Only 25% Of 2007’s Top Live Acts Were Under 30
The LA Times put together a nice Forbes-esque review of musicians who made the most money in 2007, and the results are frightening. Not just because record sales were off 15% last year, or the concert industry fell about 10%, but because of the artists on their list, and more importantly, those artists’ respective ages.
The “winners” were, in order: The Police, Josh Groban, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw / Faith Hill, Hannah Montana, Rascall Flatts, Celine Dion, Bon Jovi, Rod Stewart, 
the Eagles, Genesis, Bruce Springsteen, Toby Keith, Carrie Underwood, Dave Matthews Band, Billy Joel, “High School Musical 2″ and Linkin Park.
Of the artists and bands above, only 6 are (or are fronted by) people under 30: Groban (26), Timberlake (26), Miley Cyrus (15), Underwood (24), “High School Musical 2″ (Starring Zac Efron at 20 and Vanessa Hudgen at 19) and Linkin Park (members all in late twenties or early thirties).
Now, you could make the case that for marketing purposes, Rascal Flatts (all members over 32) and Dave Matthews (41) could all be included in the above group…
because a large percentage of their ticket and record buying market falls in the under 30 age group. But by the same token, the average age of somebody buying a Hannah Montana ticket or High School Musical CD is probably well over 30 (gifts*),
and the target market for both Josh Groban (Oprah watching housewives,
to horribly generalize) and Carrie Underwood (American Idol fans, as
well as country fans, who aren’t as age-focused as pop music buyers)
undoubtedly swings older than 30 on average. So four of twenty is being
“accurate” for my purposes (target market assessment), and six is being
generous. That makes the following statement important and very scary:
Only about one fourth (four, maybe five, possibly six out of
twenty) of the most lucrative artists in the music industry last year
were under 30, or were marketed primarily to buyers under 30.
Why is this scary? Everyone keeps saying
“thank God The Police put their differences aside last year” or “lets
hope Led Zeppelin does a full on world tour next year”. Sure, this is
great for now, but it ignores the 800 pound gorilla in the room: these
guys aren’t recording anything new, and eventually, the Zeppelins, the
Van Halens, the Billy Joels and Paul McCartneys and Mick Jaggers of the
world will not be able to tour any more. Or their fans will be too old
to climb the steps in the arena. Or big box retailers will stop carrying CDs altoghther,
and these older acts targets audiences will stop buying their music
instead of venturing online. Or all of the above. And when this
happens, music is in serious trouble.
The long tail is largely to blame here. When these old bands came up, they were the entertainment. Their concert was the thing going on in any given city that night, their appearance on a late show was the
thing to watch that night (think The Beatles on Ed Sullivan). Now,
there is just too much going on at any given time to get that sort of
attention. From Wikipedia:
“The long tail is the colloquial name for a long-known
feature of some statistical distributions… In these distributions a
high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a
low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually “tails off”.
In many cases the infrequent or low-amplitude events — the long tail —
can make up the majority of the graph, and the majority of the area
under the line.”
Consider this… When The Beatles made that famous Ed Sullivan
appearance 1964, there were only 3 options available to most viewers
who turned on the TV that night; CBS, NBC (finally at that point mostly
in color) and ABC. 73 million people tuned in to see The Beatles… that is half as many as last year’s Super Bowl.
Today, I turn on my TV and I’ve got 150 stations, several dedicated to
music. Yes, the major networks are still there (and still have a lot of
the great content), but I will inevitably be drawn away at some point
by ESPN, Comedy Central, HBO, the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet. And
that’s if I even turn my TV on… I might head to YouTube instead. Or I
might break out my Xbox / PS3 / Wii, or watch a DVD. These things
simply were not options in music’s heyday.
Now apply the same long tail across all entertainment, and how it
affects music purchasing habits… A 17 year old kid has 50 bucks to
blow, or one cool request that will be granted for his or her birthday…
Is he going to go for that Fall Out Boy ticket, or will he opt for the
wildly popular Halo 3? Will it be a new CD, or the new Harry Potter
movie? A $50 hooded sweatshirt at a concert, or a couple of equal
quality at Pac Sun or Old Navy?
The average amount of expendable dollars people under 30 have hasn’t
kept up with the amount of ways to spend it since that Ed Sullivan
appearance. Some kids are inevitably going to choose movies or video
games or whatever else. But music, recorded and live alike, needs to do
something to remain a competitive choice, or it’ll continue to
see 10 and 15% drops every year. Concert tickets need to come down in
price, as do the merch and concessions — a Red Hot Chilli Peppers
hooded sweatshirt should not cost 5 times what one from Old Navy costs,
and a Miller Lite shouldn’t be marked up 6 times the second I step in
to a venue. It scares people away. Additionally, recorded music
can’t continue to cost a dollar a track — it would cost my brother over
$30,000 to legally fill his new iPod at that price; he’s going to fill
it for free instead, I’m sure.
There will have to be sacrifices, in artist signing guarantees, in
record label CEO paychecks, and more, but common sense (and experience)
tell me that if that Miller Lite is $3 instead of $6, than I’ll buy
two. And if that ticket is $30 instead of $50, a few more of my buddies
might come with me. And while we are there, a few of us might drop
some money for the privilege of wearing your logo on our chests,
provided the opportunity cost isn’t sacrificing the next two weeks of
groceries. And in the process of selling all this stuff (at
slightly lower prices, sure, but more of it) you might just make some
new fans. We’ll walk out of the show with a good taste in our mouths,
and we’ll tell our friends. And then, maybe a few of us and our
friends, now also fans, will spring for the merchandise over the video
game, or the live concert DVD over the Transformers on Blu-Ray.
And maybe the next time Josh Groban or Justin Timberlake or Linkin
Park are in town, we’ll think back and remember that great shirt we
bought for a decent price, or all the beers we shared with friends, and
we’ll want to go again. And hell, the ticket isn’t a rip off, so we
might as well buy the new tracks too, so we can sing along, right?
*Silver lining alert: Disney is training a generation to enjoy the
concert experience (and to appreciate recorded music) with its High
School Musical / Hannah Montana / Jonas Brothers stuff (turning anything any of them do
in to big news for tweens and their adult keepers alike). And while I
don’t believe any of those artists will be around as this group’s
musical tastes mature, its possible their desire to participate in this
stuff will live on. Hopefully there will be something left to buy at
that point.
andrew’s the one ignoring the gorilla in the room –the ages of these artists prove that since most everyone steals from the major labels, that the labels can no longer afford the the time & investment to develop serious new artists– music fans that don’t mind paying are now punished by those that won’t – as much as most folks want to say that labels are obsolete, i’m hard-pressed to name more than one or two bands that have hit it big without a label
Great post Andrew.
@ Barrym: If your logic held, wouldn’t there be a slew of popular bands between the ages of say… 30 and 50? 10 years ago, nobody was stealing the music! How come the “big” hits (in the touring world) are all 50+ years old?
Where are the artists from before 1999, when napster started all this stealing? The record labels gave up on putting together a long term, concerted effort in building an act long before filesharing punished them for it.
As someone who spends most of my time booking live music, I have to say that I wonder if the day of the new longterm mega-star is almost over.
Sure there will always be celebrities and short term hits, but with diminished labels, fractured media and short consumer attention spans its hard to imagine how you could sustain super-stardom in the future.
I did a quick check to see what it was like in 1998 to see the pre-Napster effect. Guess what? Not ONE of the top grossing artists were under 30. The youngest artist was Celine Dion (she turned 30 in March of ’98) – but she probably played to the oldest audiences. Well, except for Yanni.
Older artists have the advantage – they’ve built up their audiences over decades. And just because a younger artist isn’t in the top 10 doesn’t mean they’re hurtin’. I’m sure that John Mayer, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, and a whole bunch of other 20-somethings are doing just fine.
Here are the top grossing artists in 1998:
Elton John was the No. 1 grossing act of the year, pulling in $40.7 million at 51 years old.
The remaining top 10 grossing acts were: Yanni ($40.6 million, 44 yrs old), Eric Clapton ($34.4 million, 53 yrs old), Garth Brooks ($33.9 million, 36 yrs old), Janet Jackson ($32.3 million, 32 yrs old), George Strait’s Country Music Festival ($32.9 million, 46 yrs old), Dave Matthews Band ($31.3 million, 31 yrs old), Celine Dion ($29.5 million, 30 yrs old), Shania Twain ($29.2 million, 33 yrs old), and Aerosmith (28.1 million, members were in their late 40’s or early 50’s).