Driving in to the office this morning I was behind a metro bus with an advertisement on the rear promoting the 2024 HFSstival. It looked exactly like this:
For those who are not familiar, “HFS” refers to a defunct radio station in the DC/Baltimore area active from the 60s through the 90s. This is important only because they were a Progressive/Modern Rock station, not a classic rock station.
Note that lineup is essentially a snapshot of their normal daily playlist circa 1995. This is not unusual or unexpected, but it got me wondering about other music festivals.
On the 2024 EW Concert Tour and Music Festival Guide I’m seeing almost entirely legacy acts. I know this because I’m definitely “out of it” and I recognize 80-90% of the names. If they were new bands I’d have no clue.
Where are all of the new superstar bands? Are there not any? Does the music industry work differently than when I was in it, 20 years ago? Or am I just so out of it, it’s just not on my radar? Have I gone “new music blind”?
I think that it may be time to accept that we lived though the era of great mega bands and that it is now over. Much like our older parents went through a big band era. Sure there are stilll bands out there playing rock music, but a lot of them are just rehashing old songs.
The kids are listening to hip-hop and mega artist like Talyor Swift , Lady Gaga, Drake, and Billie Eilish now, just to name a few that I am familar with. I’m sure there are more that I am totally unaware of. Which is how it should be, the songs of younger people belong to their genaration not ours.
I’m not sure it’s that unusual for “established” bands to be 80%+ of the big touring acts. Aren’t “up and coming” bands typically openers or, at best, partnered with a more established act?
There are a few newer acts out there, but they don’t really fit the mold of the pop/rock band as well. Lots of collaboration between artists with much more of a singles focus than an album one, from what I can tell. Vampire Weekend might be an example of a “newer” band that still makes more traditional album-oriented stuff, but even they are almost 20 years old at this point.
And yes, you are probably “new music blind”. Radio formats tend to transition from playing what’s “new” to playing “what was new when we were established”. I know the “alternative” from my childhood still pretty much plays 90s and 00s alternative, with a few newer acts mixed in. So it’s basically a classic rock station with the time period moved up 30 years from the classic rock stations of my youth.
Music can be created with just a keyboard and computer now, no need to form a band anymore. Sure you need musicians for recording or a stage show, but they’re not members of the band, just hired hands.
This is a good point too. In some ways it’s going back to the days before “the band” was a thing. When performers would put out albums backed by the Nashville A Team or the Wrecking Crew or Booker T and the MGs.
I just received the flyer for the 2025 Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend. I get the flyer every year, and ten years ago I would have recognized more than half of the acts. This year, I recognize three. I’m not sure if the festival has changed, or if I have.
Stolen from comedian/blogger Josh Fruhlinger: your average music festival nowadays will include:
a few relatively popular, relatively current acts
jam bands that had a minor mainstream breakthrough years ago but have been touring the festival circuit more or less nonstop both before and since
bands that were popular in the early ’90s and subsequently broke up but then a subset of the original members gained legal control of the band’s name and now are cashing in with a bunch of new people
That just looks like a festival specifically targeting the nostalgia. With the festivals here in Chicago, I don’t recognize the vast majority of bands. Popular stuff like Lolla or Riot Fest, I might know 10% of the acts. The headliners, sure, but anything past that, I probably don’t know. It is certainly not mostly 90s acts, else I’d be there.
I think maybe there’s a more agoraphobic(?) shift among younger people. I mean, my BIL/SIL had to push their children (now 20 & 22) to get drivers’ licenses and get out and do stuff, versus staying in, talking on the phone, and doing social media/online stuff. I can’t imagine that if you’re in that demographic, you’re going to think that going to a music festival is going to sound like fun.
That said, I think the half-life of bands in the popular focus is a lot longer than it used to be. There weren’t many 15-20 year old bands being played on popular radio in 1987, but stuff by acts popular in 2004-2009 is still played often, and they’re still coming out with new music. Lady Gaga for example, became popular 15 years ago. Justin Timberlake was 22 years ago, Beyonce sometime in the late 90s, and so forth.
I just checked the Billboard Hot 100 for this week, and there are NO bands on it. Just singers, alone or teaming up for the one song. Some of 'em I had to check because a lot of singers today have names that sound like a band (Shaboozey, SZA, etc.).
Yeah, was going to say the same. The OP’s ad seems like it’s a nostalgia act. No offense to the acts listed but when you’re sharing space with “Tarot Readings” and “Guitar Hero Tournament”, you are no longer at the top of your career arc.
When 2024 Lollapalooze was announced, I looked at this list and for the most part only recognized most of the headliners and a few acts at the tailing end. Even the headliners weren’t necessarily acts I listened to ever, just knowing the names such as Megan Thee Stallion, Melanie Martinez and Sza. Chappell Roan blew up big since they printed her on a second line billing and I bet if they were reprinting that today she’d have been in the left hand column. Anyway, I actually have listened to 13 out of 170 (170 taken from a different source; I didn’t want to count 'em all so I’ll assume it’s accurate)
I find a list like this much more meaningful since these are the shows the young folk are headed to, not watching Liz Phair between cupcake eating contests. Everyone I knew who has kids between 17-25 saw their youths head to Lolla a few weeks back (including some who traveled from Nebraska to see it).
Lollapalooze Acts I Actually Know
Acts I could say I’ve listened to: Hozier, Chappell Roan, Wolves of Glendale, Goldie Boutilier, McKenna Grace, Hippo Campus, Ethel Cain, Bridgette Calls Me Baby, Two Door Cinema Club, The Last Dinner Party, Mimi Webb, Nico Vega, the Killers… and I guess Blink-182 but more “from the radio”
Richard points out that in the first half of the 80s, on the UK Billboard charts, there were 146 weeks when bands were at #1. In the first half of the 90s, there were 141 weeks. In the first 5 years of the 2020s, it has been 3 weeks where bands were #1 in the UK charts, one week being the new Beatles song. The podcast is UK-based so that’s the charts they’re talking about. YMMV for the USA.
They don’t really come to a conclusion as to why this is the case, other than “individualism is the big thing these days” (they mention a dearth of sketch comedy too).
It’s a big open air festival at a ballpark. Those things always have extraneous stuff going on. If it’s at Nationals Park, I assume the organizers are planning on a lot of people going. They have in the past.
