In a message dated 7/14/03 12:03:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:

> The four biggest selling Artists worldwide of The New Millenium so far?
> Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones, and Led Zeppelin...
> Look for a resurgence of real rock and pop in the coming 18
> months...including on the radio and in the stores...

Bob, do you have any documentation for this? While I am willing to believe 
that it's possible that three of those four are the biggest selling worldwide 
(though I actually doubt even that), I have serious doubts that Elvis Presley, 
whose record sales have been plummeting (even despite the #1 comp, which 
actually didn't do that well) with little signs of recovery for years. This is 
mostly just anecdotal evidence--I have, after all, worked at a large record store 
for most of the new millennium--and admittedly what is selling on the North 
Shore in Massachusetts is not necessarily what is selling in the rest of the 
world--but it seems to me that while these acts do sell, they don't sell nearly as 
much as a lot of other, newer acts do.

And as far as the resurgence in "rock"... I really think this has been 
happening since late 2001. But I'd certainly be interested to know if the 
aforementioned "dinosaur acts" really have been the biggest sellers of the new 
millennium because that'd be surprising.

<< The problem is that because of the changes in 
the "above-the-radar" biz, there's now a limit to their career 
trajectory, which I don't think has ever existed before. >>

Wendie does have a point here, in that I think that while, right now, it's 
quite possible to amass a following and be moderately successful, it's hard to 
pull off the kind of transformation that, say, REM did with "Document", where 
they shifted from successful indie darlings to massive mainstream success. I 
can't point to many cases where established artists have done this over the past 
4 or 5 years.

<< I spent most of my career in the "adult contemporary" 
world, and I can tell you that those markets have shrunk to nearly 
nothing in "below-the-radar" land >>

I think this is also true. I feel lucky because I live in Boston, which has 
one of the few undisputably great A/C (or "AAA") stations in the country--92.5 
the River. They'll play the stuff you know, but they'll also play, like, the 
new Marshall Crenshaw single (he has an album coming out in a week, in case no 
one knew) or Lucinda Williams or Glenn Tilbrook. They're also independently 
owned and operated. They're not perfect, but I'm really glad they're here.

<< jam, blues, emo, alt-country),  >>

Adam's right about this, in particular that the jam bands and emo bands are 
the ones who can really take off merely by association, because these are the 
scenes that are thriving now without any mainstream support whatsoever. Even 
the big music mags (RS, Spin, etc) don't much support these subgenres, at least 
not in the true sense (Good Charlotte is NOT emo, btw), so they rely on "the 
scene": word of mouth, friends making mix tapes, etc, which is very much alive. 
The jam stuff couldn't be much more different from the audities stuff, but 
emo has a lot of similarities, and I know that some power-pop bands have had 
some success there. Fountains of Wayne actually had a brief bit of emo cred right 
around "Utopia Parkway" because, lyrically, something about that album struck 
a chord. This is also the problem; a lot of power-pop is structured around 
the music and production and feel, and the lyrics tend to be sidelined. Emo kids 
don't get this at all since they're lyrics people by definition, and this is 
a big barrier. It's just something I've noticed when Ive tried turning some of 
my emo-loving friends onto power-pop.

<< Yeah, I agree. I'm also with David Bash in that I really enjoy the
late-seventies arena rock albums (*Sleepwalker*, *Misfits*, *Low Budget*)
that the Kinks put out. And even their weaker 80s albums always had at least
a couple decent tracks. >>

An update on my acquisitions: I've now picked up all the VelVel reissues, as 
well as "Kontroversy", "Face To Face", "UK Jive", "Phobia" and "Percy" (it was 
on sale, and you don't typically find that one on the shelf). I must say that 
I actually love the "arena rock" period through and through, right on up to 
and including "Word of Mouth" which I think is sort of underrated. "Good Day" 
and "Go Solo" are beautiful songs, I think, and they perfectly encompass what 
slick-sounding '80s production should sound like--clean, but not overdone. I 
think that album is as catchy as anything they've done, too. I still have their 
golden period ("Something Else" through "Lola") to buy up, so the best is yet 
to come! --Jason