Everyone on this board who has NOT watched the movie "Sound City" needs to make a note and check it out. Well worth your time, I promise.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Joe... I GET to rag on the old guys.
I AM an old guy, lol.
I AM an old guy, lol.
I'm not sure to whom this is addressed. Personally, I've never said that interest in guitar isn't waning. Rather, I contest this "end of the guitar" mentality. The end has been called before, fellas, and then it suddenly falls back into favor. To me, it's simply humorous to read the same comments and predictions for 30 years, with each pundit claiming accuracy when the tide goes out and guitar music takes a break for a few years.
Blah, blah, blah... I am sure I will be enjoying fresh guitar music well into old age, after that I don't care.
Here's some young players dedicated to the craft of making music with guitars...there's hope:
Audiotree.com has plenty more acts proving that there are many new acts using guitars.
Cheer up e'rebody!
Here's some young players dedicated to the craft of making music with guitars...there's hope:
Audiotree.com has plenty more acts proving that there are many new acts using guitars.
Cheer up e'rebody!
Modern country is outrageously popular right now, and it's all guitar-centered.
The little kids these days are too lazy to even play their own video games. They prefer watching some Swedish guy on YouTube doing it for them.
This article popped up in my FB feed and I just finished reading it.
The trouble MI stores are having is tied to the problem the entire music industry is having. We are witnessing a pivot in our culture away from rock and music based around real instruments. I suppose it is similar to what happened to band instruments in the 60s as people started to move away from orchestra instruments to guitars and basses. The trumpet or saxophone were probably once the electric guitar of their time. They are still in use, but people don't really think about them.
I don't know if there is any "fixing" it. When I asked my son what he thinks makes music sound "old" he said instruments. My daughter wears Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones t-shirt strictly for the graphics; she can't name a single song by either. Jazz and blues sort of ossified in the 70s, but it now seems like rock and its sub-genres are headed in the same direction. The factors are numerous- Too much bad content, changes in preferences, profit motives drying up for would be musicians, and an aging boomer audience that refuses to pay attention to anything released after 1979 or give up their stranglehold on rock "culture."
At the end of the day this may be a piece in a even larger puzzle. Listening to music is a luxury. Instruments are a luxury. Both were supercharged by consumerism in the US which is starting to wane. Malls and department stores are failing. The post-industrial WWII economy was based on the US having the only infrastructure not smashed by the war, and people with disposable buying random stuff. The world caught up and the American middle class of the 60s was a fluke. We are probably moving back to a more simple, austere economy similar to the turn of the 20th century.
The trouble MI stores are having is tied to the problem the entire music industry is having. We are witnessing a pivot in our culture away from rock and music based around real instruments. I suppose it is similar to what happened to band instruments in the 60s as people started to move away from orchestra instruments to guitars and basses. The trumpet or saxophone were probably once the electric guitar of their time. They are still in use, but people don't really think about them.
I don't know if there is any "fixing" it. When I asked my son what he thinks makes music sound "old" he said instruments. My daughter wears Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones t-shirt strictly for the graphics; she can't name a single song by either. Jazz and blues sort of ossified in the 70s, but it now seems like rock and its sub-genres are headed in the same direction. The factors are numerous- Too much bad content, changes in preferences, profit motives drying up for would be musicians, and an aging boomer audience that refuses to pay attention to anything released after 1979 or give up their stranglehold on rock "culture."
At the end of the day this may be a piece in a even larger puzzle. Listening to music is a luxury. Instruments are a luxury. Both were supercharged by consumerism in the US which is starting to wane. Malls and department stores are failing. The post-industrial WWII economy was based on the US having the only infrastructure not smashed by the war, and people with disposable buying random stuff. The world caught up and the American middle class of the 60s was a fluke. We are probably moving back to a more simple, austere economy similar to the turn of the 20th century.
The economy, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If there is a demand, someone will fill it. It's certainly not as if Fender and Gibson are the only source of instruments, or even the best source of instruments. A big shakeup might be what the industry needs.
It seems like the death of the electric guitar gets mentioned every few years ever since 1982, when Joe Jackson said, "Guitar is through in '82!" I like Joe's music, but I thought he was pretty wrong about that then.
A decrease in prominence and popularity does not seem to equal death to me. Ableton Live is definitely something that is here to stay, but one of the coolest things to use with Ableton is an electric guitar.
A decrease in prominence and popularity does not seem to equal death to me. Ableton Live is definitely something that is here to stay, but one of the coolest things to use with Ableton is an electric guitar.
when referencing those guitarists you are saying no one compares influence wise and not talent wise right?
i acknowledge you work at a school but when i attended HS in the late 90s/early 2000s there wasn't a band....not one and i graduated with a class of 800. i still somewhat live in the area and i see people i went to school with posting about all these bands their kids are in now so there is definitely more band activity in HS then there was when i was there.
im just not a fan of umbrella statements with no concrete data. are new electric guitar sales down? yes. does that mean electric guitar is less popular? no. with so many used instruments im not even sure how you could/would come to a consensus.
im allergic to anything with dave grohl in it outside of songs for the deaf
Too bad, it's a VERY entertaining movie!
Neil Young in Sound City, all by his lonesome is worth the price of admission.im allergic to anything with dave grohl in it outside of songs for the deaf
This is undoubtedly true, but here's the thing: the youngsters DON'T CARE about how great our musical heroes were. They DON'T CARE that there isn't a contemporary guitar hero. They are into what they are into. Everyone needs to deal with it.
It is pointless to compare or complain. Guitar manufacturers either have to figure how to live in this new reality--or not. Hearing them complain about it, however, is very tedious.
PS--at 58, I think I qualify as an old guy.
I would argue that it is taking longer than they thought, but it absolutely is happening.
Name a market in which rock music has gotten larger or stronger.....or even maintained....since then. L.A.? Seattle? New YorK? Hardly.
Name a LOCAL music scene here there are more....or even AS MANY....live rock music venues as there were in 1991. Possibly Nashville and that's about it. And those guys play for tips mostly. Everywhere within 100 miles of me the live music scene is on a ventilator with a weak heartbeat.
Show me the number of rock bands on ANY top 20 lists. Downloads? Streams? Track/album Sales? Ticket sales? There will be a few. But the "other side" DOMINATES in all categories.
Maybe a few legends do OK on tour....Springsteen, etc. All of the "rock gods" have to play festivals or multi-band shows (Styx with REO Speedwagon touring together for instance) to sell out shows. Up and coming rock bands pay to play because there is no money from fans in their markets.
The working "rock" musicians I know of moved to Nashville to take country music tours so they can eat. The most successful "rock" band ever from my area "went country" to hit the charts. They had a few chart hits in that market and still haven't made a career out of it. They were a rock band here for two decades. They toured opening from Lenny Kravits, Stone Tample Pilots, etc. They recorded two rock albums with major labels that never went anywhere. Now they are "country". They had spiked hair and showed their tats for twenty years. These days they wear vests and white dress shirts. Heck, even Bon Jovi, Uncle Cracker, Kid Rock, Aaron Lewis, Darius Rucker, Ween and others have "gone country". Steven Tyler (Aerosmith singer) is recording a solo country album on Taylor Swift's Big Machine record label as we speak.
The guitar is not dead. But it is not as "healthy" as it used to be.....by far. Rock music is in the waiting room waiting to see the doctor for a checkup.
Short version: Show me any proof that rock is maintaining or growing when compared to R&B, pop country and others. I can't find any but I hope you can prove me wrong.
Pbassmanca
In the pocket n' thumpy. So woody, so greasy...
Exaggerated alarmism is the order of the day. Things Wax and Wane, that's the way it goes. Before the Advent of the electric guitar the only guitars that you had were acoustic or hollow-body archtop Etc. When I go to my local music store in 2017 they still have a giant room devoted to acoustic guitars. People get paid to write articles, that's why they write them.
