Maybe so,
but, this was a very funny movie
Posted on 03/04/2005 3:18:53 PM PST by qam1
Nostalgia market wasn't ready to embrace that decade… and may never be
Nikki Sixx, the bassist for the famously fast-living glam-rockers Motley Crue, thinks that even 24 years after its debut, his band still has a certain timeless aspect.
“If you want to drop the tailgate, get some beer and go to a strip club, that's the Crue,” he said recently before a rehearsal for the band's new tour. Yet Sixx's band, which just released a two-disc career anthology, is returning at a particularly interesting moment.
The music of the 1980s has re-entered the zeitgeist in a gigantic way. You can hear it in video games as hip as “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” and in TV shows such as “The O.C.” VH1 keeps putting out specials like “Big '80s” and the wildly popular “I Love the '80s.” The record industry reacted slowly, but now acts like New Edition, Duran Duran, George Michael, the Cure, New Order, Billy Idol, Heavy D and the Crue have been encouraged to shake off the dust and get back on the road.
Most of those bands have returned with attendant fanfare, sweeping across red carpets and past screaming fans at radio station visits and showcase concerts.
Yet despite the grass-roots enthusiasm and VH1 dogma, not to mention millions of dollars in marketing, the '80s are not selling where it counts. CD buyers just aren't interested.
Take Tears for Fears. Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal didn't work together for 10 years, but they got back together to write songs and eventually got a six-figure advance from Universal's New Door label to perform again. They found themselves playing radio station-sponsored concerts and meeting fans at in-store appearances at Tower Records. According to Nielsen SoundScan data, through Jan. 30 their album, “Everybody Loves a Happy Ending,” had sold just 80,000 copies, a far cry from their last album, “The Seeds of Love,” which sold about 1 million copies.
Duran Duran, who drew a fanatical following in the early '80s, got all of its original members back last year and scored five sellouts at Wembley Arena in London. The band signed a deal with Epic Records for an estimated $500,000 and made the rounds on TV shows and fashion-industry events. It has all resulted in about 200,000 copies sold of the reunion album “Astronaut.”
“The '80s nostalgia boom is real, but it's not broad,” said Michael Hirschorn, executive vice president of programming for VH1. “It doesn't apply to everything and not in all ways. It applies to a specific kind of Gen X, self-mocking, slightly ironic thing. For this group of people, you can't give them straight nostalgia of the sort of baby boomer ‘everything was wonderful and great when we were kids' feel. People Gen X and younger know that things weren't that great. We never thought that Motley Crue was saving the world. We just identify with them passionately, but with a certain wink.”
Reviving the careers of artists who have retreated from the pop music scene is never a simple affair, but it has been done — usually by appealing to new fans at least as directly as old ones. Aerosmith did it by rapping with Run-DMC. Carlos Santana swept the Grammys for 1999 by doing “Supernatural” alongside popular artists of the day. Sometimes you go where the kids are: Idol is booked to play South by Southwest, the annual buzz-band conclave in Austin, Texas.
But when it comes to the new material, the 30-something American fans who should logically form the artists' core audiences just aren't turning up.
No need
Ann Fishman, president of Generational Targeted Marketing, said the problem isn't with the music, it's with the memories. The fans from Generation X, she says, “are not particularly grounded in their youth.”
“Would you be grounded in something where you had divorced parents, poor schooling?” she asks. “We presume nostalgia is a great selling tool. It is to the baby boomers. It's not to Gen X. The history of their youth has forced them to grow up more quickly. Nostalgia is not necessarily something that's going to move them ahead. They enjoy the music of their youth, but it's not a need.”
The theory might help to explain why Madonna and Prince had a very good year. They both made it big in the '80s but pretty much kept performing and evolving. Their recent albums were simply the latest chapter in a long and varied career.
Making the odds that much longer, the long-lost stars of the '80s are returning to a music establishment they might barely recognize. The machinery that transformed them into mass phenomena two decades ago — mainly Top 40 radio and MTV — has long since been dismantled or redesigned. The radio dial has splintered into tightly managed formats aimed at specified niches, which may not be receptive to revivals.
“There's resistance from radio to play some of these artists,” said Jon Zellner, a former Kansas Citian who ran Star 102 and Mix 93.3 in Kansas City and now oversees programming on so-called hot adult-contemporary stations for Infinity Broadcasting. He said he decided against playing Tears for Fears, among others.
“I think programmers are potentially afraid of their radio stations sounding dated.”
As for MTV, the cable giant now devotes far more airtime to reality programming and lifestyle shows than videos. New bands now establish themselves through outlets that didn't exist five years ago, let alone 20, like AOL's “Sessions,” a live performance for online viewers, or MySpace, an online community popular with music fans. And those formats don't favor bands in their 40s and 50s.
“I just wasn't convinced that the songs were compelling enough to compete in today's marketplace,” said Andrew Slater, president of Capitol Records, who says he passed on both Duran Duran and Billy Idol. “On the television side, you might have someone perform on a late-night show, but ultimately I don't think it's enough to drive a passive audience to all drop what they're doing in their lives and find that connection to the artist that they loved in the '80s.”
All the way live
But '80s acts are expected to do extremely well in their North American concert tours. Motley Crue, for one, will be paid minimum fees of up to $250,000 a night. Duran Duran, in addition to big appearance fees, is cashing in on the trend toward VIP tickets, offering their most devoted fans the chance to buy travel packages, including a two-night hotel stay and signed memorabilia, for $2,590 per person.
But those lucrative concerts play to fans eager for one (or two) glorious nights of nostalgia, not those interested in watching the band try to grow.
“It's hard enough now doing any of the old material because obviously we just want to do the new material,” said Smith of Tears for Fears. “(It's) horrible to be playing onstage and have all these people in the front saying play ‘Shout.' There are certain emotions you have in your late teens and 20s that really don't exist when you turn 40. There's a certain angst we had then that doesn't exist now. Now we have middle-aged angst.”
The stars of the '80s also now have middle-aged bodies, and hauling them around the country on long tours isn't as easy as it once might have been. Mick Mars, the guitarist for Motley Crue, has undergone hip replacement surgery. Smith has two young children.
Still, you won't hear any of them complaining too loudly. Pop music has always been a young person's game, and for those who get a rare second turn in the spotlight, even tepid album sales and a backward-looking concert tour are a rush. But for many fans watching the marketing machinery creak into gear, it can be a little annoying.
In Baltimore, for example, Benn Ray, the co-owner of independent bookstore Atomic Books, has started up a regular “I Hate the '80s” party to mock the trend.
“The '80s nostalgia was starting to roll in, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute! Did you people actually listen to the same decade I did? You had eight years of Reagan. There was cocaine everywhere. There were yuppies.' ” At past parties, attended by people wearing parachute pants and Members Only jackets, local bands performed their most-hated '80s memories on Casio keyboards, which they demolished at the end of their set. Another show had a guy called Evil Pappy Twin playing Van Halen covers on a lute.
In any case, the clock is running out. VH1's Hirschorn says the second coming of the '80s has already lasted almost as long as the original decade, and it may be time to move on. VH1, of course, has already brought out a new series … called “I Love the '90s.”
When they went to just Starship that wasn't a reunion, they'd still been around, that was a civil suit. But then they re-united the original line-up back under the Jefferson Airplane monicre, and totally stank. Remember the Monkees re-union was that year too, ugh city.
Stuart (lead, Big Country) said that Americans didn't know how to play a guitar, so the lead guy from the Stray Cats took the bait. They yaaa yaaaed a few times back and forth via the press. But there was bad blood between them for years.
Watch it. The Crue rules!!!
The problem is this-the nostalgia is for the old albums. The new albums fail for one of two reasons:
A. They don't sound like the old stuff we liked in the first place
B. They sound like a tired, cheapened version of the old stuff
IMHO, that's what happens. I love 80s music and movies for the most part.
I often go out and buy an OLD CD that I either never got back then or lost over the time. But I rarely buy new material from the same people.
Poison, for example. I LOVE their shows, they are among the best bands to see in concert of ANY genre. Even in their 40s they have an energy and a presence. Is the music cutting edge, innovative, or interesting? No, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. And back in their 'heyday' I wasn't a big fan.
That said, while I will throw on Flesh and Blood every once in a while, their new material sucks for the most part.
Hehe...that was an interesting one. I still remember my mom watching MTV and commenting on how low Grace Slick had fallen since the 60s on the "We Built This City."
I don't miss the hair... the hair was bad back then... ;-)
My favorite clothing line was Trash and Vaudeville--great, great stuff.
I dare not waste all my time reading the whole thing, but the 1st part seemed to have the gist that sales of NEW '80s-acts recordings were not doing well.
Big surprise.
Find me any R&Rers of the rock-pop era who were truly able to "come back" with new songs and all. Maybe pseudo-1-hit-wonders, but more than that? Fat chance.
This is not a shock that '80s acts can't sell new songs. If we're into nostalgia, we want the songs of the time, not new songs in a new time from an act which will likely try to sound new and up-to-date (no, I don't want that).
But this article sure seems to be hanging its hat purely on those kinds of sales. There is other evidence which this even discusses which shows '80s stuff is pretty big, or at least coming into its own. (And NO, it has NOT been going on for a decade!!!!)
Pfooey on their look at it all.
WADR - where did you get that list? Louis Armstrong? Too many metal and hard rock bands on that list to be real (sorry, they're never that popular!). Billboard I believe:
1 FAITH, George Michael (Columbia)
2 NEED YOU TONIGHT, INXS (Atlantic)
3 GOT MY MIND SET ON YOU, George Harrison
4 NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, Rick Astley (RCA)
5 SWEET CHILD O' MINE, Guns N' Roses
6 SO EMOTIONAL, Whitney Houston
7 HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH, Belinda Carlisle (MCA)
8 COULD'VE BEEN, Tiffany (MCA)
9 HANDS TO HEAVEN, Breathe (A&M)
10 ROLL WITH IT, Steve Winwood (Virgin)
11 ONE MORE TRY, George Michael (Columbia)
12 WISHING WELL, Terence Trent D'Arby (Columbia)
13 ANYTHING FOR YOU, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine (Epic)
14 THE FLAME, Cheap Trick (Epic)
15 GET OUTTA MY DREAMS, GET INTO MY CAR, Billy Ocean (Jive)
16 SEASONS CHANGE, Expose (Arista)
17 IS THIS LOVE, Whitesnake (Geffen)
18 WILD, WILD WEST, The Escape Club (Atlantic)
19 POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME, Def Leppard (Mercury)
20 I'LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, Taylor Dayne (Arista)
Add me to the Xer ping list, if you would.
“Would you be grounded in something where you had divorced parents, poor schooling?” she asks. “We presume nostalgia is a great selling tool. It is to the baby boomers. It's not to Gen X. The history of their youth has forced them to grow up more quickly. Nostalgia is not necessarily something that's going to move them ahead. They enjoy the music of their youth, but it's not a need.”
This is the truth. Baby boomers never grew up and they are always trying to relive their youth, recalling the days of Woodstock, Watergate, Vietnam, and the 60's. Hey, I like listening to 80's music, but life goes on.
EXACTLY!
Regards, Ivan
I provided the link, not sure the veracity of it. Where did you get your list? Google didn't show anything within the first three pages that matches your list, but maybe google is slipping a little.
I thought Louis Armstrong was a bit weird too.
80sxchange.com listing, but they don't seem to credit the list.
Your linked site showed further down an alleged Billboard top 10 or 20; different from the list you had was at the top and said "greatest songs" - whatever that means.
I don't know exactly the source of mine, but it *is* closer to your linked site's list of Billboard top 20. Maybe they modified it over the years w/more accurate #s? (1 thing I know - the '85 list is correct, at least at the time. I recorded from Kasem's top 100 show and remember distinctly the curiousity of "Lovergirl" and "Loverboy" being right next to each other in the line-up at the spots they are shown on '80s exchange server!)
Yeah maybe I picked the wrong list. It is a poorly designed site IMO.
Oh well it got people talking and I recalled a bunch of songs I had forgetten about just poking around on that site.
Hey Gatorgirl, while poking around for the Billboard hits, I noticied that Amazon is selling a Billboard best-of CD that has "Wild Wild West", only $6.98. Of course there may be a lot of songs you don't like on it.
Billboard Top Hits: 1988
1. Wishing Well - Terence Trent D'Arby
2. Shattered Dreams - Johnny Hates Jazz
3. Seasons Change - Exposé
4. Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car - Billy Ocean
5. Anything for You - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
6. Hold on to the Nights - Richard Marx
7. Wild, Wild West - Escape Club
8. Flame - Cheap Trick
9. Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley (Freebaby) - Will to Power
10. Don't Worry Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin
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