Posted on 07/10/2013 7:43:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Rolling Stones play the last stop of their current tour — and possibly their career — next week in London's Hyde Park.
Their last few shows have drawn rave reviews, and the returns on their earlier shows have been strong.
But others have called it "the night of the living dead" tour, for reasons that are perhaps evident.
And the Rolling Stones are already one of the wealthiest bands in the world. Their last tour grossed more than half a billion dollars. Mick Jagger is said to be worth more than $300 million, Keith Richards just a bit less.
So why do these guys keep going on tour?
There are three reasons.
First, digitized music is now virtually worthless. Prof. Peter Tschmuck, a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna who runs a blog about the economics of the music business, told me the return on investment from selling a digital copy of a song is 12% compared with about 36% for CDs — and that's before that revenue is carved up to various title holders.
Professor Jeff Dorenfeld, a lecturer on music business at the Berklee College of Music, told us songs have been losing value for more than a decade.
There's very little money made from recorded music anymore. Apple — iTunes is mostly a singles market, Spotify, that kind of service doesn't pay high royalties, radio is not as big as it used to be. So all those revenues are not where they were, and haven't been for the last 15 years.
Second — and luckily in response to item 1 — touring now generates lots of money. And it's especially lucrative to be the Rolling Stones. Their last three tours combined will likely have grossed about $1 billion
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Uh, because they can. Hello. Saw them a few years ago on the Bridges to Babylon tour in Orlando. Despite their age they still rocked! (Free tickets are always good. Except when you have asshats like csny starting their political crap by the third song. We walked even with free tickets it wasn’t worth it to hear them railing about capitalism while their minions were hawking t-shirts for $35.00. Asshats!)
Saw them with friends in 1969 at the spectrum in Phiadelphia(the tour that ended in Altamont).....saw them in 1989 at Shea Stadium with the wife and saw them in Hartford at the Hartford Civic Center in 1999 with my wife and kids.
Always put on a good show....
and yeah they are getting a little long in the tooth to be putting on these shows...and I am definitely getting a little long in the tooth, going to these shows....
Very true that bands now make most of their money from touring and related peripherals (t-shirt sales, etc.)
as opposed to sales of the recordings.
More and more the recording is becoming a giveaway or loss-leader to get fans interested in coming to the concert.
A Professor Peter Tschmuck in Vienna-— you can’t make up this stuff. A schmuck in Vienna says digitized music is worthless to the creators. If they were just coming up today and were not digitized— nobody would know who they were.
Death throes of the big suits of the old model, baby boomer music biz-— back when they printed their own money.
Rumor has it that Keith Richards actually died 10 years ago but is very involved in the zombie movement.:>0
What the hell else are they going to do? When the demand stops, they’ll stop perhaps.
What the hell - let the guys have fun.
That is because most of it sucks. People used to buy albums for the music. The current crop of so called artist are not capable of making an album where all the music is pretty good. Plus, any young cool looking person can be made a star nowadays. No need for talent.
I have no problem with their age, what I have a problem with is they’ve been resting on their laurels for the past 30 odd years. Tattoo you was the last good album they put out, and back then they were only in their late 30s. It’s not like they weren’t still relevant. So what happened? Ever since then it’s been one crap album after another where now it’s like watching a Broadway show were these guys make pretend they’re the Stones. “Stone-mania on Broadway” Same with Elton John, the guy can barely sing and constantly does songs he wrote 40 years ago. It’s a bad tribute band.
Gee, I guess I’m not so old after all! Keith sang in the boys choir during QE II’s coronation in ‘53...a long, long time ago.
RE: That is because most of it sucks.
DIGITAL AUTO-TUNING TECHNOLOGY DOES WONDERS FOR ONE’s VOICE.
HERE’s HOW TO CREATE A SEXY POP STAR ( OUT OF A PRETTY GIRL WHO CAN’T EVEN SING )
See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk3_p15RJY
Gee, things are turning out exactly as was predicted in the early days of indie internet music sites.
Back in the late nineties the RIAA spent many times as much money desperately trying to shut down indie music store MP3.com as was spent going after actual copyright violations on napster.
The reason was that the recording industry business model was predicated on a cost wall that was no longer there. When Sun Records recorded Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash their Memphis studio cost between three and five millions to build depending on which source you look up. In the late nineties indie artist Bassic built a similarly capable studio for thirteen thousand.
Publishing and video are a little further back but following the same track.
I had to look up csny. If Crosby were one of the commoners do you think he would have got two new liver?
I think that was the tour that was at Foxboro MA old Patriots stadium. A hurrican blew in. Keith Richards kept singing and the band kept playing, stronger and stronger. It was Richards vs the hurricane....hands down, Richards won. <^..^>
RE: " Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger"
--Jagger told British reporters in 1970 that, "The time is right now, revolution is valid." and "There should be no such thing as private property." He said this with a straight face, even as "street fighting man", Mick, was lavishing millions on his new Queen Anne styled mansion, furnishing it with priceless antiques, Flemish tapestries and Persian rugs. Jagger was chauffeur driven to that very press conference in his brand new Bentley limousine.
--Jagger seriously considered running for the British House of Commons on the socialist Labour Party line in the 70s, but thought that Bianca Jagger, his then wife, would be a political liability. (Altho with Bianca being a big fan of the Marxist Sandinistas in her native Nicaragua, you'd think that would be a big plus with the motley, neo-Leninists who constitute Britain's Labour party.)
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