Will there ever be a "next big thing"?

...maybe not on the level of the Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra, etc., but a band or artist that takes the musical world by storm who have a long string of creatively unsurpassed albums that has a wide sphere of influence? Or are they here already, ie., Radiohead? Clay Aiken? I think there probably won't be anyone to come along and influence the world like the Beatles did because so much musical ground has been covered already - we have, to some extent, "seen everything", "been there, done that". Anything else in the future, musically, will almost certainly be a reworking of everything we've already heard. The Beatles & Elvis were cultural phenomenon breaking new ground in music, in their respective periods. I think a similar phenomenon may not come from music but some new form of entertainment. In summary, I think it's unlikely there's any new musical ground to be broken, but I hope I'm wrong. Your thoughts?

 

I hardly doubt... most of the new artists/bands are so artificial... "designed" by the record labels.

 

Of course there will be a 'next big thing'....but it won't be for us, anymore than 2Pac or Biggie were 'for us'....we are older, and our hearts are elsewhere. We have to settle for smaller pleasures, while embracing those we've been following for decades. It's just the way of things..as our icons die of or fade away, we die and fade away with them.


ED

 

well said, Ed!

 

Of course there will be!

 

Yes, well said.

 

Or the Beatles were "for" a generation raised on Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller, for that matter.

 

Exactly right. As time marches on, there will always be a "next big thing" saleswise for the kiddies.

 

I think that there will be a next big thing, I'm just not sure if big things last more than a couple years at a time now. When Bruce Springsteen wrote lyrics, he made a decision to sing about universal type themes that everyone could relate to. That's one of the reasons he is still a "big thing".

Can you imagine Eminem being 50 years old, and his 40-50 year old fans going to see him and wanting to hear those curse filled hateful songs?? I don't think so.

I already have my personal next big thing. They're known as "Wilco"

 

Eminem will long not be welcome when he becomes 50 unless he gets murdered. This doesn't mean that I condone murder, which I don't because it's wrong, but it happened that way with Biggie and 2Pac.

 

I wouldn't underestimate Eminem....he is still the biggest artist on the planet right now. Who knows if he will be able to grow his music into maturity, but I would not write him off so quickly. And while I can't imagine him at 50, neither could I imagine the "hope I die before I get old" of The Who at 50 either.

 

He may be the biggest artist on the planet right now but I wouldn't know one of his songs if it was playing - I've never heard the guy. What's the average age, I wonder, of his fan base- 19? Like Ed basically said: it's a youth thing.

 

Someday they're going to have a whole disneyland for the past. It'll be malt shakes and rock and roll, girls with poodle skirts and real Coke with real sugar.

Seriously, just like Back to The Future. Who wouldn't want to live when the hot artist was Nat King Cole or Ray Charles, records were $3.98 and you could drive around in a big ol' Caddy?

Sounds like fun! Someday, this will be a tourist park: The Past.

 

Hmm. Seems doubtful to me. I was lucky enough to be in front of the TV in February of 1964 when The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I can't imagine another group or solo artist coming along and influencing popular culture (to say nothing of music itself) to the extent that The Beatles did. The world is not the same place that it was in the early 60s. I don't think the same conditions exist for a new artist/group to come along and have the same impact.

Of course, i could be wrong. I'm 46 and i can't say for certain that i would recognize an Eminem song if i heard one. I didn't see his film, either. I don't know if i'm missing anything. What little i've heard of his music has turned me off...probably in much the same way that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were unpalatable to my parents, so it's probably a generational thing to some extent.

I've read a lot of rock artist biographies and i've lost track of how many times i've heard many of these artists say that they got into the music business because of The Beatles. Are new artists getting into the business because of Eminem? Could be. I really don't know. When people were begging for The Beatles to get back together, Paul McCartney said, "You can't reheat a souffle'." I agree with Paul.

 

There will never be a next big thing like The Beatles simply because the vast array of choices of media has broken the audience into so many different niches. Back in The Beatles day you had a few TV stations and a few radio stations and that was it. Now you have radio, satellite radio, streaming radio, hundreds of cable TV stations, music magazines, music bundled with video games, individual artist web sites, P2P, etc. Narrowcasting as defined at dictionary.com - To transmit, as by cable, programs confined to the interests of a specific group of viewers, subscribers, or listeners, such as physicians, businesspeople, or teenagers. This is why there will never be a next big thing like back in the day.

 

Mike is right.

The media is SO fragmented now, by demographics. Parents watch one thing, kids watch something else, teens watch yet another thing.

The days when the whole family sat around the new Color Tv console to watch Ed Sullivan or Wonderful World of Disney are long gone.

The other thing is the Record Companies themselves dont operate they way they did in 1964. I doubt we will EVER see 40 year old men wearing Wigs (or whatever) to "be hip like The Beatles" like we did in 1964.

The last thing is that there is way too much negative vibe in the music world. Rappers killing each other?? Give me a break!!! Madonna kissing Britney Spears? C'mon.

No, the days of "The Next Big thing" are gone.

 

Mike said almost exactly what I was going to say. But I wonder also if there really needs to be a "next big thing," or if the way marketing goes nowadays, if we would even want one. Because if there was another "big thing," about 100 imitators would be signed up within minutes and we'd all be burned out on it shortly thereafter.

I just hope we continue to get quality acts doing interesting things.

 

my question:

what was the last "big thing"?

brittany - possibly, could be around for a long time
madonna- seems to have staying power - always seems to bouce back
michael jackson - to weird for the mainstream, waning

 

my question:

what was the last "big thing"?

brittany - possibly, could be around for a long time
madonna- seems to have staying power - always seems to bouce back
michael jackson - to weird for the mainstream, waning


and, yes, i think there will be a next "big thing" but i agreee with the above post, it won't be for us.

 

The last big thing was the teenage pop explosion. It started w/ Hanson and ended w/ Justin Timberlake's solo album. Teen pop has grown up into just Pop.

Before that was the mid 90's allternative thing: Hootie, Alanis, Jewel, etc.

The early 90's was the grunge explosion.

I'm sorry the last big thing wasn't the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. C'mon!

 

This is an excellent point, too. What I find so ironic is that the TV & computer industry has no clue about this fragmentation of the market. I see companies like Microsoft trying to get that market for the "set top box" or TV in the living room, to put a single computer there with one huge TV the whole family can watch together. Few families watch TV like that, or not for long when kids start to get older. This big rush to convert to HDTV and the costs of these TVs will still be expensive by 2006. Very few people will want to trade in their 40" analog sets for a 30" HDTV because thats all they can afford. Sorry if this is going off from the subject, but HDTV will affect all of us in a few years, there will be no analog broadcasts anymore. I suppose this will be a litmus test to see how a market will deal with a drastic change, the recording industry might take note if they want to use another format and drop CDs.

 

Actually, Wannabe by the Spice Girls was first. They weren't teens, but they were the first big pop thing after alternative, next came Hanson. That was the same time that they tried to push "electronica" with Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, etc? What a bomb. And don't forget the "latin pop"explosion with Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, etc. "Tell me babygirl because I need to know"

 

True. Again there will always be "the next big thing" just not for us non-teenagers. But were the Beatles for our parents or grandparents (in my case). No, so what is the big deal.

There always be "the next big thing". Music will always continue to go in cycles. I'm more worried about no new guitar hereos out there than the next big thing not affecting me!