Thursday, April 14, 2005

Heritage, USA

According to Yahoo!, aging rockers (my bread and butter) are doing well:

"Middle-aged musicians who have neither burned out nor faded away -- yet may be some years past their creative peaks -- are pulling in the real money in today's topsy-turvy music industry. In the young person's game that is popular music, the top of Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 money list is dominated by artists of a certain age like Metallica and Rod Stewart.... To find a group on Rolling Stone's list that has been around for less than 10 years, you have to go down to Linkin Park at No. 9.

Artists dubbed 'heritage acts' like Simple Minds, Iron Maiden and Bryan Adams still enjoy avid fan bases and are making good money and playing big concert dates. Many niche yet lucrative heritage acts are housed at Sanctuary Group, known half-jokingly in the industry a 'haven for aging rockers,' which is the world's biggest independent music label.... Sanctuary grew out of representing heavy metal group Iron Maiden, which is still touring and putting out albums despite falling off the mainstream radar.... 'They've got touring down, their publishing income from songwriting is substantial and merchandise is brilliant -- Led Zeppelin T-shirt sales, for example, are as strong as they ever were.'"
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The article doesn't really provide any context to let us know if this is a new trend. I doubt that it is because older people have more money to spend on the things they like, and they like things like them.

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