MAY | COVER FEATURE
BIRTHING THE
NEXT BOWIE
Live music is booming, but there’s a creeping paranoia about
its future as fresh headliners fail to materialise. To answer
why, Access gives the music industry a full medical
stensibly, live music is in a healthy place. Its
revenue topped US$30bn worldwide last year for
the first time as UK festival numbers skyrocketed
to 2,850 in 2018. So we can breathe a sigh of relief
right? Well, that depends.
Live’s gain contrasts with a dramatic dip in music
sales revenue which fell from $20bn in 1999 to under
$8bn in 2015 as digital streaming devoured the physical
medium. Those feeling the pinch from the CD’s demise
are often the artists: as hip-hop pioneer Jazzy Jeff told
Vibe: “I’ve never heard a label say one bad thing about
streaming culture. Those who complain about the
streaming industry are the artists.”
Mr Jeff’s vitriol is underpinned by figures from Ernst
& Young, whose report cites artists’ percentages from
streaming at just 6.8% of total revenue. Labels take a
meatier 45.6%, while the maligned ‘Tax Man’ takes 16.7%.
So artists have turned to live to generate more
cash, which is good for the events industry until the
touring pressures impact on a band’s dynamics. Think
Radiohead’s Meeting People is Easy or, erm, Spinal Tap.
Major promoters and festival organisers from Michael
Eavis to Wayne Hemmingway MBE have appeared in the
28
pages of Access decrying the lack of quality headliners
emerging. Indeed, circa 2005 appears to be a cliff edge
for emerging headliners, with the likes of The Strokes,
Adele, Kings of Leon, Kanye West, the Arctic Monkeys
and Arcade Fire emerging just before then.
But even those who would tout the new school of
headliners – Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, Ariana Grande et al
– as geniuses in their own right would face an arduous
task comparing any emerging headliners from the last
15 years with the household names releasing records in
just one year in the 1960s.
Indeed, in 1969 alone, the following artists released
albums: Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan,
Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Frank Sinatra, The Doors,
The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Temptations, The Four
Tops, Marvin Gaye, Creedence Clearwater, Fleetwood
Mac, Aretha Franklin.
But we needn’t go back that far to uncover timeless
artists. In a single month in 1991 (September), the
following albums were released: Nirvana, Nevermind;
Primal Scream, Screamadelica; A Tribe Called Quest, Low
End Theory; Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion I and II; Red
Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik.