singemonkey wrote:
Nothing against Bieber. But ask yourself, The Bay City Rollers... where are they now? A great pop group continues its appeal as you get older. People don't mature and give up listening to the Beatles. U2 or Michael Jackson still have their appeal. But when it's just an image that appeals to people at a certain stage of life or whatever, well, I don't respect it any more than a successful craze in toys.
Well you maybe didn't pick the best example. The Rollers got comprehensively ripped off by their management. Two of them ended up playing pub gigs in Durban. They were tied up in legal red tape for years - which often doesn't do good things for a career. Bruce Springsteen's career was nearly killed by similar goings on.
It also depends on what the appeal is built on and whether or not you know which side your bread is buttered. The Monkees effectively killed their own career when they decided that THEY wanted to write the songs and play all the instruments so that they could be proper musicians. Management let them go ahead and that was pretty much the end of that.
The jury must surely be out on Bieber? We don't know yet if he's going to transition into a more grown up kind of artist with long term appeal. He might. He's certainly lasted longer and got bigger than many people expected. I think it's hard for a teeny bop hero to make that transition, but it's not impossible.
Anyway... life is simpler (not necessarily fairer, but simpler) if you accept the X-rated Bob view of the music business, namely that there is no relationship at all between talent and sales. None whatsoever. They may coincide (the Fab Four) or they miss by miles. It's long been that way and long will be. Resign yourself to the nasty truth and move on.
