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 Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists? 
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Post Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
When a movie based on an older Property comes out, it often does well. When a once popular artist releases music after a long hiatus, it usually flops. Why is this?


Thu Sep 13, 2018 11:49 pm
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The Kramer
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
Well, with music people are fine with just listening to the old stuff. No one cares about Paul McCartney's new album but he will still sell out an arena in less than a day. 6ix9ine isn't doing that.

Also the "80s sound" had been the driving force of pop music from '09 to about last year when Trap took over.


Fri Sep 14, 2018 1:37 pm
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
I’d also point towards artists like Bruno Mars, The Weeknd, Chris Brown, etc... as an entire “Michael Jackson Nostalgia” subgenre of pop.


Fri Sep 14, 2018 1:42 pm
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
There is nostalgia in music but it's for the older songs. Hence going to a concert where a band plays all their hits, radio stations full of 80s or 90s hits, etc. People have a lot of outlets to be nostalgic about their old favourites so buying their new album isn't as necessary

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Fri Sep 14, 2018 3:19 pm
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now we know
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
Well, tastes change.

But often when musicians that were big in the 80s release material nowadays, it's not as good. The same standards are there for movie stars. I don't see whenever an 80s star makes a movie now that it's popular. Many of them are not. The odd one might be. But I think that goes for musicians too. I think the music or film still has to be good for it to be popular in any decade.

Also, musicians are known to lose their voice as they age. They can become frail and less precise with instruments. But as an actor, getting wrinkles and a gravelly voice just adds character.

Many reasons to answer your question, but I do not think any of them are to do with nostalgia. I also think that musicians generally have a shorter lifespan, often rising to fame in a bubble of what was popular in their era. With film, it's different. Actors are chameleons that can apply their craft to all eras, genres, stories, etc. Musicians are not. You're either jazz or not, metal or not, funk or not, and so on. Very few acts or musicians go from one genre to another (or if you're more cynical; the ones that are so generically mainstream that they do not even fit into a specific genre) and therefore live through multiple decades, but the ones that do and can are the huge ones such as Michael Jackson, Elton John, Phil Collins, etc.


Sat Sep 15, 2018 3:37 am
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
Algren wrote:
Many reasons to answer your question


That's pretty much what I was thinking too, and Shack and Flava's answers are good too. And I think nostalgia just doesn't really help people in general, nostalgia is moments and memories...usually it's the song that makes the artist popular or memorable, not the other way around.


Sat Sep 15, 2018 9:06 am
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
The action star analogy seems fair. People don't go to Arnold movies anymore for the same reason older musical artists albums aren't big. Change in what's popular and the genre favors youth

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Sat Sep 15, 2018 11:04 am
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
That's a pretty good question.

If Weeknd, Chris Brown, and Bruno Mars are big because they can sound an artist from a bygone era (that isn't at all why they are big but that's a discussion for another day), then why can't actual artists that are *actually* from bygone eras do well?

For these legacy artists, their back catalog gets a steady flow of minor attention that could add up over time. But when they release music (such as Paul McCartney and Mariah Carey right now) they might not even have enough attention to get a song into the top 100.

I think another aspect has a lot to do with the cost/risk dynamic in the film industry. Movies like Jurassic World or Beauty and the Beast are monsterously expensive. So the studios have to drown the public in marketing in order to get the ball rolling. If Mariah Carey's album "flops" and she can't get a single onto the Hot 100, then that's not really a huge loss for the studios. They make most of their money on touring anyways.

Mariah is the most listened to artist of the 1990s, and anybody old enough to have memories of the 1990s likely has memories of her music being played during the time. But very few people are probably aware at all that Mariah even has a new album out.

Which brings me to my last point: the music industry is a young person's game right now. The film industry, not quite as much. The ball is in the court of Apple Music and Spotify, which are still college aged on average. People whose idea of oldies is "Yeah!" by Usher.

Artists like Mariah and McCartney do a lot better in dying formats like radio and sales, because these are formats dominated by people old enough to remember when they were big.


Wed Sep 19, 2018 4:29 pm
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
BhadBhabie wrote:
That's a pretty good question.

If Weeknd, Chris Brown, and Bruno Mars are big because they can sound an artist from a bygone era (that isn't at all why they are big but that's a discussion for another day), then why can't actual artists that are *actually* from bygone eras do well?

For these legacy artists, their back catalog gets a steady flow of minor attention that could add up over time. But when they release music (such as Paul McCartney and Mariah Carey right now) they might not even have enough attention to get a song into the top 100.

I think another aspect has a lot to do with the cost/risk dynamic in the film industry. Movies like Jurassic World or Beauty and the Beast are monsterously expensive. So the studios have to drown the public in marketing in order to get the ball rolling. If Mariah Carey's album "flops" and she can't get a single onto the Hot 100, then that's not really a huge loss for the studios. They make most of their money on touring anyways.

Mariah is the most listened to artist of the 1990s, and anybody old enough to have memories of the 1990s likely has memories of her music being played during the time. But very few people are probably aware at all that Mariah even has a new album out.

Which brings me to my last point: the music industry is a young person's game right now. The film industry, not quite as much. The ball is in the court of Apple Music and Spotify, which are still college aged on average. People whose idea of oldies is "Yeah!" by Usher.

Artists like Mariah and McCartney do a lot better in dying formats like radio and sales, because these are formats dominated by people old enough to remember when they were big.


Good post and welcome!


Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:39 pm
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
Welcome!

People are allergic to the ‘old’

BhadBhabie wrote:
That's a pretty good question.

If Weeknd, Chris Brown, and Bruno Mars are big because they can sound an artist from a bygone era (that isn't at all why they are big but that's a discussion for another day), then why can't actual artists that are *actually* from bygone eras do well?

For these legacy artists, their back catalog gets a steady flow of minor attention that could add up over time. But when they release music (such as Paul McCartney and Mariah Carey right now) they might not even have enough attention to get a song into the top 100.

I think another aspect has a lot to do with the cost/risk dynamic in the film industry. Movies like Jurassic World or Beauty and the Beast are monsterously expensive. So the studios have to drown the public in marketing in order to get the ball rolling. If Mariah Carey's album "flops" and she can't get a single onto the Hot 100, then that's not really a huge loss for the studios. They make most of their money on touring anyways.

Mariah is the most listened to artist of the 1990s, and anybody old enough to have memories of the 1990s likely has memories of her music being played during the time. But very few people are probably aware at all that Mariah even has a new album out.

Which brings me to my last point: the music industry is a young person's game right now. The film industry, not quite as much. The ball is in the court of Apple Music and Spotify, which are still college aged on average. People whose idea of oldies is "Yeah!" by Usher.

Artists like Mariah and McCartney do a lot better in dying formats like radio and sales, because these are formats dominated by people old enough to remember when they were big.

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Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:44 pm
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Post Re: Why doesn’t nostalgia help music artists?
Charts (which nowadays is basically Spotify) are driven by teenagers. It's not cool for them to listen to the same artists their parents or even older siblings were listening to.

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Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:14 pm
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