Recently Gene Simmons of KISS made the comment that rock n roll is dead and that is was murdered by digital downloading. I think he's half right but not correct in how it came to be. He blames downloaders for wanting something for nothing. The fact is before downloading became the norm those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s were making copies of our favorite music using cassette decks. That's how the whole mix tape concept got started. The artists at the time were ticked at anyone doing so and came out against it but it kept going.
The reason for recording wasn't really about wanting something for nothing, it had to do with the high costs of buying an album at that time. Most people who buy music are young people and always have been. That same demographic worked part time jobs and had no disposable income to spend on non-essential items like records. So what many did was buy an album, share it with a friend and record it. If a group of 5 friends bought 5 different albums and shared them they saved part of the money it would have cost to buy those other 4 albums (less the costs of a blank cassette). Had they not done so, they would not have bought the other 4 albums. By listening to that music, by becoming aware of it, they in turn bought tickets to see those acts live or to buy merchandise they otherwise might not have. Most always thought of recording music as expanding the music they listened to rather than killing it. If you found another group you liked then you might buy that next album the group/artist did. If the artwork was great then nearly everyone bought it.
So going back into that last paragraph what was it that killed rock n roll? It was the money record companies charged for the records they were selling. The same thing happened with CDs. Laws were enacted to try and insure that record companies weren't gouging customers. The idea was that when CD technology became universal that the costs for producing a CD would drop and so should the price of those CDs. The record companies never did what they were supposed to and left the prices at the expensive level making more profits as the costs to make a CD decreased. Eventually they were finally pressed on the issue. I remember clearly what happened. The CDs released by established bands remained at the high prices while up and coming or new bands had the prices for their CDs chopped dramatically. I remember when a hot band had a CD for $15 the day of release and on the same shelf was a CD by a new band for $7. Using this formula the record companies could show the average costs of a CD had dropped when in reality the hot band CDs were still the same price.
Now go and see what the artists were making off of those CDs at the time. Most made pennies on the dollar from each one sold. They made more from merchandise and touring (KISS is well known for merch). So if a band made say even $1 from the sale of a $15 CD where did the money go? The record company of course. They used it to promote other bands at times, used it to pay for fancy office space, used it for payola to get radio stations to play their music (note that radio has died somewhat like CDs with the internet; my take on that is the problem with stations playing only one style of music per station. So much for diversity.), they made sure they had plenty of drugs for their acts (a huge expense) and spent exorbitant amounts on promotion that wasn't really needed...then again many of them owned the promotional companies so they were basically shifting money from column A to column B.
What downloading did was make the record company nearly unnecessary. Today groups find their market via the internet. Word of mouth spreads about a group and everyone goes to their web site if they're good. They don't bother downloading an entire album because a number of times the entire album sucks with 1 or 2 good songs. I can name on my fingers the number of albums I bought years ago where the entire album was excellent. Most had half good, half bad songs. The thing is a new artists can reach his market without the record company. They can sell their CD online as downloads for about half of what the record company was charging and the majority of that money will actually go to the artist rather than the record company.
I really don't think rock n roll has died at all. Record companies have and will continue to do so until they realize the digital age is here. Make downloads affordable and people will flock to them. At 99 cents (even though that seems cheap) if someone bought an entire 15 song album we're still at $15. Did the cost of production reach that figure? I honestly don't know but doubt it. Again, the digital age has made it possible for people to build a recording studio in minutes using a computer and the right program and equipment. The old studios are closing up shop left and right (watch the movie SOUND CITY). How successful would an album be if the cost per song were 50 or 25 cents? We may never know.
So is rock n roll dead? No way. Look at any local club and you'll find all sorts of music being played, much of it rock n roll. You'll find metal, punk, pop and more every week locally. By checking out the clubs and buying the home made CDs of those bands you continue to support rock n roll. Maybe not to the tune of millions of dollars that many of those bands from Simmons time earned, but enough for them to do well.
In reading 3 autobiographies from the members of KISS (Simmon's was the only one I haven't read) I can tell you that the amount of money they were making was astronomical. In the end they lost an astronomical amount of money as well due to bad business decisions, poor management of their money and spending it on luxurious hotels, cars, women, drugs and more. While they basked in glory (that they did indeed earn) and become caught up in the excess that the music business was prone to, kids across the world were flipping burgers for several hours just to be able to buy that latest album.
So who is more responsible for the so called death of rock n roll? The kids who downloaded music? The record companies that wanted to charge more than was needed? The bands/performers who felt they deserved to be able to indulge in any and every thing available to them no matter what the costs? I tend to think it was the last two. The fact that a kid can still pick up a guitar, learn a few chords, get a few other friends together with him/her and play at a local night spot tells me that the music isn't dead but the business end of it that preached excess is.
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