Jimi Hendrix wouldn’t be famous today

[Xanadoood]

Another great video from Rick beato. Musicianship isn’t revered like it once was.. 

 

 

[goose]

I'll have to check this out for sure.  I'm curious what the constraints of the premise are, since a lot of why musicianship isn't as widely regarded today is because of the leaps in guitar technique that Hendrix initiated so many years ago.

[J2112YYZ]

I'm not sure if it would have to do with musicianship not being as revered as it used to be. I still see plenty of artists getting praise for their musical abilities today. I think it would have to do with the wider range of music that's around now. It would be much harder to cut through all of that and reach a mainstream audience. I'm not saying Hendrix had an easy road to fame back in the 60s. But he didn't have 60 years of rock history and a thousand other musical genres to try and see his way through like any aspiring guitar player would have today.

Edited May 31, 2022 by J2112YYZ

[Xanadoood]

53 minutes ago, goose said:

I'll have to check this out for sure.  I'm curious what the constraints of the premise are, since a lot of why musicianship isn't as widely regarded today is because of the leaps in guitar technique that Hendrix initiated so many years ago.

I guess the basic premise is that back in the 70s 80s etc you had SO many famous musicians that write great, groundbreaking music and also were famous.. the Eddie Van Halen’s and Eric Claptons and jimmy pages.. great players and artists and also household names where kids looked up to their musicianship 

[treeduck]

I've not seen it yet but, first off, if he was alive today he wouldn't have been alive in the late 60's. So you'd have to remove all his influence from the music of the last 55 years. Therefore today would be a totally different place for music. 

[invisible airwave]

Most of them wouldn't be famous today.  Real rock is frowned upon.  It has to be safe sounding pop crap to not offend the Radio Disney generation.  Just look at Maroon 5, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, MGK, et al.  Same goes for the overproduced butt rock like 5FDP.

[Krystal]

If Jimi Hendrix had come out in the 1990s or 2000s, then he would probably have a cult following and be mostly a supporting act like Lenny Kravitz.  There was a lot less competition in the music industry in the 1970s.  Nowadays, rock music isn't as popular as it used to be because of pop, hip hop, and techno music.  

Edited May 31, 2022 by Krystal

[Entre_Perpetuo]

58 minutes ago, invisible airwave said:

Most of them wouldn't be famous today.  Real rock is frowned upon.  It has to be safe sounding pop crap to not offend the Radio Disney generation.  Just look at Maroon 5, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, MGK, et al.  Same goes for the overproduced butt rock like 5FDP.

I don’t think “real rock” is frowned upon by anyone. There are plenty of reaction channels on YouTube dedicated to checking out all the “real rock” from the 70s/80s/90s especially and certifying that it’s still great. The thing we’re seeing isn’t that people don’t like rock and roll anymore, it’s that rock isn’t the zeitgeist anymore. Hip hop is, and rock had been on it’s way out of the center of attention for probably a decade or more before hip hop finally took over as the highest selling music genre in the business around 2016. People like rock, but that’s not what they find exciting or interesting right now for the most part. A great guitarist doesn’t capture people’s adulation and imagination the way a great beat and some great bars do.  Part of that does have to do with over saturation, but it can’t all be chalked up to that. Sure there are more incredible guitarists and drummers and singers now that there ever were in the classic rock years, but there are also more great rappers, producers, songwriters, and stage performers now as well.  The internet has made everything accessible to everyone, from the lessons and inspiration you need to become great, to the many many great artists still recording in their bedrooms.  So oversaturation can’t be fully blamed for a single genre losing the limelight, because it effects every genre. I defy anyone to try to break into the trap game right now and make it big. There’s a ton of competition. So the real reason why rock has ebbed while some other genres have grown has to be something else, something I believe to be the zeitgeist. Somewhere between 1991 and 2016, the tastemakers of our collective culture (i.e. the kids) started paying more attention to their favorite rappers and pop singers than their favorite rock stars.  By this point rock was their parents’ music, and perhaps for some even their grandparents’ music. They needed to find their own music, and gradually more and more often it didn’t involve anything resembling a rock band.

 

And with all of this comes the major caveat that this discussion tends to imply that rock “died” or fell off sometime in those years. An implication which is tempting to believe but ultimately no more true now than it was when The Who first proclaimed “rock is dead: long live rock” in the 70s.  The internet makes it easier than ever to find modern bands that suit your individual taste in rock, and it does this only because plenty of those bands still exist. They’re just generally not on the charts anymore.

[IbanezJem]

Aside from the impossibility of knowing the answer to this, as the course of music would be different, I think there`s room for someone special to emerge in today`s landscape. Is there anything new left to do with a guitar, in rock? We never know the answer... until someone does it.

[Charlotte7598]

I often felt the same way about The Beatles. Am I crazy? 

[J2112YYZ]

9 minutes ago, Charlotte7598 said:

I often felt the same way about The Beatles. Am I crazy? 

 

I don't think you're crazy to think that but if the Beatles didn't come along when they did who else would have changed the face of popular rock music? If the Beatles and Hendrix didn't become famous when they did, rock music would be much different now. We might not even have rock music now if they weren't around back then.

[Charlotte7598]

41 minutes ago, J2112YYZ said:

I don't think you're crazy to think that but if the Beatles didn't come along when they did who else would have changed the face of popular rock music? If the Beatles and Hendrix didn't become famous when they did, rock music would be much different now. We might not even have rock music now if they weren't around back then.

I agree. So this whole thing about "so-and-so wouldn't be famous if they came along today" is almost a moot point. Someone has to come along and usher in new styles and techniques which always eventually become old ones.

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Charlotte7598

[Rick N. Backer]

I'm not a big fan of the, "right place at the right time," backhanded compliment some artists (The Beatles, Hendrix, Nirvana) seem to always get.  There were plenty of bands "like," The Beatles in the early 1960s.  Hendrix was not so dissimilar from other late 1960s rock performers.  Nirvana had plenty of company in the "lo-fi" late 1980s.  IMO, bands that transform music do so because of their talent, not because they were "first," because many times they weren't.  We just think they were because after they changed music the imitators came on the scene.  The imitators owe their careers to the bands that inspired the labels to find "another Hendrix."

[goose]

OK, on the context of the video it seems to me that the premise is that while innovative guitar virtuosos exist today, being one isn't in and of itself a vehicle for achieving fame.  In that sense I suppose it's true that if Hendrix came along today - like most of this age's rock guitar phenoms - would not achieve the fame status he had, and still has. 

 

Does a guy like Buckethead support or undermine the premise?

[tangy]

19 minutes ago, goose said:

OK, on the context of the video it seems to me that the premise is that while innovative guitar virtuosos exist today, being one isn't in and of itself a vehicle for achieving fame.  In that sense I suppose it's true that if Hendrix came along today - like most of this age's rock guitar phenoms - would not achieve the fame status he had, and still has. 

 

Does a guy like Buckethead support or undermine the premise?

Jimi had it all. Talent,looks,charisma etc. I think he would of killed it today. 

That said, killer guitarists are a dime a dozen. Particularly so with  instrumental bands.

 

Buckethead is a artist in the truest sense but way too out there for most . Musically and his personal bizarre behavior. 

 

It seems to me, the brightest rising guitar star is Billy Strings.

 

 

[stoopid]

My reply to the video...

 

Quote

The music industry has been focusing on vocalists and melody for the past 20 years (since America's Got Idol Talent), the instrumentation and playing of the instruments isn't as critical and with midi and convincing / quality virtual instruments the need for someone to play the song is lessened. Heck, I have even a few times pulled up my virtual midi keyboard in Cakewalk and drawn the notes I needed versus playing them on the physical keyboard.
 

Priority will always be on generating money, and the front man / woman are the single most critical component to that end in a heavily marketed, selfie / image obsessed society. Autotune is electronic primping.

Access to new music is also as easy as its ever been. It's no wonder no one wants to pay for something when so much of it is freely (or inexpensively) available. This helps dilute things a bit, as someone with *some* talent gets the same access to the audience as someone with elite talent. This makes the appreciation for the elite talent less obvious.

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by stoopid

[Timbale]

This is the kind of argument that feels designed for someone like me - a rock music fan - to agree with...but I don't.

 

I think the fact is rock music is just not the central music art form in contemporary popular culture like it was in the 60s and 70s.  There was pop music then, and there is rock music now...but the glare of mainstream attention is no longer predominantly on rock.  So, did more people in general know who the musicians were who played on rock records in the 70s compared to now?  Yes.  Do more people know who produces pop hits now than the pop hits of the 70s?  Also yes.

 

But also, Hendrix wasn't some guy who played a guitar solo on a Steely Dan hit - he was a genuine pop phenomenon... a charismatic, sexy, dangerous ground-breaking star who wrote catchy memorable songs and was talented.  The "would he be famous now" thing is a minefield of course because f**king with history's timeline makes everything moot, but I think it's safe to say a guy like Hendrix would totally be famous now.  It makes me think of Jon Batiste, who I am a big fan of.  He is a piano virtuoso (you might not know that if all you know of him is Colbert) who writes great, catchy songs and is super charismatic.  He was nominated for 14 grammys and won 5 this year.  Even in the world of SO much music content, I'd say that makes him famous.  I saw him in a club that was around 800 people a couple years ago and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen...and I remember thinking 'he's like James Brown, Prince and Hendrix all in one'.  

[stoopid]

On 6/1/2022 at 1:52 PM, Timbale said:

This is the kind of argument that feels designed for someone like me - a rock music fan - to agree with...but I don't.

 

I think the fact is rock music is just not the central music art form in contemporary popular culture like it was in the 60s and 70s.  There was pop music then, and there is rock music now...but the glare of mainstream attention is no longer predominantly on rock.  So, did more people in general know who the musicians were who played on rock records in the 70s compared to now?  Yes.  Do more people know who produces pop hits now than the pop hits of the 70s?  Also yes.

 

But also, Hendrix wasn't some guy who played a guitar solo on a Steely Dan hit - he was a genuine pop phenomenon... a charismatic, sexy, dangerous ground-breaking star who wrote catchy memorable songs and was talented.  The "would he be famous now" thing is a minefield of course because f**king with history's timeline makes everything moot, but I think it's safe to say a guy like Hendrix would totally be famous now.  It makes me think of Jon Batiste, who I am a big fan of.  He is a piano virtuoso (you might not know that if all you know of him is Colbert) who writes great, catchy songs and is super charismatic.  He was nominated for 14 grammys and won 5 this year.  Even in the world of SO much music content, I'd say that makes him famous.  I saw him in a club that was around 800 people a couple years ago and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen...and I remember thinking 'he's like James Brown, Prince and Hendrix all in one'.  

That's a well thought out post, and I was agreeing until the end.  For the reason you mentioned him, and for the reason his 14 grammy nominations was news in the music world, Batiste is a very glaring exception to the general rule.  And without the 'Colbert bump' it's unlikely he would have garnished the attention and/or record deal that led to that award winning recording.