Lead singer of Iron Maiden Bruce Dickinson recently said in an interview ‘Illegal downloading destroyed the concept of music having any value.’ I couldn’t agree with him more. Nobody wants to buy music anymore, especially when they can get it for free. Me myself, I have never illegally downloaded anything. If a new artist or band puts something new out, I admit I won’t run out and buy it without hearing a song or 2 1st as CD’s are like $15 now.
The perfect case is Judas Priest. I had heard some good things about the new album “FirePower“, they are touring behind so I figured they would have a music video on YouTube for me to listen too. Imagine my surprise when the whole album was up for me to hear!
Most kids these days would see that and figure why even buy their new release when anytime I want to hear it, I can listen to it for free right on YouTube since kids never go anywhere without their phones these days.
Dickinson further went on to say he feels terrible for today’s new bands to struggle to make money from record sales because there isn’t many. Myself (I am 53) used to love to go to Listening Booth in my teens to buy records from AC/DC, Kiss, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Dio, etc. and I loved holding the vinyl in my hands and having an actual copy of the band’s new release.
Later on, when I started to get into underground metal, I would read about such bands as Saxon, Motorhead, Raven, Venom, Slayer, Metallica, etc. and I would go out and buy their new records as well. I would go home, and immediacy rip opens the cassette or CD and pop that baby in and be ecstatic.
Nowadays big bands like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, etc. they even admit not caring or record sales. They go out on the road and play in baseball or football stadiums to 50,000 or more people and charge a ton of money for tickets and make their money that way, plus any merchandise as well. No way anybody is ever beating the sales of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album as that was in a day in age where people still brought music.
The bands who had success back in the 70’s and 80’s such as Judas Priest they don’t even need to release new music if they didn’t want too, they could go out and deliver a most important type of show every year. Bands like Journey, Chicago, Def Leppard do it all the time. Every summer a lot of these old rocker type of groups go and play these outdoor places with lawns that hold around 15,000 and sell it out too.
It’s harder to break new bands these days with all this technology and social media we have today than it was in the 70’s and 80’s to me when I think about it, that is crazy, but it’s the reality.
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