Rock is Dead: Rolling Stone and the Lack of Young People

Rock is dead. Or, more to the point, the youth culture that created rock music is dead. Because we don't have enough young people. Not enough at any rate to create the kind of robust, competitive, and creative youth market that characterized the course of Rock music from the 1960's through the 1980's. For anyone seeking proof of that, simply examine the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine.


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This isn't unusual. See the site Magazine Death Pool for the betting line on which magazines will cease publication. Note that Blender, which ceased publication in March 2009, had on the cover such rock "artists" as Kelly Clarkson. Meanwhile, the current Rolling Stone covers such cutting edge youth concerns as Obama's Energy Secretary saving the Planet, stories on "Mad Men," "Entourage," "True Blood," and "Weeds" (all skewing heavily female, and older, mid forties or later). American Idol's Chris Daughtry, and Willie Nelson are featured, along with the shocking news that American Idol's Adam Lambert is indeed, gay. Lambert of course poses on the cover as a seductive pop tart, reminiscent of Rolling Stone's 1990's era cover featuring the edgy, youth-oriented Britney Spears (pre-meltdown, pre-Federline).

None of these features, stories, photos, or series of covers screams youth orientation, and of course nearly every bit of content skews heavily older and female.

This is because America's most scarce resource is young (White) people, who drive Rock and other aspects of youth culture.

The short story of 20th Century demographics would read something like the following. In the 1920, prosperity and an increased supply of youth (born after the turn of the Century in good times) created a youth culture. Increased prosperity also led to more babies being born. Then the Great Depression ended the Youth Culture, followed by WWII, which made teenagers who turned 18 in 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 (born in 1924, 1925, 1926, and 1927 respectively) into adults very quickly. Youth culture did not return, until the post-War baby boom and rising incomes created it as in the 1920's. Starting with first toys and then music, youth markets exploded. The Davy Crockett craze, and toys, were as important as Elvis. For example, Hula Hoops came on the scene in 1957, along with Frisbees. Kids who were ten or eleven in the 1950's, entered their late teen age years and early twenties in the 1960's, and drove the youth culture, from music to fashions.

But, births became radically reduced in the latter half of the 1960's. Rising costs of living, declines in real wages, ending of restrictions on abortion, contraception, and the belief in delayed marriage reduced fertility and births every year starting in 1965. During the 1970's, this reduced fertility (as families were also hammered by a poor economy) only increased, recovering somewhat in the 1980's, only to fall again in the early 1990's during the recessionary period, and the high cost of housing in the inflationary period of the latter 1990's and early 2000's when the Dot-Com and Housing bubbles drove prices in urban job centers (mostly on the coasts) up past affordability for many families.

This has left marketers, publishers, creative people, pundits, and many others in a mental prison. Their model of how the world works (there is always more young people, and a large group of young people drives an ever changing culture) is at odds with the reality: there is an ever smaller supply (of young White people) who are the engine of youth culture, and this lack of young (White) people is the chief cause of the decline of youth culture in all areas.

While it is true that internet piracy, decline of the CD as a sales medium for music, and the growth of low-cost online sales of mp3 versions of music on sites as diverse as Apple's Itunes store and Amazon's own online offerings have seriously diminished the money rock artists (and everyone else) earn from recordings, live performances are still lucrative.

It's still possible to make (considerable) amounts of money from rock music, by touring and performing live, where fans will pay considerable amounts of money to see favored artists. It's interesting however to see just who ranks in live performing revenues.

The 2004 Rolling Stone Rich List has for example, James Taylor making about the same amount ($20 million) as Eminem. The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and the Eagles are the top three performers. In 2007 Miley Cyrus earned a combined $64 million from concerts and music sales. But no new artists like Elvis in the late 1950's or the Beatles in the mid 1960's are earning this amount of money, from either recording or touring. Cyrus, working the tween girl market, made close to the amount that the Eagles did in 2004 ($63 million for the Eagles vs. $64 million for Cyrus).

As an aside, it's interesting that while musicians can make money from older fans (the Stones, Springsteen, the Eagles) or young tween girls (Cyrus), there's little evidence of any performer who can draw young White men in appreciable numbers to be competitive with the top revenue earners in pop music. Young men seem completely absent from popular music.

The 2000 Census data can be found at that link, while the 1990 Census data (for White Alone) data can be found here, while the 1980 Census data (PDF only) can be found here.

Here is the graphic version of the 1980 Census:


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Using the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census, I've constructed the following table.

	2000	1990	1980
Under 5 years	12,859,892	13,649,490	11,789,394
5 to 9 years	13,944,882	13,616,268	12,200,468
10 to 14 years	14,322,638	12,853,558	13,699,871
15 to 19 years	14,167,148	13,342,703	16,138,482
20 to 24 years	13,064,891	14,523,912	16,541,315
25 to 29 years	13,501,773	16,638,544	15,262,799
30 to 34 years	14,818,786	17,351,513	14,143,721
35 to 39 years	17,031,493	16,081,606	11,290,738
40 to 44 years	17,265,995	14,506,390	9,408,654
45 to 49 years	15,810,626	11,585,703	9,034,158
50 to 54 years	14,213,875	9,504,871	9,812,613
55 to 59 years	11,107,247	8,968,416	9,990,620
60 to 64 years	8,945,842	9,211,123	8,813,447
65 to 69 years	8,040,225	8,899,637	7,641,210
70 to 74 years	7,648,193	7,126,564	6,001,564
75 to 79 years	6,530,019	5,485,025	4,229,594
80 to 84 years	4,408,597	3,552,695	2,631,873
85 years and over	3,778,504	2,788,052	1,972,317

From this data, I've constructed the graph below showing the decline in youth cohorts from the 1980 Census data:


[Click Image to Enlarge]

I must mention that the estimates from the US Census Bureau show an increase in youth cohorts, wrt to 2008 vs. 2000, but these are estimates and not complete enumerations. They also fly in the face of the other data, which suggests a birth dearth and scarceness of young people. Among others, the losses at the UPN and WB networks, and continued losses at the merged CW network, aimed solely at teen girls. For example, the highest ratings of WB/UPN series Buffy the Vampire Slayer were 5.3 million, while that of the 1980's series the A Team were 20.1 million viewers.

Nevertheless, the data for White Alone youth cohorts for the 2008 estimates show an increase in young people created during a decade of high housing costs and declining real wages. Perhaps people magically had children at little cost, unlike earlier decades. Or some other cause is at work (immigration from Europe with pre-existing children)? I do find it puzzling that the peak numbers of the Baby Boom (16-17 million per cohort) is now approached in numbers (around 15-16 million) for the younger age cohorts, under age 5 to age 29. Particularly since the numbers of age cohorts in 2000 who would naturally age (8 years later) don't match up, there seems to be an extra 3 million people added with no explanation. Completeness however demands I point out that data, and let readers draw their own conclusions. My own are that the over-counting might well be from faulty estimates and wrong classifications (Hispanic/White being put into the White Alone category).

The White Alone category is the driver of the youth market, because Hispanics tend to strongly prefer Spanish-language media. As I've noted in other posts, during the campaign for and against California's Proposition 8 (overturning gay marriage), the opponents of Prop. 8 recruited Puerto Rican actress America Ferrara, star of the ABC-TV series "Ugly Betty" to record spots against Proposition 8. In English. Proponents of Proposition 8 got actual, Mexican native and Spanish speaking Telenovela stars to record spots in Spanish for Prop. 8. This undoubtedly helped Proposition 8 to pass.

America has a substantial Hispanic/Mexican youth population, but they tend to inhabit a separate and distinct cultural universe which only occasionally intersects with the English speaking, White/Black culture. Blacks do share many if not most of the cultural assumptions and enthusiasms of the White population, and a quick check of Nielsen's excellent ratings portal confirms that Black and White preferences for Television remains pretty much the same. While Hispanics don't share many of the same viewing patterns. Howver, there simply are not that many Blacks (12.5% of the population) to make an impact as a mass-driver of youth culture.

[Note to bloggers, for those seeking to copy/paste data into Excel from web-pages, a good Text Editor that can do regular expression search and replace is critical. For this post, I'd selected web pages generated by the US Census Bureau website and copied into TextWrangler, the free text editor from the BBEdit folks for the Mac. Using regular expressions I replaced the pattern of \r\t\r\r (a carriage return, a tab, two carriage returns) with \t (a single tab). Of course you need to show the invisibles to figure out what to replace. Gedit on Linux does not have regular expressions, both Kate and Jedit (the latter also available on the Mac) have regular expressions in Search and Replace. Once you've set up your text file properly, save it and import it into Excel or Open Office as a delimited (tab) text file and save yourself lots of tedious typing. It's faster and you don't get errors. A good text editor is also critical in replacing the junk that Excel or Open Office create when it saves HTML files, which I've done in creating this table for Blogger.]

Rolling Stone is as tedious, older skewing, aimed at a mostly older, female readership, as it is, because there just are not that many young people. Not enough young people to make say, either the Killers or Arctic Monkeys (both formed in 2002) as well-known, as popular, and as profitable as say Elvis, the Beach Boys, or the Beatles, in their hey-days, or even as the Eagles in 2004, a band at that point 32 years old (the Eagles were formed in 1972).

Everyone knows the data, but some times it takes the posed glamor shot of an ... American Idol contestant to understand how rock, and youth culture in general, are both dead. Because there are not enough young people.
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Gossip Girl and the Aging of America

Two news items stand out. First, the Wall Street Journal reports that CBS and Time Warner may pull the plug on the CW network by next year. Perhaps as early as January 2009. Already stations are defecting from the CW network in the Summer rating doldrums. Next, Variety reports that the average age of network TV viewers is 50 years old. CBS had a median viewing age of 54, ABC 50, NBC 49, Fox 44, CW 34, and Univision 34.

America is getting older, as this graph derived from the US Census Bureau shows:



What does this all mean? It means the Youth Culture is coming to an end. The signs have been there for a long time, people just didn't want to see it.

Popular music has been stagnant since the demise of Grunge in the mid 1990's. Disney tween-pop princesses like Miley Cyrus (or before her, Hillary Duff), hard angry macho rappers, and various emo artists all tread well-worn territory. There is nothing new or original. This is largely due to the small size of the Youth market. For all it's buzz and hype, equaling what the "Daily Show" gets every day, CW's "Gossip Girl" got only 2.2 million viewers on average. It is the lowest rated broadcast network show ever to be renewed. The market for youth-oriented popular music isn't much bigger. No wonder innovation stagnates. The last real innovators in pop music crested in the 1980's, when Rap, Punk, New Wave, and Roots music all arrived. Now, largely popular music relies on recycling those genres. It's telling that re-union projects such as the Police, or the Sex Pistols, can sell out arenas, while current, new bands struggle to sell out lesser venues. Looking at the population chart, it's easy to see why. There just aren't that many young people.

What are the implications for this big, largely un-discussed change?

For TV, it's the end of youth-oriented shows dominating the networks. CW (and before them, the predecessor networks UPN and WB) tried mining the ever-declining youth market and has largely failed. Instead, we'll see shows aimed at older viewers. CBS is likely to continue it's "Crime Time" formula of a plus 45 year old man leading some team to fight crime. In other words, more CSI-type shows. There will be more opportunities for older women too, and less for the hot young thing of the moment. NBC is likely to try and court the older, late thirties to mid forties, more upscale version of CBS's audience with "hip" shows like "My Name is Earl," "the Office," and "Thirty Rock." Hip of course as in Conan O'Brien hip. Nothing too outrageous because the target audience is of course, early middle age. ABC, Fox, and perhaps CW if it survives, will also be chasing after the audience. Legendary 1930's Bank Robber Willie Sutton was alleged to have said (but probably didn't) that he robbed banks because "that's where the money is." For Network TV, the audience is over 34. When your average viewership is 50, that's where the money is.

Youth-oriented shows will still exist, but they won't dominate. At best they're going to be a niche. Like MTV's "My Super Sweet Sixteen." Characterized by cheap, reality programming instead of expensive scripted shows. Scripted shows, which are more expensive, will deal with adult themes, actors, and characters. They will flatter their audiences and conform to their prejudices and views. Since many creative types have labored under the former youth system, denigrating middle aged and middle class values, they'll have a hard time adjusting. I expect a lot of creative turn-over as the new demands of the mature audience winnow out those unable to transition from serving youth to middle age.

For Film, it's even worse. Hollywood's big-budget youth-oriented comedy or action/adventure movies, like "Spider-Man," "Iron Man," "Batman Begins," "Knocked Up," "The Wedding Crashers," and so on form the basis of Hollywood's profitability. Hollywood CAN make money on other types of films. "Sex and the City," appealing to women, young and old, is likely a moderately profitable money maker. Oscar nominated or winning movies can if carefully budgeted and promoted thrift-fully make a few million bucks here and there. Romantic comedies like "27 Dresses" and such may also make a moderate profit. But not the type of insane, hand-over-fist profits that provide Malibu mansions, private jets, and the like to Hollywood's top money makers. Hollywood has become dangerously dependent on males, ages16-34, to provide their core profitability.

This age group provides the huge Summer date-night weekends, return visits to see the movie again, the DVD sales, "Special Edition" DVD sales, "Director's Cut" DVD, and so on. Partly this is because TV is a gay-female ghetto, with little to attract the younger male audience. Only movies provide entertainment like "Iron Man," or "Superbad." Partly it's because this sector of the population can be enthused by a proper marketing campaign (likely related to the scarcity of non video game alternatives to these types of movies.) Regardless, one thing is certain.

Unlike prior decades, this sector of the movie audience is smaller than before. And getting OLDER. More inclined to the 34 age range than the 16. Demographics don't lie. America can't just clone existing young men.

What does this mean for Movies?

More movies like "Wedding Crashers," where two men in their thirties settle down with "the right girl." Fewer movies like "Superbad," featuring teen actors and characters. More movies like "Iron Man," or "Batman Begins," with leading men in their thirties and forties, who act like it. Less opportunities for eternally callow actors like Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott. Bidding wars over the few actors who look like and (more importantly) can play mature men. That "Iron Man" was a huge hit, as of today doing $311 million dollars in domestic box office revenue (per Box Office Mojo) is telling. Even the action/adventure movie audience is sliding older, with 40 plus Robert Downey Jr. in the lead, as opposed to say, Shia LaBeouf.

The boy-man trend is going to end. The shakeout is going to be brutal, with a number of movies featuring the younger leads simply failing, until Hollywood finally gets it. Hollywood will have to search abroad for many of it's leading men, something it's already doing with "Batman Begins" star Christian Bale and NBC's "Life" star Damian Lewis, Brits both.

What does this mean for Music?

Likely, more tours and releases by bands and acts that made their mark in the 1980's and earlier. Newer bands will struggle to find an audience and niche. Simple tunes about adolescent angst won't be as popular, and the youth market is likely to consist of tweener pop princesses and emo boy bands. Both of which will have very short shelf lives as they age out of their fans desires.

Gone will be the days when popular music defined a generation, or when it signified the demographic power of youth. Because that power is gone. All that remains is the few minor hurrahs of bands and groups from the 1980's, the last moment youth mattered.

As the US population ages, the decline in popularity of dance music, and the increase in popularity of mood-enhancing music is only going to be more and more apparent. Older people don't like to dance as much as younger ones. Country music is likely to be more popular, and classical and opera can see revivals, particularly through pay-per-view events or movie theater transmissions. Already a number of Opera houses including NYC's Met are doing just that.

In short, the youth culture is dead. Perhaps the CW network will die with it, or re-invent itself as a more mature network catering to older viewers. But clearly the nearly 50 year obsession with the youth culture is over. Because there just aren't that many young people.
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