During the late 1990s dance/electronic/techno etc. music hit the mainstream in the UK in a big way. The Prodigy (I’m aware they were around before this), Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk et al were making big waves. At the time I recall hearing and reading numerous times that that year, it was some year between 1998-2000 IIRC, that dj decks had outsold guitars for the first time ever. That is that more young folks were getting into djing than learning to play the guitar. There was undoubtedly a boom in sales of this type of hardware then but did they ever really outsell guitars in the UK in any given year?
Maybe it was a really bad question but I’m gonna try bumping it.
I find it hard to believe, given that massive amounts of guitars have been sold ever since cheap Asian stuff got widely available. Ten years ago (guitar) bands were popping up like mushrooms on a rainy day, just as today.
Not sure about the equipment sitch, but I have a friend who’s a studio musician, and does a lot of commercial work. He said the number of jobs he got was dwindling due to a trend toward using existing music vs. jingle writers. Sounds like the same kind of thing. It’s a shame.