I think it’s far more likely that people will be listening to the Beatles’ recordings one or two hundred years from now than that they’ll be listening to any particular 20th century recording of classical music.
I think far more people will be listening to live performances of classical works than to live performances of the Beatles’ works.
In a hundred years there may, possibly, be a small, niche demand for Beatles tribute bands, that recreate the experience of seeing The Beatles perform live. But any demand for tribute artists that recreate the experience of seeing Bach or Mozart live would be even smaller and niche-er.
And, not all classical music has survived and thrived for more than 200 years. How many people still listen to Spohr, Raff, and Hummel (or their even more obscure contemporaries)?
Of course I could say the same about nearly every musical act that peaked years ago, the whole point of picking Elvis was to demonstrate that even the biggest of stars fades away eventually. At some point there won’t be any Elvis impersonators and you won’t hear his music anywhere other than movies set in the past. He’ll fade away like everyone else.
In the early 1980s, I remember reading about a Doors parody band called Jimbo and the Lizard Kings. I have a feeling that would have been quite an experience.
Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd are already basically cover bands, because last I heard, neither band has any original members (although I understand Foreigner gets Mick Jones occasionally, in his early 80s).
I agree the 20th century was not a high mark for classical music, the baroque, classical, and romantic periods were. And, a great deal of music from those periods has been played globally, in various venues, sometimes with period instruments (when they can afford them) for ambiance by everything from string quartets to full orchestra symphonies for hundreds of years, and I expect they will continue to do so long into the future. And, I expect the best will always be well-attended. The music is timeless.
But, if you mean cover bands whose lead dresses up like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven et al, attempting to give the illusion of being a 17th-19th century tribute band, then yes, that’s not common, nor should it be.
And, certainly, there are many mediocre to good composers whose work fades in popularity. But, great classical music persists forever. Great popular music persists for a few generations. Perhaps longer if it becomes novelty.
In case you couldn’t tell, I think you’re comparing apples and oranges, or maybe apples and tennis balls. One big reason is that the Beatles are something relatively new in the history of music: recording artists. When people listen to a record or album by The Beatles, at least one from later in their career, they’re listening to something that was conceived and produced as a work of art in itself, and not just (as in the case of a classical music recording) something that exists to be a faithful reproduction of a performance, which itself is a faithful reproduction of a composition.
And, yes, we don’t have any records that people still listen to hundreds of years after they were created, but that’s because the technology hasn’t been around that long. But we do have recordings (e.g. by The Beatles) from more than 50 years ago that people still listen to, admire, and study, and it’s not inconceivable that some of them will still be listened to 50 or 100 or more years in the future.
I’m not sure I can justify this, but I suspect there will still be significant interest in the best of those recordings as recordings, but not so much in the songs as compositions.
Well, yes; given enough time, nearly every popular artist or celebrity will become unknown.
That said, I think that, compared to his contemporaries from the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis became an outsized icon, and his status and fame transcended his music: at a certain point (probably even during his lifetime), he wasn’t really famous for his music anymore; he simply became famous for being Elvis, and that aspect of his fame seems to be, at least for now, what is enduring.
Even though his music probably has, for the most part, faded from the popular consciousness, and many younger people probably couldn’t name more than one or two of his songs (if that), most Americans still at least know who he is: YouGov’s polling indicates that 96% of Americans still have heard of him, and 69% like him.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that 69% of Americans would want to go see an Elvis tribute act, but that’s another question.
When someone refers to an individual as famous for being famous they’re saying he has no discernable talent or accomplishment. That doesn’t apply to people like Elvis the Pelvis, Taylor Swift, or Frank Sinatra as pretty much everyone can tell you why they got famous.
Judging from a venue near me there’s a lot of demand for tribute bands. They book a wide variety, including several that really surprised me like a Van Morrison tribute band (to my taste at least, Van Morrison doesn’t rate having a tribute band), and several doing “hair band” acts from the 80s. I think I’d only go to see a really good Beatles tribute group.
But it’s not a strict dichotomy. @kenobi_65 certainly wasn’t saying that Elvis had no talent. He was saying that “his status and fame transcended his music”—that, at a certain point, his fame and celebrity status went beyond what it would be if it were based strictly on his talent and performance.
Exactly this. Please note that I specifically did not say he was “famous for being famous.” His fame ultimately became for something more that simply his music. It became about his persona, his story, and the details of his life beyond the songs he recorded.
The best parallel I can think of is Marilyn Monroe. She’s still incredibly iconic, and extremely well-known culturally today, 60 years after her death, and in an era where most people who know who she was have never actually watched one of her movies.
One of the most popular tribute bands right now is Leonid and Friends. They are from Russia and are mostly a Chicago tribute band, although they have branched out to other artists recently. They are so good that the real Chicago has featured them on their website. And to many die-hard Chicago fans out there, they are better than the real band (at least as they exist today). Their United States tours have been enormously successful and their videos on YouTube get millions of hits. They really are fantastic.
I have no doubt most modern musical instruments are superior to period instruments. But, quite a few classical aficionados prefer the sound and style of music as it was originally intended by the composers, played on period instruments.
I’m not one of those people. Gimme Bach played on a Hammond B3 with a Leslie speaker.