It's all local now

Reality/talent search type shows and Disney channel apparently have the inside track on making new stars that appeal to the young.

KElly Clarkson was a good find.

But Taylor Hicks? Really? Really?

Miley Cyrus? Talent, but eh....

Selena Gomez? J'lo? Ahem.......

I liked Scotty last year on AI too but not a huge modern country fan his first album was way too predictable and cookie cutter for me.

Times change. Maybe the new Beatles will still pop up somewhere someday somehow. I think the pop culture world is a lot more diverse these days so any single act will have a challenge attaining the levels of popularity and success long term that the Beatles have. Those that reach the pinnacles of popularity these days are so generic though that I suspect they will have difficulty retaining popularity over time aka The BEatles.

Maybe the days of super mega pop stars that also break new ground continually during their lifetime are gone.

I find I like a lot of new music these days however there is such diversity that no single artist or artists retain a major % of my music playtime to any extent similar to the past for me where I tended to levitate more towards certain acts. Its all good.

As long as there is always something new and interesting to listen to, who cares who the artist is really?

The truth to say is that it's not that popular anymore. Indeed the rock consert season is very poor later years. ACDC used to bring large events to our towns so is Rolling Stones, Zeppelin... Who's there now? Is there anybody ...Out-there?

Wildoats

In the 50s/60s, the radio set up the tour, the tour set up the record, the record was the money as you say. Now its reversed. Artists make all a their revenue from tours set up by some vehicle to get them known.

A strong record (Train, Dave Mathews, Death Cab) got them going (zero airplay, no big TV appearances)

A TV show (think Apprentice/Idol) got Trace Atkins back on the road, and revitalized the careers of quite a few like Jennifer Lopez.

DIsney Channel-Miley Cyrus

The classic talent contest Idol built Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, etc

There is others yet doing OK from You Tube (and Twitter and other vehicles.

All a set up the ticket sales for the tour.

Brad

Probably true that Rock music as many knew it over the last half century has run its course and is mostly dead as a major cultural force. Not a bad run really.....

The good news is its still not totally dead and things have evolved in many directions over the last 10-20 years or so.

I've embraced a lot of genres and music of late that I never payed much attention to prior. I'm finding that you almost have to ignore genre with music these days in order to find the gems. There is so much integration and cross breeding of genres these days, including all that gets categorized broadly as "world music", that the traditional major music genres do not serve nearly as much useful purpose these days.

RIght now it seems that the superstars are coming more from hip-hop. Kanye West, Jay-Z, & Eminem come to mind.