Why are bands mysteriously disappearing? Rick Beato video

Yeah, the complete one-note quality of the modern "project" - which is usually some dude on his bedroom computer - is palpable. And when they tour, the few I've seen are terribly awkward to watch performed live.

Nothing mysterious about it in my opinion.
If you are a good writer, musician and singer, with a grasp on exactly how you want your material to sound, a band can be a liability.
Technology has made it possible to do most anything by yourself in a studio.
Now, if you want to be out there doing covers in a live setting, you need a band. Otherwise, not so much.
With that said, I enjoy picking with friends pretty often and a couple of them like to do my songs. It's fun and I love some of the things they come up with to add flavor, but sometimes things can get off track from my original vision for a song.
3:15 songs become 7 minutes long and stuff like that.

That was interesting to listen to and I didn't even realize that was going on... but I also don't listen to the mainstream and bands are alive and well in indie/underground rock..

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the latest iteration of the billie eilish breathy whisper singing girl with super slick production is terrible

olivia rodrigo and sabrina carpenter are prime examples

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Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are not “breathy whisper singing girls”.

Tom Petty saw the music industry going down the crappy long before he passed away.

My name's joe
I'm the CEO
Yeah, I'm the man
Makes the big wheels roll
I'm the hand on the green light switch
You get to be famous
I get to be rich
Go get me a kid
With a good-looking face
Bring me a kid
Can remember his place
Some hungry poet
Son of a bitch
He gets to be famous
I get to be rich
Or bring me a girl
They're always the best
You put 'em on stage
And you have 'em undress
Some angel whore
Who can learn a guitar lick
Hey, now that's what I call music
Well they'll come lookin' for money
When the public gets bored
But we'll fight 'em with lawyers
They could never afford
Yeah, I'll make her look
Like a spoiled little bitch
She gets to be famous
I get to be rich
Or bring me a girl
There always the best
You put 'em on stage
And you have 'em undress
Some angel whore
Could learn a guitar lick
Hey, now that's what I call
Music
So burnt-out Johnny
Thinks our books are shifty
What good's that alchie to me when he's fifty
We could move catalog
If he'd only die quicker
Send my regards to the gig
And a case of good liquor
He gets to be famous
I get to be rich
He gets to be famous
I get to be rich
My name's Joe, I'm the CEO
I'm the man makes
The big wheels roll

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Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are not “breathy whisper singing girls”.

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looks like we found the 14 year old girl on the board

I can go into the Performing Arts Dept at a Texas 6A HS and find as many Sabrina Carpenters and Olivia Rodrigos as you want, some of them can probably even play piano as basically as Rodrigo can

performing arts high schools and colleges talent laughs at these girl pop singers

what is funny is the same companies that churn out these artists also own the ranking services like Billboard and are tied in to the streaming services to decide who is "hot" and who is "not"

The company that owns Billboard (Eldridge) also has artist and publishing management deals with Sony Music and Universal Music

My hot take on why bands aren’t charting like they used to: Reality TV. Reality TV killed MTV as the singular platform for new music exposure to the national audience. Used to be if you got a hit video on MTV you were off and running. It’s much harder to break through now.

Frankly, I think the lower barriers to entry for producing music have improved music in some areas. Most bands/artists I listen to now self-produce.

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Mainstream music has always been mostly crap especially now.

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this has been covered at length but everything changed when it actually became organized crime and not disorganized crime

when it was de-centralized it was way more organic but also far more corrupt

listening to AM rock radio stations on car radios and album sales became the way the new rock music was consumed by young people and popularity exploded

to break a new song, record label guys had to literally pay DJs to play their artists songs and when the payola scandals of 1959 hit the industry it forced the Feds to begin to regulate the industry

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In 1960, as a result of the congressional hearings, Congress amended the Federal Communications Act, specifically sections 317 and 507, to outlaw under-the-table payments and require broadcasters to disclose if airplay for a song has been purchased. The FCC takes this seriously; in 2000, it fined a Texas radio station $4,000 for accepting money for playing a Bryan Adams song without telling anyone (although you can understand why Bryan Adams’s promoters would be driven to payola).

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So when regulations happened more legitimate business men got into the market and funded artists and labels. The businessmen were there to make money, not be music critics, so an artist like Frank Zappa could make avant garde albums and still get them distributed.

This changed when Clive Davis came to power and the businessmen that ran the industry also thought they knew what was good or not. These businessmen homogenized popular music and have continuously reduced the artist's power to the point that an artist like Sabrina Carpenter can be signed on an original Disney Talent contract and her entire career is outright owned by Disney (song, publishing and her image rights) and Universal Music (distribution rights).

Carpenter gets songwriter credits and percentages of her image, licensing, product sales/downloads and that is it. Disney and Universal own everything associated with her.

Alternative Hypothesis #1: Travelball. Good bands that last form much easier among the youngs with a lot of free time. With travelball taking an increasingly larger share of the youngs’ time, there is much less time to devote to musical pursuits. Band numbers suffer.