I Getting in My Head Again Pheoeb Bridgers
"T he moment that we started a band was the best thing that ever happened," sings Matty Healy on the 1975's recent single Guys. The song is an ardent love letter to the band, and to the romance of bands in general: the camaraderie, the solidarity, the joyous fusion of creativity and friendship. Information technology's an sometime sentiment merely an increasingly rare one.
"It's funny, when the kickoff Maroon 5 anthology came out [in 2002] there were still other bands," the band'southward frontman Adam Levine told Apple Music's Zane Lowe this month. "I feel like there aren't any bands whatsoever more … I feel similar they're a dying brood." Levine was quick to clarify that he meant bands "in the pop limelight" but the net doesn't actually practise clarification, and then his remarks sparked bemusement and outrage amidst the literal-minded, from aggrieved veterans such as Garbage ("What are we Adam Levine? CATS?!?!?") to fans of newcomers such as Fontaines DC and Big Thief.
But hurt feelings aside, Levine was broadly correct. When Maroon 5 broke through in the 00s, there were new bands forming all the time, many of which quickly proceeded to become platinum and headline arenas. In the realm of pure pop, meanwhile, talent shows such as The X Factor became a reliable incubator of daughter groups and boybands, from Girls Aloud to One Direction. No longer. Popular music'due south centre of gravity has undeniably moved towards solo artists, at least when it comes to serious commercial success. This paradigm shift has been obvious for a while now ("What happened to all the bands?" asked Rostam Batmanglij after leaving Vampire Weekend in 2016. "Is it just that bands are corny now?") and has accelerated across genres.
Whichever metric you lot utilize, the picture is clear. Right now, there are only nine groups in the Uk Pinnacle 100 singles, and but one in the Top twoscore. Two are the Killers and Fleetwood Mac, with songs 17 and 44 years onetime respectively, while the others are the final UK pop group standing (Lilliputian Mix), ii iv-man bands (Glass Animals, Kings of Leon), two dance groups (Rudimental, Clean Bandit) and two rap units (D-Block Europe, Bad Male child Chiller Crew). There are duos and trios, but fabricated up of solo artists guesting with each other. In Spotify's Summit 50 most-played songs globally right now, there are only three groups (BTS, the Neighbourhood, and the Net Money rap commonage), and but half-dozen of the 42 artists on the latest Radio 1 playlist are bands: Wolf Alice, Haim, Purple Blood, Architects, London Grammer and the Snuts.
Of form, radio and streaming are dominated by pop, rap and trip the light fantastic music merely festival lineups don't point to a golden age of bands, either. Of those that have emerged in the past decade, only half a dozen have headlined either Coachella, Reading/Leeds, Latitude, Download, Wireless or the chief two stages at Glastonbury. That'due south the 1975, Haim, alt-J, Rudimental, Guardhouse and Tame Impala, and the last of those is effectively a solo project. Only one band, the Lathums, appeared on the BBC'south almanac tastemaking Sound of … longlist this year, which is not unusual: bands haven't been in the majority since 2013. The album charts are however regularly topped by bands cheers to loyal fanbases who yet buy concrete formats – such as Mogwai, Architects and Kings of Leon in recent weeks – simply not since 2016 has one hung on for a 2nd week. And then what happened?
Fine art-popular band Maxïmo Park bankrupt through in 2005, during the huge post-Strokes boom in stone bands. In the era of sales-based charts and Meridian of the Pops, they had eight Height 40 hits. "Bands were alongside pop acts on the radio and on Telly," says frontman Paul Smith. "We did Elevation of the Pops with Amerie and the Scissor Sisters. I think it was good for you. It could be annihilation next: R&B, alternative rock, whatever. Music has been compartmentalised a lot more."
Stone and pop now be in unlike spheres – even the biggest bands struggle to cleft the streaming-driven Superlative 20 – only bands are on the dorsum foot within alternative music itself. One theory is that major labels avoid bands because solo artists are cheaper and easier to handle. Not so, says Jamie Oborne, whose Dirty Hit label has found success with bands (the 1975, Wolf Alice) and solo artists (Beabadoobee, Rina Sawayama). "We're actively trying to sign bands," he says. "I'1000 desperate to detect a really young band that I can help develop."
The problem is, he says, there aren't that many around. "Information technology's more likely now that a kid will brand music in isolation because of technology. When I first met the 1975, they were all friends meeting in a room to make noise. So much is done in bedrooms these days, then you're more than likely to be by yourself."
Ben Mortimer, co-president of Polydor Records, says that price is more than of an issue for artists than for labels. "If you're immature and inspired to go a musician, you face a option. If you go the band route, you need to notice bandmates with a similar vision, yous need expensive instruments and equipment, and you need to become out on the road to hone your craft. On the other hand, you could download Ableton [production software], close your bedroom door and get creating straight away. Civilisation is shaped by technology."
"Starting a band is hugely expensive," says Joff Oddie, guitarist with Wolf Alice. "You need an immense amount of equipment and a lot of space. I spent well-nigh of my student loan on rehearsal infinite. Travelling is expensive. Anything that tin can exist done to make being in a ring tenable for young artists is adept, because the fear is that nosotros'll lose that tradition. I recall information technology would exist a disaster if it's only open to heart-class kids."
Mortimer, who started out in A&R in 2001 and has signed bands including Haim and Years & Years, says that Polydor are still launching immature bands, including Dublin's Inhaler, while sister label Island has Easy Life and Sports Squad, but at that place are fewer contenders than there were a decade ago. "The majority of immature people aren't excited by band music in the traditional sense: groups of lads with guitars. And that'south reflected in the number of streams these bands receive. That then impacts on what talented immature musicians proceed to create. If they've grown up obsessing over rap music with their friends, they're more than probable to commencement creating rap music."
The ability to create laptop symphonies has besides changed the shape of those bands that have thrived. Dominated by vocalist-writer-producers, the likes of Bastille and Polydor'southward Drinking glass Animals (who recently ousted Olivia Rodrigo from the top of the Australian charts) brand production-led pop, which means those frontmen are virtually solo artists in the public heart. Excepting Petty Mix – who accept seen one member leave and another sign a solo management bargain this yr – Haim might be the only young band around with more than than one widely recognised member.
Establishing multiple personalities in the public'south imagination has always been trickier than selling one person, but MTV and a vibrant music press helped, while Television talent shows introduced group members to millions of viewers beyond several weeks earlier they had released a note of music. All three of those institutions have waned, leaving bands to make their own manner in the online attention economy. "Social media has filled the pigsty, creating individual stars who are seen as more 'accurate' than anything the retro talent-show format could offer," says Hannah Rose Ewens, author of Fangirls, a study of contemporary fandom.
Social media is built for individual self-expression. Platforms such every bit TikTok, Instagram and Twitter – and fifty-fifty the portrait orientation of a smartphone screen – give an reward to unmarried voices and faces while making group celebrity less legible. Even inside indie-rock, the most band-friendly genre apart from metallic, the cult of the individual is stronger than e'er, which has the advantage of enabling more women to ascent to the fore. "Phoebe Bridgers, Soccer Mommy, Waxahatchee and other solo rock acts are essentially leading the genre at present," says Ewens. "Phoebe Bridgers, who is extremely online and very savvy virtually using Instagram and Twitter in a fashion that Gen Z finds relatable and funny, has attracted pop levels of idolatry."
Peradventure, too, there is less of an ambition for the interpersonal drama of a group. In the fourth dimension earlier reality shows, bands offered insights into grouping dynamics (if nosotros're existence highfalutin) or voyeuristic entertainment (if we're not). Even now, new generations of fans bask finding out exactly what Paul or John said in 1969, or which messy divorce inspired which Fleetwood Mac song, or how Noel and Liam came to hate each other'southward guts. On 1 level, every band is a psychological experiment in which disparate personalities are crammed into shut proximity and thrust into the spotlight. Yous don't need bands for that experience now that it is the cornerstone format of reality television set. The smashing tea-spilling, click-attracting feuds in modern pop are between solo artists, not within bands.
In Asia, though, it's an entirely different story. "Idol" groups, painstakingly assembled, trained, styled and choreographed for maximum entreatment, have been at the forefront of Japanese and Korean popular for decades. K-Pop stars BTS are the world's biggest popular group. "Strategically, this system has more to offer to the fans than a solo artist," says Shin Cho, head of Yard-Popular and J-Pop at Warner Music Asia. "Individual fans have their own favourite members but as well appreciate the chemistry in a grouping. In that location can likewise be sub-group projects that offer something different. The group format is viewed as more dynamic because in that location is simply more than to do and bear witness compared to a solo creative person."
Sonny Takhar, former global president of Simon Cowell's Syco Music, who worked with I Direction, Little Mix and Fifth Harmony, hopes that this is withal possible in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and US, too, albeit in a less regimented manner. Now CEO and founder of KYN Amusement, he recently launched a new v-woman group, Boys Globe, who have racked up more than 30m likes on TikTok. "It's always been much more than expensive than launching a solo artist," he says. "However, you need to do more patience in today's market. Gen Z has many choices and demands on their time compared with those of a teenager five years agone. There'southward a constant fight to gain their attention. Pop groups need to be very relatable. Every fan should recognise an chemical element of themselves in the girls' personalities and lives."
Takhar assembled Boys World through a more organic process than the onetime Syco model, giving existing members a function in recruiting new ones. "The girls were very much at the center of each decision to ensure that they formed a gang of friends first and foremost. They have grown upwards on social media and are very comfortable using it on their ain terms. It's far better than a formatted Idiot box prove. They are in control. The historic period of the svengali is over."
The challenge posed by all pop cultural trends is to work out whether or non it is a permanent structural shift or just another phase. The right group at the right time, whether it is the Strokes or the Spice Girls, tin change everything. In the short term, the pandemic has made information technology impossible for new bands to form and threatens the survival of the regional venue excursion on which they depend, while Brexit has thrown upwardly expensive new obstacles for touring bands. However Oborne remains optimistic.
"I'k excited about the wave of creativity that's going to follow this period that nosotros've just lived through," he says. "I feel this hankering in youth culture for real experience and connection. I'm still quite the romantic when it comes to music. Look at Fontaines DC. I come across a pic of them and wish I was in a band. Information technology'south the aforementioned thing as walking down the street with your friends and feeling like you're part of something. Anything'due south possible."
Regardless of trends in music technology, streaming and glory culture, there is even so a lot to be said for beingness able to share the pleasures and pressures of life in the music industry with a group of peers. Having released four solo albums also as seven with Maxïmo Park, Paul Smith is well-placed to compare the two scenarios.
"I tin get things done a lot quicker every bit a solo artist," he says. "I can cull the artwork, decide the tracklisting: little things that accept us weeks because nosotros have an egalitarian mindset. You tin can make a scrap more money. But I beloved the communal aspect of being in a band. Yous're sharing everything: sharing the profits but also sharing the load. If you lot're a large solo star and you're not enjoying it, information technology must exist 1 of the loneliest places y'all can be."
"Nosotros're fanatical about bands and being in a ring," says Wolf Alice's Joff Oddie. "A good band creates a community. They have an ecosystem that, equally a fan, you feel similar you lot desire to exist part of. Despite all that's been said about individualism, in that location is nonetheless a hunger for that collective feeling." Perhaps you just have to squeeze it all into a phone screen.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/18/why-bands-are-disappearing-young-people-arent-excited-by-them
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