enframed wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2024 1:06 pmWe tend to be celebrity driven, as a culture (America) so it's not surprising that cults of personality are more appealing than a band. We want to know people without ever having met them.
This got me thinking about one-man "bands" like, say, Papa M, or even Magnetic Fields, or Songs:Ohia. These were bands but very much in the control of one person, who eschewed "self" in a way that Swift does not. Could any band like that, of any genre, ever been/be as big as Swift? Hard to say. I think not, though.
Swift does have a long-time drummer and bass player, both have been with her 15 years or more. Dunno how much creativity they provide, but I can't imagine it's negligible. I'm not a fan of Swift (I don't hate her music, either), but I went down a rabbit hole recently when I heard she sold out nine days at a football stadium here in LA and has the highest grossing tour in history, over $1B last year.
Right. The discussion also focused on how much more efficient and simpatico these solo acts are for "business" than say, four people who are shaping a group in a bunch of different directions simultaneously, whether that's musically, aesthetically, or financially.
Of course, solo acts were some of the rock'n'roll OGs (Elvis, most notably). But you also had this trend towards small-band music making celebrities (or, at least, dominating the charts), starting in the '60s and then not really disappearing until the rise of portable-device technology, streaming, and social media.
That said, even during the so-called golden era of small bands, your Billy Joels, Elton Johns, David Bowies and later, Madonnas, Michael Jacksons, and Princes tended to command the most attention. But you also had a ton of more democratic small-band-format groups that were almost or just about as big. And your average Guns'N Roses or Metallica fan tended to geek out as much about Slash and Lars than he or she did about Axl and Hetfield. Sometimes more. Shit, even the Revolution (backing up one of the bigger reported megalomaniacs in pop history) seemed less faceless than the backing musicians behind today's solo stars.
About the only one-man band I can think of that approached Swift levels of huge was maybe Nine Inch Nails in the '90s. But even that was a much smaller thing comparatively. And, despite touring lineups, the NIN focus was way more on Reznor compared to say, Pajo's borderline-shy public persona or the Magnetic Fields being a stable four-person outfit for really a long stretch.
That's interesting about Swift having these long-serving sidemen. Kinda admirable and unexpected, I guess. Although I wouldn't imagine they have half the creative input of even those others goons behind the singers in Creed or Third-Eye Blind or whatever. (Hell, they're probably viewed as far less significant than someone like Mick Ronson was to Bowie or Fernando Saunders was to Lou Reed. I'm making assumptions but Swift's management, on the other hand, has probably been an outsize voice in her music and marketing compared to her actual collaborators.)