| NoOneButYou1975 30.03.2004 13:28 |
Thought this was interesting, and relevant From USA Today: Jamie Horton, 14, considers himself a fairly savvy music-loving teen. The Los Angeles ninth-grader trawls the Internet for rock discoveries and totes an iPod packed with 3,000 tunes. The complaint about many modern albums is that many only contain one good song and a lot of filler. So kids are turning to classic rock, where the whole album is solid. His favorite band? Queen. Not late-'90s rock outfit Queens of the Stone Age, not late-'80s metal band Queensryche and certainly not latter-day rap diva Queen Latifah. Jamie reveres the glam-metal British quartet that flourished in the '70s with mock operatic Bohemian Rhapsody and the anthemic We Will Rock You. "I don't like new wannabe punk like Good Charlotte," he says. "Led Zeppelin was the first old band I liked. Then Pink Floyd. Now it's The Who and Queen." One contemporary band that he does appreciate is U.K. sensation The Darkness. Why? "They're similar to Queen." Jamie is not alone in his obsession with the sounds of the '60s and '70s. Though difficult to quantify, the trend of youngsters craving oldies seems to be gaining momentum. Kids are snatching up Beatles and Led Zeppelin discs, flocking to ZZ Top and Steve Miller concerts, researching the troubled histories of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Black Sabbath and scouring their parents' record collections for Jimi Hendrix licks and Allman Brothers Band jams. "I could be some of those people's grandpa," singer Gregg Allman, 56, says of his band's current flock. Celebrating its 35th year of touring and recording, the Allmans just wrapped up a nine-night stand at New York's Beacon Theater after releasing new double live album One Way Out. "We see kids out there, and we still have hippies," Allman says. "I don't see a gap between generations. It's all ages, all types. Kids usually say, 'I found out about you from my dad.' Or they ask for an autograph for their mama. That makes you feel dated, but we welcome them with open arms." Wed to a rootsy blues-rock tradition, the Southern group never pandered to a younger demo, and Allman suspects it's that purity that drew teens to the fold. "To last this long, you have to be the real thing," he says. "I don't have any gimmicks or fancy clothes or firecrackers. That stuff never crossed our minds. Genuine rock 'n' roll — the right phrasing of a drum beat and a bass guitar — can move your soul." Allman and brother Duane, who died in 1971, found their direction by searching for the roots of music that flowered in the '60s. "We wanted to see what we missed, so we found Robert Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy," he says. "That's what kids are doing now, seeing where stuff came from." 'Yeah yeah yeah' to the Beatles |
| NoOneButYou1975 30.03.2004 13:28 |
Beatles historian Martin Lewis began spotting a young wave of Fab Four fanaticism as emcee of Beatlefan conventions the past 14 years. Boomers constituted half of the audience in 1990. Now 75% of attendees are under 30, and many barely in their teens. As marketing consultant for The Beatles Anthology, he met with label execs plotting campaigns targeting fans 45 and up. "I've got news for you," Lewis told them. "I'm the oldest guy at Beatlefan conventions." Sure enough, a marketing survey showed that the under-30 constituency scooped up 40% of the first Anthology run. "I've interviewed those kids," Lewis says. "I've said, 'Surely you'd rather listen to Justin Timberlake. Why are you here? Were you forced by your parents?' But they chose to be there." Teens saying "yeah yeah yeah" to The Beatles proves "we've sold younger kids short," says James Austin, vice president of A&R at Rhino/WMG, which specializes in reissues and retrospectives. "We tend to think they like only what's popular on radio." In repackaging early rock, targeting fortysomethings was until recently his key strategy. "In the past year, I've been asking myself how we can reach these younger fans," he says. "They're a hidden bonus. Kids today are a lot more sophisticated and more open than anyone realizes." Catalog sales were up 17% last week over the corresponding week in 2003 and so far this year are 7.6% ahead of last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Classic rock accounts for a sizable chunk of the pop catalog chart, which tracks all albums more than three years old. Although SoundScan doesn't identify buyers by age, industry observers detect a significant upswing of teen interest in oldies. The experts point to several factors that explain the trend of forward-thinking cyber kids reaching backward for music: • Shifting attitudes. Self-respecting baby boomers dismissed their parents' Al Jolson, Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra records as corny and dated. Kids now exhibit broader tastes rather than the Mod-or-Rocker mentality that divided British Invasion devotees. "As long as it's good music, it doesn't bother me that my dad likes it too," Jamie says. "He took me to The Who, and that was easily the best concert I've been to." He favors the "big music" of seminal rock because "the guitars wailed and lyrics had more meaning. Queen went overboard on everything. You don't hear singers like Freddie Mercury anymore." Mercury died in 1991. Jamie was 2. In the '60s, coming of age meant reinventing pop culture, rejecting heritage and distrusting anyone older than 30. Not so now. "There's not so much peer pressure to identify with a particular genre or even generation of music," says Jeremy Hammond, head of artist development at Sanctuary Records. "It's much more about defining one's own unique tastes. Back then, you had to choose a lifestyle associated with a genre. In England, you were in a gang of rockers or skinheads or Mods. Potheads wanted psychedelic music. Those boundaries are gone." Classic-rock icons, like classical composers, defy fashion and "overshadow any perceptions of coolness," he says. • New bands plowing an old field. Hip emerging bands freely emulate and name-check musical ancestors, kindling fan interest. |
| NoOneButYou1975 30.03.2004 13:29 |
"So many new bands are flashing back," says Sean Ross of Edison Media Research. "White Stripes, The Darkness and Jet; it's all AC/DC. As music gets retro, kids get curious about the real thing." When rising rock stars rave about The Kinks, sport Hendrix T-shirts or cover Bob Dylan songs, young fans investigate those roots, says Craig Kallman, president of Atlantic Records, home of the Led Zeppelin vault and current sensation The Darkness. "We're seeing a resurgence of bands that have been inspired by the greatest rock bands of all time," Kallman says. "The Darkness embodies the spirit of Queen, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC with fundamentals that made those bands huge: great songs, a fantastic front man, incredible musicianship and a sense of fun. They counter the dark, angry, self-loathing nu-metal that has dominated alternative rock for so long." Flamboyant rock stars, blistering guitar solos and hard-rock bombast "all went by the wayside as rap-metal took shape in the '90," Kallman says. When bands like The Darkness and Jet arrived, "the spontaneity, creativity, freedom and energy, all the elements that made rock such a defining sound, cut through to kids." • Easy access. Classic rock is not only ubiquitous — in TV ads, reissues, reunion tours, soundtracks, copycat bands and recycled hits — but it's also instantly available. An obscure tune is only a few keystrokes away. "The Internet has turbo-charged the renewed interest in great bands of the past," Kallman says. Finding rare gems used to mean scouring used record stores, garage sales and classifieds. Paid downloads and illegal file-sharing allow easy sampling and cherry-picking. Among the more popular digital tracks, according to SoundScan: Elvis Presley's A Little Less Conversation, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes and Elton John's Tiny Dancer. "Kids want to experiment, and technology facilitates that," Austin says. "They don't have to shell out 18 bucks to try something. They can preview a track for 30 seconds, and buy it for 99 cents. I'm a big fan of the record store, but it's going to be a dinosaur." Likewise for "stagnant" radio's narrow formats that don't cater to youth's eclectic palate, Austin says. "Young listeners are reaching for something else, and they often find it in the past. Don't be surprised if they start checking out Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney." The Internet has turned grass-roots movements into brushfires as info-age addicts steer search engines toward rock's back roads. It's a phenom that recharges the fan bases of such perennials as the Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, David Bowie, Steve Miller and Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose best-of album is a fixture on Billboard's catalog chart. "We started out appealing to the working-class blue-collar audience, and now we see their kids at our shows," Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington says, noting that teens in attendance aren't rookies. "They know the words to every song, old or new, and they know our whole history," he says, referring to the deaths of three players in a 1977 plane crash. "I hear from younger fans who learn about us from the Internet or VH1 or their parents or maybe something Kid Rock said about us." • The riches of rock's golden era. Few modern-era albums linger long on the catalog chart, but hits sets and vintage landmarks, especially Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (listed for an unprecedented 1,390 weeks), show exceptional staying power. Perennials include Bob Marley's Legend, AC/DC's Back in Black and Queen's Greatest Hits. The Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones and Zeppelin are reliable sellers. Why are kids taking nostalgia trips to their parents' playgrounds? Zeppelin's bait, says Kallman, is "mythic lifestyles and iconic personas. The music is grandiose and gentle, shaped by blues and heavy metal and textured by British folk and California psychedelia." Plus, "they turned the amps up and played as loud as they could," says Jeffrey Log |
| Daburcor? 30.03.2004 13:31 |
What I read of it mad me happy! Not ALL kids are stupid as I thought! LOL! |
| NoOneButYou1975 30.03.2004 13:46 |
lol Danno |
| Daburcor? 30.03.2004 13:48 |
"Eddie Vedder's image suggests he'd cancel a tour if he broke a fingernail, it would be such a trauma." ROTFLMAO!!!!! PRICELESS!!! |
| Mayboy 30.03.2004 14:19 |
"What I read of it mad me happy! Not ALL kids are stupid as I thought! LOL!" LOL agreed Dan :) This is great news! |
| Krizzy 30.03.2004 14:59 |
Finally the whole TRUTH! Today's kids are as fed-up as their parents with the manufactured corporate crap they are chuning out in the music industry today. Heaven be praised! I've been screaming and hoping against hope that all these pop tarts and musically bland singers disappear and the real "bands" (who actually play an instrument!) and have originality in their music and actually (GASP!) write their own songs, should be given a chance and they will overthrow all that pop-sh*t out there very, very soon...let's please hope. Kriz ;o) |
| rhapsody__87 30.03.2004 15:33 |
I swear that article was written about me. I'm 17 and I'm greatly opposed to a lot of the junk on the radio today. It has no soul, no feel, no substance. When I was 4, I became a Queen fan (not coincidential with Wayne's World or Freddie's death) and I have also had periods of where all I would listen to was Frank Sinatra, Chicago, and of course Queen and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. It's great that I'm not the only young one out here who loves classic rock!! |
| deleted user 30.03.2004 16:06 |
THANK THE MAKER!!!!! |