dancing with the one that brung him - Columbia (now owned by Sony).

And, if you really must get the Eagles album, try to listen to it a bit first . . . with a few rare exceptions it is pretty terrible (sorry Eagles fans, your mileage may vary!)

Posted by Greg at November 9, 2007 8:38 PM

Whether you think there's too much or too little good popular music these days seems to be a function of your age. Speaking as objectively as I can (as a middle-aged-ex-R&R-musician) I'd suggest that the quality of record production and musicianship has vastly and steadily improved over the 50 years of rock/pop but the quality of songwriting has had an opposite trajectory since the 60s & 70s. And though I enjoy a lot of contemporary rock, I'd have to say there's more innovation in the business models than in the music itself.

Posted by John O'Leary at November 9, 2007 11:34 PM

From my point of view I'd like to be an eagle. Let the world beat a path to my house! They're innovative chaps. What's with that?

Posted by tayo at November 10, 2007 2:05 AM

None other than Bob Dylan could be heard on his XM radio show that he DJ's saying that
he likes music from 50 years ago as much as he like stuff that came out last Tuesday.

Posted by frank at November 10, 2007 11:57 AM