UK guitar sales at £100m high

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5281620.stm

Sales of guitars in the UK have topped £100m for the first time - indicating the revival in rock music is getting ever stronger.

Nearly one million guitars in total were sold in 2005 - 200,000 more than 2004 and double the number in 1999.

Music Industries Association (MIA), which compiled the figures, said guitars are now better value.

"The popularity of the guitar in the UK is clearly going from strength to strength," said MIA chief Paul McManus.

In total, 470,000 electric and bass guitars were sold in 2005, and 520,000 acoustic guitars.

The MIA said that while there was an 11% rise in sales, the price of guitars had actually decreased because of an influx of cheap guitars from China.

In all, 50% of British male musicians now claim to play the guitar, while there are four million guitar players in the UK.

The sales coincide with a resurgence in guitar-based rock music in recent years, with albums by groups such as Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs all having extended runs in the charts and taking multiple awards.

So when does the "rock is dead" stuff start again? 2007?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:22 (nineteen years ago)

In all, 50% of British male musicians now claim to play the guitar, while there are four million guitar players in the UK.

And nearly ALL of them want to play something 'tasteful...with class, you know what I mean?'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

i live on a ground floor flat, and for the last two years the upstairs was unoccupied. blissful it was.

and then these guys moved in, and one of them has a guitar, and he sings 'waterloo sunset' and whatnot.

END guitar BlIGHT NOW.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:28 (nineteen years ago)

In all, 50% of British male musicians now claim to play the guitar

Is the percentage of female musicians who play guitar not worth reporting then?

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

i wonder how piano sales are doing

boogie woogie's not dead, dammit

xpost YA RLY

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

50% of British males believe that women get driven into fits of passion by you going "Wait, wait... I can get this chord.... hold it... fuck" whilst trying to play "More Than Words"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:31 (nineteen years ago)

i had an acoustic guitar. it *is* very hard holding all six strings down. i got a bottleneck thing, didn't really help.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

You play a guitar by bashing it over your amp. Didn't your mother teach you ANYTHING?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

The old instruments have still got it, y'know. I have 'inherited' as it were my dad's left-handed Westone Thunder I bass, an instrument at least 20 years old and still in peak condition (played right-handed, interestingly, with the strings therefore the wrong way around). Second-hand guitars should in theory be there for any musician, but sadly it seems that these venerable crafters of harmony have been consigned to the rubble-heap.

― Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

if you put enough overdrive, you don't need to hold all six strings down !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

1 million guitars and still only the same twelve fucking notes. Cunts.

― NickB (NickB), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

does this cover keytars too?

I have a ukelele.

I can't play it well cause my fingers are too big.

My amp is used more as a subwoofer these days.

That makes it sound as if i play electric ukelele. That would rock! maybe.

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

Overdriven balalaika, with shoegazers effects-pedals

― Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:42 (nineteen years ago)

you have a formula for the new-new-new-wave to front the NME !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:53 (nineteen years ago)

demand for CD-J decks at PIONEER stockists have been so great that they don't have enough supplies to cope.

"I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars."

and all that jazz

― pisces (piscesx), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:57 (nineteen years ago)

yes that's right guitar losers, keep the strummer/drummer ratio at 100000000000000000000000:1

― The Real DG (D to thee G), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

You could always invent the 'guitar machine'.

― Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:03 (nineteen years ago)

surely science has made synthetic reproduction of the slap bass sound now 100% accurate.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:14 (nineteen years ago)

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the feedback solo.

― Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

there is a violin machine... why not a guitar one?
The violin machine plays a violin with a bow, not synthesised nor nuffin.

"Sir, can I interest you in a Van Halen 4.6, it's the latest model and will sit discretely in your corner until you feel you need some rock action."

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.factory-overseas.de/images/Fact204_au.jpg

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

vini reilly = android

― Scourage (Haberdager), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:32 (nineteen years ago)

MIA said that while there was an 11% rise in sales, the price of guitars had actually decreased because of an influx of cheap guitars from China.

nice to see her name in the news again

― mr. brojangles (sanskrit), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

surely guitar sales growth would need to be indexed with other growth as well (CD-Js, Technics, MIDI equipment etc. | orchestral instruments | ??) - it could be that there is massive interest in making your own music and guitar sales are just naturally reflective of that, while also lagging behind other instruments

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

It could be that fat rockist journo scum like writing stories about ROCK IS BACK.

― Pier Paolo Semolina (noodle vague), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

It's maybe worth noting that guitars are being increasingly marketed as lifestyle accessories, i.e. things you just buy and look at rather than actually really play. This is maybe a small part of the market though.

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway, before we worry about guitars we need to lobby for a licence on bongoes.

― Pier Paolo Semolina (noodle vague), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:34 (nineteen years ago)

Right I'm putting 10 quid on there being a picture in a daily national in the next 2 weeks of Dave Cameron with a guitar. And a risky 5 quid on Gordon Brown playing bongos.

Odds would be good on John Reid announcing the Controlled Musical Instrument Act 2006 draft legislation soon maybe?

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:38 (nineteen years ago)

no! bongos should be given out free at the age of majority, like complimentary gillette sensors.

xpost

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

Do you not have a big "hippie fucking students playing loudly and arrythmically in the park on a Sunday afternoon while people are trying to relax" problem in the US, tracer?

― Pier Paolo Semolina (noodle vague), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

Although I guess if they were handed out at 10 some of the fuckers might have learned to play them by the time they reached the age of majority.

― Pier Paolo Semolina (noodle vague), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

there is a lengthy "package" on BBC news 24 about this right now. a lot of it has involved archive clips of status quo. ten minutes and counting. absolute fucking DRIVEL. quoth the anchorwoman: "and in the eighties the keyboard was the big thing, wasn't it?"

and people wonder why i loathe the BBC with such a passion? GIVE ME MY LICENCE FEE BACK NOW. :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 25 August 2006 07:57 (nineteen years ago)

'animal nitrate' man weighs in

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Friday, 25 August 2006 08:06 (nineteen years ago)

omg, we have news 24 on rolling loop in our office, and if this feature comes back i don't know how i'm going to stand it. what horrible sounds guitars make.

i liked it better when news 24 had a rolling interview with beyoncé about her weight loss, and every so often 'deja vu' would come on.

― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 25 August 2006 08:13 (nineteen years ago)

Hey grimley, join my campaign to have the BBC abolished!

― alext (alext), Friday, 25 August 2006 08:15 (nineteen years ago)

ha ha read between the lines of that Bernard Butler article:

my 1960 Gibson 355, which cost me £4,000 in the early 90s - I wouldn't be able to afford it now

Because I am so rubbish no-one will buy my records

I work at Edwyn Collins' studio -

Making the tea

- I'm sitting here now

Because I've got no home to go to.

If you want to learn, my advice is to buy the Smiths back catalogue and learn it and let it set you on fire.

And then you can be a loser like me!

Fuck off grandad.

― alext (alext), Friday, 25 August 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

there is a violin machine... why not a guitar one?

There is, or rather was, one - the Gizmo, invented by Godley and Creme circa 1975:

http://www.othermachines.org/blint/images/gizmo.jpg

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Friday, 25 August 2006 09:04 (nineteen years ago)

Fuck Bernard Butler, if he'd learned to play his 335 like Steve Howe instead of Johnny Marr he'd be like 1,000,000 times better, and he'd probably still mean shit to people, instead of hawking his TIRESOME, OLD r&r back2basics theory in teh guardian.

Also, science created the perfect slap-bass replicat0r, the DX7, back in '84, I think?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 25 August 2006 09:08 (nineteen years ago)

buy the Smiths back catalogue and learn it and let it set you on fire.

Set me on fire! Morrisey!

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 25 August 2006 09:21 (nineteen years ago)

Bert Jansch [an acoustic folk legend who inspired Jimmy Page, among others] grew up listening to this canon of Scottish folk songs and when he made his first record he had to borrow a guitar to do it because he didn't own one

I'm not sure Bert Jansch [an acoustic folk legend who inspired Jimmy Page, among others] did grow up listening to a canon of Scottish folk songs - he's certainly avoided playing too many of them throughout most of his career! Also, worth pointing out that Bert, unlike Bernard [an indie guitar player who inspired no-one of any note], certainly had guitar lessons

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Friday, 25 August 2006 09:22 (nineteen years ago)

I think he wants Johnny Marr to set you on fire (xpost)

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Friday, 25 August 2006 09:23 (nineteen years ago)

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