Why bands are disappearing: 'Young people aren’t excited by them'
“The moment that we started a band was the best thing that ever happened,” sings Matty Healy on the 1975’s recent single Guys. The song is an ardent love letter to the band, and to the romance of bands in general: the camaraderie, the solidarity, the joyous fusion of creativity and friendship. It’s an old sentiment but an increasingly rare one.
“It’s funny, when the first Maroon 5 album came out [in 2002] there were still other bands,” the band’s frontman Adam Levine told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe this month. “I feel like there aren’t any bands any more … I feel like they’re a dying breed.” Levine was quick to clarify that he meant bands “in the pop limelight” but the internet doesn’t really do clarification, so his remarks sparked bemusement and outrage among the literal-minded, from aggrieved veterans such as Garbage (“What are we Adam Levine? CATS?!?!?”) to fans of newcomers such as Fontaines DC and Big Thief.
But hurt feelings aside, Levine was broadly correct. When Maroon 5 broke through in the 00s, there were new bands forming all the time, many of which quickly proceeded to go platinum and headline arenas. In the realm of pure pop, meanwhile, talent shows such as The X Factor became a reliable incubator of girl groups and boybands, from Girls Aloud to One Direction. No longer. Popular music’s centre of gravity has undeniably moved towards solo artists, at least when it comes to serious commercial success. This paradigm shift has been obvious for a while now (“What happened to all the bands?” asked Rostam Batmanglij after leaving Vampire Weekend in 2016. “Is it just that bands are corny now?”) and has accelerated across genres.
Whichever metric you use, the picture is clear. Right now, there are only nine groups in the UK Top 100 singles, and only one in the Top 40. Two are the Killers and Fleetwood Mac, with songs 17 and 44 years old respectively, while the others are the last UK pop group standing (Little Mix), two fourman bands (Glass Animals, Kings of Leon), two dance groups (Rudimental, Clean Bandit) and two rap units (DBlock Europe, Bad Boy Chiller Crew). There are duos and trios, but made up of solo artists guesting with each other. In Spotify’s Top 50 most-played songs globally right now, there are only three groups (BTS, the Neighbourhood, and the Internet Money rap collective), and only six of the 42 artists on the latest Radio 1 playlist are bands: Wolf Alice, Haim, Royal Blood, Architects, London Grammar and the Snuts.
Of course, radio and streaming are dominated by pop, rap and dance music but festival lineups don’t point to a golden age of bands, either. Of those that have emerged in the past decade, only half a dozen have headlined either Coachella, Reading/Leeds, Latitude, Download, Wireless or the main two stages at Glastonbury. That’s the 1975, Haim, alt-J, Rudimental, Bastille and Tame Impala, and the last of those is effectively a solo project. Only one band, the Lathums, appeared on the BBC’s annual tastemaking Sound of … longlist this year, which is not unusual: bands haven’t been in the majority since 2013. The album charts are still regularly topped by bands thanks to loyal fanbases who still buy physical formats – such as Mogwai, Architects and Kings of Leon in recent weeks – but not since 2016 has one hung on for a second week. So what happened?
Art-pop band Maxïmo Park broke through in 2005, during the huge postStrokes boom in rock bands. In the era of sales-based charts and Top of the Pops, they had eight Top 40 hits. “Bands were alongside pop acts on the radio and on TV,” says frontman Paul Smith. “We did Top of the Pops with Amerie and the Scissor Sisters. I think it was healthy. It could be anything next: R&B, alternative rock, whatever. Music has been compartmentalised a lot more.”
Rock and pop now exist in different spheres – even the biggest bands struggle to crack the streaming-driven Top 20 – but bands are on the back foot within alternative music itself. One theory is that major labels avoid bands because solo artists are cheaper and easier to handle. Not so, says Jamie Oborne, whose Dirty Hit label has found success with bands (the 1975, Wolf Alice) and solo artists (Beabadoobee, Rina Sawayama). “We’re actively trying to sign bands,” he says. “I’m desperate to find a really young band that I can help develop.”
The problem is, he says, there aren’t that many around. “It’s more likely now that a kid will make music in isolation because of technology. When I first met the 1975, they were all friends meeting in a room to make noise. So much is done in bedrooms these days, so you’re more likely to be by yourself.”
Ben Mortimer, co-president of Polydor Records, says that cost is more of an issue for artists than for labels. “If you’re young and inspired to become a musician, you face a choice. If you go the band route, you need to find bandmates with a similar vision, you need expensive instruments and equipment, and you need to get out on the road to hone your craft. On the other hand, you could download Ableton [production software], shut your bedroom door and get creating straight away. Culture is shaped by technology.”
“Starting a band is hugely expensive,” says Joff Oddie, guitarist with Wolf Alice. “You need an immense amount of equipment and a lot of space. I spent most of my student loan on rehearsal space. Travelling is expensive. Anything that can be done to make being in a band tenable for young artists is good, because the fear is that we’ll lose that tradition. I think it would be a disaster if it’s only open to middle-class kids.”
Mortimer, who started out in A&R in 2001 and has signed bands including Haim and Years & Years, says that Polydor are still launching bands, including Easy Life, Sports Team and Inhaler, but there are fewer contenders than there were a decade ago. “The majority of young people aren’t excited by band music in the traditional sense: groups of lads with guitars. And that’s reflected in the number of streams these bands receive. That then impacts on what talented young musicians go on to create. If they’ve grown up obsessing over rap music with their friends, they’re more likely to start creating rap music.”
The ability to create laptop symphonies has also changed the shape of those bands that have thrived. Dominated by singer-writer-producers, the likes of Bastille and Polydor’s Glass Animals (who recently ousted Olivia Rodrigo from the top of the Australian charts) make production-led pop, which means those frontmen are virtually solo artists in the public eye. Excepting Little Mix – who have seen one member leave and another sign a solo management deal this year – Haim might be the only young band around with more than one widely recognised member.
Establishing multiple personalities in the public’s imagination has always been trickier than selling one person, but MTV and a vibrant music press helped, while TV talent shows introduced group members to millions of viewers across several weeks before they had released a note of music. All three of those institutions have waned, leaving bands to make their own way in the online attention economy. “Social media has filled the hole, creating individual stars who are seen as more ‘authentic’ than anything the retro talentshow format could offer,” says Hannah