Seems like just about every day I am hearing about a new “supergroup” of sorts being put together. A group of musicians who have other main bands getting together to make an album. This is yet another by product of the shrinking record business. If you aren’t selling any real copies of your albums with your main band, maybe be in five bands at the same time and combined there might be some sales? Or maybe even have a hit with the side band (if that were to ever happen the main band would likely be abandon no doubt). I am not judging these artists for doing these things. I would never begrudge anyone doing what they can to make a living and survive in a business where 10,000 copies sold gets you top 10 on Billboard and sadly off the charts three weeks later in many cases. The truth is some artists making great new music are selling around 2-5000 copies. Some even less. So I get the multi tasking. I also have to laugh at how criticized a guy like Mike Portnoy was for taking this approach a few years ago. Guess what? Now it’s the norm and Mike having a few bands seems more than normal. Almost everyone is doing it. I miss the days when seeing your favorite band or musicians was a once a year very special thing. This all feeds in to the over touring and over exposure of some artists. Some are actually hurting their draw they play so often. Some are going less is more and actually getting paid better for playing less. Again, everyone does what they have to in order to survive, I get that. But what is frustrating about some of these “projects” is the almost total lack of real support for them. As fans we get invested in this stuff, buy the music (hopefully), and then sometimes don’t even see a live show happen. Then a month later we are hearing about another band with some of the same members to buy that release! It’s getting hard to keep up with all of this and it’s my job to do so. So I can’t even imagine how convoluted it must be to the casual rock fan to sort out. Some of these bands are good and have the right intentions. They actually all get in a room, work together, and try and make a real run with it. Others are a bunch of tracks emailed back and forth by guys that never even met or were ever in the same room, cut together with pro tools, throw it out and see what happens. These are often bad and dilute the scene and often have no chemistry or shot at success. I personally was directly involved in one of these projects that worked, The Winery Dogs. Those guys made the band a priority, all recorded and wrote together, and toured their asses off the promote it (and made an amazing album!). Now in down time they are all doing some other stuff but will reconvene in 2015 to continue. But sadly I see so many of these bands jam the pipeline and you can just tell it’s never going to happen. No real label support, no chemistry, no live shows, no great songs. Just throw some names together and see what happens. I hope we get more things like The Winery Dogs breaking through (relatively speaking as far as rock is concerned these days), but the formula I am seeing for so many of these bands does not bode well for that to happen. I’m curious to read your comments as a rock fan what you think of all these bands and are you bothered when you buy the music and it never goes beyond an album release? As always all opinions welcome.
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I am starting to hear rumors of Richie Blackmore thinking of forming a super group with Frodo and the Baggins boys. Any truth to this? Anyone?
Very bothered if they only release an album and then break up. I WOULD be furious if I PAID for that album and that’s all I got. I want to see a band that’s a real band and are not doing it for money but for the music and for BEING IN A BAND. This day and age I doubt that happens ever. What is going on makes the word supergroup a joke and that is why most of these supergroups avoid that term. Supergroup now means a joke that will only release an album. new Guns N’ Roses were a supergroup at one point but became a BAND through the years of touring and putting on awesome shows. Supergroups by definition do not last and I think most people would only BUY a supergroup’s record IF they were a superfan of one of the members. The only way a supergroup becomes a band is longevity and great material. Like any band it’s all about the songs, and as an old school fan I care about bands and actually liking the people in the band. On rare occasions I love the music but hate the personality. Favorite bands I always like the people in the band and have my favorite persons in the band. Sebastian Bach can’t stand the guy but love his voice; he can’t take criticism and is obsessed with promoting his new stuff so much that he almost denies his past. Kind of like you Eddie with Kiss. Honestly how can anyone like Gene Simmons as a person. He is funny as for entertainment wise but as a person I do not think he is a “good guy”. His belief system is that of a scumbag. I am sure deep down inside Eddie you agree but for you it’s about the songs which I can not relate to at all but then again I came up in the 80’s era. I always thought Kiss had to do all the other stuff to make up for the horrible music. I gave it a shot tried to listen to their music and it just sucks. I honestly can not get into it. I hope you respect my opinion Eddie lol. 🙂
I think it’s the over saturation part of it that really hurts. I guess I could see if there was some experimentation to find a particular side project that “works” and then stick with that one besides the main band, but I agree the constant moving from one to the next ultimately leaves most of them a little bit shallow. It sounds bad to say, but I can’t be bothered to keep up with all of them. Although I do purchase my music, I also don’t like throwing money at experiments that I only end up liking a few songs on. I’m happy for Winery Dogs success, and they seem to be going about it the right way, but they didn’t really click for me. I was very happy with T&N’s first album – I want more from them and wouldn’t mind if they stuck to all originals, they don’t need to keep rehashing Dokken. I really liked Black Country Communion, but they’re obviously done, and no offense to anyone who likes them but California Breed does nothing for me. The state of the music industry and particularly rock is pretty sad these days. It seems like the probability of getting a decent return on the investment in time, effort, recording, touring… all of it, is lower than ever. I’m not even talking about becoming a “rock star”, but just making a decent living to support yourself and a family. Torrent sites, You Tube, file sharing, it’s so easy for people to get just about any audio or video for nothing. Especially for younger generations today, where this kind of free access to music has always been there, some (a lot) of them seem to genuinely believe it should be free and only a fool would pay for it. I know that’s not the only reason for the decline of the industry, but it’s a definite shift in how people perceive the value (or lack thereof) of music as a consumer product.
The supergroup fad is exacerbating the exact problem it is trying to fix. IT is cheapening album releases and rock n roll bands as a whole. Way to give people need another excuse not to pay for music. When every week a new supergroup comes out and disbands a year later why invest anything into this scene. Most people won’t even buy the classic bands that have been around for decades unless they super fans. I only agree and accept bands doing it IF THEY truly are having a hard time paying rent/mortgage other than that it is NOT rock n roll.
The entire record industry has fallen on its ass and can’t get up…product is not selling or making money…CD’s and even the new 180g vinyl cost too much…if albums and or songs were sold as downloadable apps that stream the music content and inhibits file sharing maybe they can turn it around. The downloading sites that charge per song means no one will buy the whole record. There is no easy answer but the days of platinum albums are over. Plus concerts and full albums are all on youtube…you can watch a full show in your house rather than spend 400 bucks for you and a date to go to a show.