the lifespan of bands: the ever-increasing rate of attrition

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speaking mostly of rock/indie/whatever we're callling it this week - is it just me or are bands coming and going much quicker than they did up until the mid-90s or so...? there seems to be a trend that is ever-shortening the lifespan of bands. nowadays it seems to increasingly be the case that a band gets one album in the limelight, then they're torn down and their "scene" becomes passe, on to the next big thing. Coupled with the inordinate amount of time many bands take to make records these days, the rate of attrition seems to have increased dramatically. Gone are the days when you could dig into a band and see their career arc - from early foibles to confident stardom to "difficult" midperiod experiments, etc. - nowadays people seem to get one shot *bang* and then you're done. See: The Strokes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Rapture, now probably Arcade Fire... there are exceptions, but they seem to be few and far between and on *cough* major labels (Radiohead, the White Stripes). Is this just me being an old rockist, or is there an actual phenomenon here, aided and abetted by changing technology and rapid media dissemination...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:34 (twenty years ago)

Haven't the Arcade Fire only released the one album?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:38 (twenty years ago)

that's a bit of prognostication on my part there, yeah.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:39 (twenty years ago)

I think you can safely stick Interpol on this list as well, tho I'm holding out hope for them to "blossom" (as opposed to break up, or take 5 years to make another record)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:40 (twenty years ago)

has indie (or indie-ish) rock EVER been about careers? i get the impression indie has always eaten its own. mainstream rockers and metal guys and country guys, they get careers. indie guys either become uncool or become jam bands, who, like mainstream rockers and metal guys, are allowed to have careers. or something like that.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)

or, to put it another way, the strokes and the rapture and the arcade fire have little in common with one another except for the fact that they were hyped to high heaven. hype never ever lasts. so if you define a genre by the bands that have been hyped like that, of course they're all gonna burn out. though some of 'em will keep on keeping on, out of the spotlight, after the hype dies down, and no one important will notice, even though they may be making great records.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:45 (twenty years ago)

some of this definitely rings true, especially the part about bands getting "one album in the limelight, then they're torn down and their 'scene' becomes passe, on to the next big thing". I don't know how much truer it is now than 10/20/30 years ago, but it always kind of bums me out when a band, whether I like their music or not, seems to have one successful album, and then the follow-up doesn't do as well and they call it quits shortly after. I just think it's a shame when people give up that easily.

(x-post) (fact checking cuz OTM)

― Al (sitcom), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:45 (twenty years ago)

well I'm not going for a genre definition per se, just wondering out louf if this hype cycle has been accelerated over, say, the last 10 years or so.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:49 (twenty years ago)

The bands you're comparing have TOTALLY different levels of popularity.

― Fat Anarchy on Airtube (ex machina), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:49 (twenty years ago)

louf = loud
duh

I'm trying to dig back to 80s bands who were hyped to high heaven (Husker Du? The 'Mats? Sonic Youth?) but I don't feel I can comment on that with any authority - tho obviously those bands all released half dozen or more records.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:50 (twenty years ago)

yeah, good point. the scale of the popularity/hype/audience is a big variable. (xp)

― Al (sitcom), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:50 (twenty years ago)

I think another big variable here would be at what point in a band's career they peaked. I mean, the Mats and SY steadily grew in popularity for probably their first 5 or 6 albums, they didn't get all their accolades right out of the gate.

― Al (sitcom), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:53 (twenty years ago)

(x-post)
husker du started getting hyped like crazy in 1984, though the hype wasn't remotely like what the strokes or the arcade fire got. they didn't sell remotely near as many records, they weren't selling out big venues, and they certainly as hell weren't getting mentioned in the new york post. nonetheless, they were gone, kaput, three years later.

the replacements hype started around the same time, same basic deal. they were creatively dead within three years, though they struggled on for a couple more years in spite of themselves.

sonic youth became the jam band they always kinda were anyway.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:55 (twenty years ago)

but that's the thing, I'm hard pressed to think of recent bands that have been "steadily growing in popularity". Modest Mouse springs to mind, I guess, and Oberst obviously... but in general the current market climate seems to indicate a really intense boom/bust cycle for bands. You either get hyped to hot shit right off, or no one's interested.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 23:55 (twenty years ago)

SMC, the Rapture have a truly fascinating career arc!!!

post-hardcore [gravity records EP] -> abrasive prog [hymnal/31G 7"] -> DFA disco-punk [subpop EP] -> indie-house [univeral LP/CD]

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:00 (twenty years ago)

I think bands that break up and/or splinter off into side projects figure into this in a major way too. a lot of the people in these bands don't really stop making records after their initial hype/success, but continue on doing similiar stuff with a different name/lineup to smaller and smaller audiences. whereas if the original band had stuck together, they might still experience diminishing returns but would probably hold onto a bigger chunk of their original audience via name recognition (plus still playing the old hits live).

― Al (sitcom), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:00 (twenty years ago)

that's over a 4 year period!!!

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:00 (twenty years ago)

I think the secret for bands nowadays is to not fly too close to the sun. Oh, and don't be too photogenic.

― darin (darin), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:01 (twenty years ago)

I mean, take someone like Sonic Youth, who are obviously past their peak of popularity, but they still get a fair amount of attention with every new record that they wouldn't get if, say, at some point along the way they lost a member and/or changed names but kept making pretty much the same music. (xp)

― Al (sitcom), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:02 (twenty years ago)

has indie (or indie-ish) rock EVER been about careers? i get the impression indie has always eaten its own

What about the obvious: It's hard work being in a band...to really tour you've gotta pretty much give up an permanance of a career/having kids/having a marriage, etc...you almost never make any money or even break even on tours or albums....I mean, then 30 starts looming and you start to wonder what's the point? These factors probably have much more to do with bands breaking up than "indie rock eating it's own" or hype....people go to grad school, get married, get sick of living in bars, etc....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:03 (twenty years ago)

"SMC, the Rapture have a truly fascinating career arc!!!"

um no. the first time I saw them we did a show with them and casiotone and they opened with a Gang of Four cover. Flash-forward five years and or so and voila - post-punk knockoff "hit" record (which I LIKE, but they have never been a band that surprised me).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:04 (twenty years ago)

1999 -

I guess you've got a point that they had a relatively slow (4 years) ascent, but I dunno, counting all those EPs and 7"s like their some sort of "career" milestones seems disingenuous to me. Most people are only gonna know them from their first record, and *maybe* that "Out of the Gates" EP. And what are they doing now...?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

hm. can't get that link to work: http://www.shimmerkids.com/pages/show%20pages/show_10.htm

but seriously, they opened with "That Essence Rare"! They may as well have been doing that song their whole career....

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:09 (twenty years ago)

I don't think that this is a phenomenon, more likely the music industry reverting to type. The bands referred to - Replacements/Sonic Youth/Husker Du - all released (to my knowledge) several albums on indie labels before signing to majors with vastly higher influence over the press/bigger PR budgets etc. It seems that now, many bands that would have begun their careers on these indies are now signing to majors (Q - how would you define Beggars Banquet and the Sanctuary Group?) either from the start or after releasing 1 or 2 singles, with the consequent added pressure of being a success from the word go, and if not immediately successful are often dropped after one or two albums. The same goes for any major label band, regardless of the point in their career, after all didn't Husker Du only last a couple of albums on Warner? Before the indie-boom of the eighties the situation was much the same re: bands signing a major label deal for their first record and then subsequently being dropped if they flopped. It's just that you don't really hear about these bands, history is written by the victors so you are only going to hear (in the main) about the successes with lengthy back catalogues. and as far as bands with short lifespans go, the vast majority of bands, of whatever stripe, will only release one album before splitting, also take note of punk, how many of those bands signed up by majors got to release a second album, if their first sank like a lead balloon and the hype machine had moved on?

― Ben Dot (1977), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:14 (twenty years ago)

xpost:
haha, I call that whole scene "SFSU-Core"!!!

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:14 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm ...

Attention Deficit Disorder: which industry/audience has a shorter attention span - indie or pop?

(also a Shakey Mo thread)
(and we didn't really reach a conclusion on that thread)
(at least I didn't)

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:17 (twenty years ago)

haha - I are a broken record

*skip*

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:21 (twenty years ago)

maybe I'll make it an annual tradition and ask this question once a year...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:28 (twenty years ago)

Isn't another factor that bands release albums less regularly these days? A lot of the bands who I like several albums by from the eighties were popping out a new one every twelve months, and i often only like a cluster of three or four of them in a row...

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:54 (twenty years ago)

that's definitely true. a band that lasts for 5 years these days might get out only 2 full-lengths and might feel like a blip compared to an 80's band who were around for the same length of time but made 5 albums.

― Al (sitcom), Thursday, 24 February 2005 00:59 (twenty years ago)

yes but why do bands release albums "less regularly" at all? Part of it is label economics, I'm sure - the incredibly mean-spirited bitter side of me thinks another part of it is just that people are fuckin LAZY these days. Then you get someone like Pollard r Stereolab who can't stop releasing stuff and everyone tears them apart for it.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 01:01 (twenty years ago)

I know major labels encourage less frequent albums and longer album cycles, I wonder how much that is true of indie labels. I could be wrong, but it seems like since the 90's indie bands typically put a lot more material on comps and EPs, so maybe that's contributing to the frequency of albums too.

― Al (sitcom), Thursday, 24 February 2005 01:08 (twenty years ago)

Another thing is that albums, generally speaking, have loads more tracks on them these days. It's usually 13-18 tracks as opposed to the early 80's, say, when 10-12 tracks was typical.

― everything, Thursday, 24 February 2005 04:47 (twenty years ago)

Meaning that your still getting about 30-40 tracks over a 3 year period. Of course that isn't really true for the Strokes who don't seem to have many songs - or is that the point.

― everything, Thursday, 24 February 2005 04:49 (twenty years ago)

It works both ways. A lot of bands nowadays expect the big payday and all the hype/attention, because the game works that way a lot more so than 10/20/30 years ago. More media outlets, more money to be made, more at stake. Especially in the rock, or "indie" rock realm, bands in the 80s (wit ha few exceptions) probably never expected to make any real money at it, so they just kept making albums on their little tiny labels because they wanted to, and they could without being mainstream successful because they had dinky recording budgets and weren't beholden to any corporations. Sure, they probably all dreamed of making it big, but most didn't really think they would. Now, most bands expect to make it big, and when things don't go that way right away, or if they do well at first and then don't have follow-up success right away, many pack it in. In a way, it shows you who is in it for the music, and who is in it for the money, fame, etc.

― benjamin farmer, Thursday, 24 February 2005 06:36 (twenty years ago)

there is hardly more money to be made or more at stake in being a rock band than 10/20/30 years ago.

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 06:37 (twenty years ago)

I think there is, in the sense that there are more media outlets now, more avenues to get exposure, and thus more opportunities to make more money and get famous in a shorter period of time.

― benjamin farmer, Thursday, 24 February 2005 06:39 (twenty years ago)

you really think there's more money in rock now than 10/20/30 years ago?????

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 06:42 (twenty years ago)

even ignoring anything you can actually pay the rent with, the q rating for rock acts is the lowest it's EVER been - rock acts are routinely the most obscure on awards shows/talk shows, decidedly the smallest chart presence ie. in the smallest pond in the media (in terms of q ratings music acts are closer to fucking novelists than even sitcom stars nevermind movie stars)(ie. can you name a rock musician right now - who didn't relese any records before clinton's second term - who're more famous than paris hilton? or even nicole richie? PLZ - the only people who know/care about rock anymore are diehards) they're not even the biggest fish.

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 06:48 (twenty years ago)

I agree that the media exposure levels function differently now than they did just 10/20 years ago, but the $$$... I think Blount is right on that count. The days of superstar budgets are pretty much gone from the music industry, especially in terms of rock/indie.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

you have to look at it all with the '7 year cycle' theory.
being that every 7 years, a newer phase of the game is afoot, for rawk mainly. just as everyone gets aquianted with the current game, the kids delve back or the elders start making more and more homogenized albums (SY being one of the exceptions, though some would argue otherwise). you have to take the information amount into consideration.
mad media.yo.

― eedd, Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

I think because all these bands take themselves too seriously, the albums are too polished and there is no room for change based on this cultivated image of 'we are cool'. So, when the new wears off the music, it is no longer cool and so when they change, everyone feels like, "Hey, I thought you were so cool?! What happened, huh?! You big sellouts!"

― Free of Charge, Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

Blame it on the Internets.

Everything moves faster. Message boards, email, a gazillion music sites, etc. Bands are delivered faster. Based on my past purchases, Amazon.com lines up 15 records they think I should buy every time I log on there.

I think most people who like music listen to alot more of it now because its so much easier to get our hands on. If I stumble across a new band I like I do a search here and find 50 people saying band x was better for reason y, and I download them all from Soulseek. And its free. I don't ever have to stand in the record store and make a decision anymore because money isn't a concern (but I do buy records I actually listen to). There are more options now and less fan loyalty because of all those options.

And my first experience with punk and indie came with this rush of anything mainstream sucks philosophy. I don't how big of an influence that is with the kids these days, but for bands with "indie" ethics it's pretty hard to rationalize success and acceptance. Those fucking sellouts...

― Shaun (shaun), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:20 (twenty years ago)

so basically everyone has their own theory then.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

no, just a different way of saying 'I'm not really sure.'

― Shaun (shaun), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:11 (twenty years ago)

I'm with Shaun. With so many sources for new music the modern attention span is near nil. Instead of waiting for bands to develop, they get written off after their debut (Arcade Fire, already?!?) Kind of a heard-it-all-before mentality, perhaps?

Or maybe now the listener feels he's all of a sudden in the position of power/authority, no longer having to pay for music, downloading advance copies of albums months ahead of time, with no way for the artist to stop him, ranting and raving on internet message boards...

*wink*

― Yoshinorimike (Yoshinorimike), Friday, 25 February 2005 08:48 (twenty years ago)

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