NPR story this morning talked about the success of Disney at selling tweens and teens music, in this case talking about the Jonas Brothers, but the formula seems not too far from the Hannah Montana thing, including the scheduled 3d concert movie release.

It got me thinking a bit about how clever Disney has been about messing with the normal niche market ordering. Back in the 50's and into the 60's, Rock and Roll was often described as "teen music" but somewhere along the line it was clear that it wasn't just for kids anymore. Beatlemania was maybe the zenith of teen music, but the Beatles brought the fans along into adulthood. Somewhere between there and here we broke it all up in to niches and sub genres, often with fan identification that crosses over to demographic self-description which fits marketers' needs (urban, rural, suburban, educated, blue-collar, black, white, male, female, and more subtle than that). For a couple decades you could say that kids picked their genres by picking what kind of adult they wanted to present themselves as. Disney is retooling Beatlemania, where all that particularly matters is the age range, and the music is aimed right at it.

So I see Disney as trying to change the dynamic or at least grab the gateway phase before kids find their adult genre. I'm not sure what I think of it, and I'm not sure what it'll do down the road. I like niche music myself -- probably most of my favorites would be classified that way -- so I'm not sure a market shift is immediately good for my preferences, which wouldn't survive at a mass level. But is a monolithic base audience good for the music industry? Nowadays I would never expect something to sell as big or broadly as Thirller did relative to the market of its day. But if that wide market came back would that be a good thing? Did the record companies lose their way by always swinging for the fences instead of building career artists and a catalog?

Dang, that's a lot of rambling for just a half a cup of coffee.

Bear

Maybe...buts its a good rambling....Today's yoots are not subjected to anything worse or better that what yoots of yesteryear endured...its jsut much more readily available now. And, for some strange reason, I don't think they get together at slumber parties with a Close n Play record player taking turns spinning 45s anymore.

Remember, we had the Archies, the Cowsills, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Pat Boone, Annette Funacello (a Mousketeer, so the debate has come full circle)...

Alsp back then they used ringers and studio pickers/singers....today we use autotune, beat detective, etc. The deception is the same, just the methods have changed