The Last Super Star Band

The hugely popular rock ‘n roll bands throughout the history of rock ‘n roll have had one commonality, the budgets of major labels.  The marketing push exercised by the major labels allowed for bands to break through into the public consciousness and become mainstays in pop culture.  Broadband and the mp3 shifted the way people bought and didn’t buy music.  The revenue lost by the major labels lead to drastic cuts in staff and budgets.  A casualty that wasn’t immediately visible and may never be revived is the concept of the super star band.  A super star band is one whose songs and logo are instantly recognizable by a cross section of society’s demographics, for a significant duration of time.  Just to clarify, I mean the band that the soccer moms, the drunk guy at the bar, the music nerd and probably even the little kid can and will sing along to.

            The diminished marketing budgets of the late 90’s and early 2000’s force us to search in the early and mid 90’s for the last super star band.  These budgets are the key ingredient to the formula because without the posters, radio play, TV and billboard ads; the casual music listener doesn’t have access or the incidental contact with the band to enter their consciousness.   The hardcore music fan covers your costs.  The casual listener makes your profit.   With the communications prowess and the relative cheapness of promotion of the internet the argument could made that it will hamper a breeding ground even bigger bands.  The downfall to this argument is that without the budget to place ads on numerous sites for a significant duration, the band will get lost in the mire and languish in internet popularity and not the mainstream success that I’m alluding to. 

            Before we focus on the early and mid 90’s it makes sense to add the other half of our Venn diagram.  The second part is a band who lasted through a majority of 2000’s with similar or even greater popularity.  The rationale behind the second half is that longevity is key to for any band’s long term success.  Mind you it’s not an absolute when you factor in the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix whose respective careers are the Sandy Koufax hall of fame argument, where dominance over a short period is most important than duration.  In this specific case longevity matters because of the glacier like landscape change the music industry has seen.  Which brings to the candidates.  Pearl Jam, Green Day, Creed, DMB, Nickelback, and Radiohead.  All of these groups started in at some point in the 90’s are still going today and along the way sold a ton of records. 

            Here are the estimated album sales of each of the candidates, Pearl Jam’s sales are about 60; Green Day about 65 million; Creed 30 million; Dave Matthews Band 50 million; Nickelback 30 million and radiohead 30 million.  These numbers have come from my math and  various sources, who may or may not be verifiable.  The idea isn’t to get caught up in the numbers but rather to get a clearer picture of who should be included and who should be excluded.  Looking at those numbers, the three top rock acts would be the Dave Mathew Band, Pearl Jam, and Green Day.

The Dave Matthews Band is interesting when you focus on their long term success, the only band besides the Eagles to have 6 #1 albums on the Billboard charts and to do it 21 years apart.  DMB has embraced dealing directly with fans when it came to ticketing through the Warehouse Fan Association.   My major issue with DMB is they are on the outside of a fine line of what I think most people would consider rock or rock ‘n roll.  I think about it this way.  In 20 years will the classic rock stations on FM or XM play the David Mathews Band?  I’d guess no and with that I’m going to rule them out. 

Pearl Jam is also interesting example because of their progression from the early 90’s to today.  Since trying to eschew Ticketmaster they have seemingly opposed the corporate structure and focused on more running things in their own way.  They have seen their career change from moving away from arena shows to slightly smaller venues and along the way being voted the best American Rock Band.  I think a fair comparison, given their diehard fans, is the Grateful Dead.  I believe this comparison, although fair to a degree, hurts Pearl Jam in the sense that the Grateful Dead never had the big hits.  On top of in the tiers of most famous rock bands I’d argue that the Grateful Dead are seen as more of a second tier band vs. the likes of The Beatles, Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, or Jimi Hendrix.

Green Day is the most compelling example because although they started in 1987 they didn’t get any true national traction until 1994 with “Dookie.”  The band’s popularity dipped from the end of the 90’s through about 2003 only to see it reach new heights from then on culminating in the stage musical version of “American Idiot.”  More often than not because of mainly the musical, Green Day gets most associated with The Who.  Like our other two finalists, Green Day has also done things in their own way by either co-releasing or re-releasing their music on their own label. 

I hadn’t considered the point of these bands side stepping the establishment when I first was thinking about this article but the more I see that it’s a staple, the more I realize how important it is.  There’s obviously a symbiosis from working with a major label, even well into an artist’s career but there must be intrinsically off about the system that three of the most successful bands of the last 20 years have tried do some part (tickets or releases) on their own.

Clearly a case can be made for either but since I’m looking for the “last”, I’m going to have to invoke some technicality.  Yes, Green Day got started in 1987 and Pearl Jam got started in 1990; but Pearl Jam’s popularity in the mainstream started in 90-91 while Green Day didn’t get tremendously popular until 1994.  By judge’s decision, the “Last Super Star Band” is Green Day.