Where have all the bands gone?

As a kid in the early 90s, me and my mates would often name our 10 favourite bands. The 10 bands in question were forever changing. We also formed bands of our own, we all wanted to be rock stars and forming a band was the way to do that.

The difficulty a young music fan would have these day's is simply finding 10 bands, let alone their 10 favourite. Yes they could pick the same 10 I picked in 1993, but in 1993 I never picked bands from 1967, I picked bands that were current.

Before we go any further, let's establish the sort of band I'm talking about. The band must have a guitarist, bass player and drummer as official members. Other instruments are optional.

Let's take a look at bands to have made their Top 40 debut this year. There's Catfish & the Bottlemen, erm that's it. How about 2018? there's none. If we go back to the start of 2015, which is more or less half a decade ago, the only other bands to make their Top 40 debut are Echosmith, Sheppard, Walk the Moon, DNCE, Viola Beach and Portugal, the Man. They all have one Top 40 hit each.

Ok we're just talking about new bands in the Top 40, what about the already established bands that are still having hits?

Well, so far this year there's been 5 Seconds Of Summer and Maroon 5. That's it.

Of course there are still plenty of bands still around, from the old bands still selling out stadiums to the bands playing down your local pub. But in terms of new commercially successful bands, there's very few.

The question is, does it matter?

As someone who's been in bands, my reason for forming the bands in the first place was because I had written a bunch of songs that required a band to play them. The reality was the whole band aspect was a pain in the backside.

Finding someone who played guitar was easy, but as a guitarist myself I didn't need one, I needed a bass player and drummer and finding these was more difficult. To find a bass player more often than not, is to find someone who wants to join your band enough to convert from a guitarist to a bass player in order to do so. Finding a drummer is finding someone rich enough to afford a drum kit, and rich enough to live somewhere they can play the drums without disturbing the neighbours.

Then you have the logistics problems of playing together. Then the other band members want to make changes to your songs or they want to do one of their own songs which is nothing like your songs. If you do finally make it then the money you make from your music has to be split between the band members.

With the technology we have these days, you can make all the music yourself at home and get it out there on the internet. That's pretty much what the musicians of today do.