How Long Does Music Stardom Last? A Statistical Analysis

I have a friend that is the drummer in a band that had a couple big hits in the 90’s, not going to drop names, but their contemporaries are bands like Collective Soul, Gin Blossoms, that kind of stuff. They have a few gold records. To this day they still tour every year and make enough money off touring and royalties to make a good living. I grew up on punk and thrash metal, so had never heard of his band, so it surprised me how close to 30 years later they still get booked at Disney and on rock cruises, but happy he still gets to keep doing that.

Kind of curious about Tommy Tutone's programming career. It would be cool if he had an HN account!

What's interesting to me is the nostalgia boom for artists who either kept going or reunited, and the crowds now are far larger than what they were back in the day. The Pixies filling a 5000 person venue? Morrissey with a Vegas residency? I don't think either charted on the Billboard Top 40.

I knew a musician who was a star overseas, and during the 90s could regularly sell out large venues. He packed it in after about 10 years. To him it really was a grind, there were diminishing returns as his core audience grew up and moved on, and he was operating in a relatively small market. He ended up doing real estate and business development in a second country where the economy was booming, and had a moderately successful career doing that. He doesn't seem to be interested in performing anymore.

Having worked closely with a number of artist that achieved notable level of mainstream success (multiple Billboard Top 40 hits, years of touring) I have to agree with the authors conclusion. Even for those that have successful careers spanning a number of years it's more or less over as soon as it starts. They then spend years chasing what they had but it's near impossible. By the end most end up financially not well off and with little to no career options. It's amazing while it's happening but the candle burns quickly, that being said I doubt many artists would agree.

This isn't exactly music but an adjacent career: acting.

About 20 years ago, I was in the chorus for a community theater production of La Boheme. The director was a moderately successful Hollywood actor, Ken Tigar, whom you've probably seen:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0863024/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

AFAIK he's never the star, but he continues to get acting gigs, because as someone said about a musician: he shows up, he hits his mark, he doesn't cause any problems for the director. He's a professional, in other words.

So I have a lot of respect for the musician who might or might not have had a hit record, but they know their craft and they take it seriously.

Just one note on Elton John's Cold Heart: its reappearance on the chart was due to a remix that featured the (very current) Dua Lipa [1].

I liken this kind of prolonged success as similary to winning the lottery twice. It happens. But it's a lot more common to only win once.

With music you never really know what's going to resonate with audience. It can be a complete accident. It could be a song being featured in a movie or TV show that completely blows up. It could be used in a Tiktok that goes viral.

There are many enduring artists from the 1960s through 1980s. I'm talking the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Queen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Prince and so on. In their times they dominated the airwaves in a way that doesn't really exist anymore.

It's a bit like how TV used to be a shared cultural experience because it was broadcast at the same time before streaming. Non 21st century TV show has hit (or will probably ever hit) the kind of numbers you saw from Seinfeld, MASH, Cheers and the like..

Taylor Swift is obviously massive. But she's the outlier among outliers, almost the exception that proves the rule. And even though Taylor Swift has incredibly popular music, she doesn't produce enduring "hits" in the way the aforementioned artists did. Will current music have the same cultural power in 50 years that Bohemian Rhapsody or Billie Jean?

My thesis is that we don't have the same shared cultural experiences anymore because of the Internet and I suspect this will make the likely duration of a music artist even shorter.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qod03PVTLqk

This realization is what made me get my life together. I recognized that striving for success as an artist requires you to abandon the rest of your life while counting on being an outlier, and no rational person would bet their life on that.

I still make art and I still swing for the fences sometimes, but I decided not to starve and my life is all the better for it.

> Using this "cross-verified database," we find that music stars have one of the shortest lifespans of any profession, with an expectancy comparable to boxers, military figures, and race car drivers.

Although according to the chart directly below, the life expectancy is more comparable to chess players and poets. Probably isn't as fun a sentence to write though.

Insightful article, music celebrity is fascinating. I have a musically-gifted friend in her twenties who got a full-time job singing and playing in a band in a live-music nightclub, she's the only musician I've met who plays music for a living, without a non-music side gig. Her own band has never toured and has a tiny instagram presence, she seems happy with that.

Much of the article really focuses on (more or less) "one hit wonders."

However the intro on music biopics really hits home. It's not even just music. I find a lot of biopics suffer from fairly predictable story arcs that are constrained by the subject's actual trajectory while often not being that true to life.

This feels like a question that would really benefit from talking to some musicians, instead of basing your framing on biopics and data. Some musicians are in it to be rich and famous, and become computer programmers when riches and fame leave the picture, but most of them are musicians because they like writing and playing music more than anything else. I'd bet that Of Monsters and Men is perfectly happy to make an okay living off of their remaining fanbase, because they still get to tour and make new albums. They might be even happier about it if they could get a second hit, but there are so many musicians who have never had a breakthrough hit, who make a happy living opening for other bands, meager royalties, Patreons, etc. Basically, this post assumes a causal link between chart success and life satisfaction that probably doesn't exist.

I think this is very interesting about Billboard Top 100 artists, however there are TONS of artists and bands that have never cracked the Billboard Top 100 yet have been making music and doing live shows for years/decades successfully. I would guess/assume that these artists vastly outweigh the # of artists who have had a Top 100 song or album.

While I'm sure most artists would love to have a Top 100 album or song and the associated wealth it brings, I feel many would also love continuing to create music and tour on it while making a decent living for years. Leaving out these artists in the discussion I feel skews the point of the article.

Billboard Top 40 is a poor measure of "stardom lasting." "Money earned" would be a better one.

If they can get a steady residence in Vegas or Branson, or play the state fair circuit, they're still getting decent money.

Other stars managed to move into producing or guesting on other people's records.

Norman Greenbaum lived off "Spirit in the Sky" for many, many years.

> "Rock 'n' roll is a young man's game"

That's why Taylor Swift credits herself as co-writer of songs that other people write for her. That way she gets some the publishing royalties, which last a long time. "Change a word, get a third."

Just do it because you love it.

I know plenty of people who went for it. Had fun. Some went on to become programmers even when it was all over.

Doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing, rise-and-fall type of story. Aiming for hits is a sure fire way to burn out.

Even in programming, maths, making video games, films, books… don’t compare yourself to others and don’t look at the stats and think, why bother?

As long as you’re surviving and not throwing away your life or those lives that depend on you or care about you… just make music. Doesn’t have to be top 40. Just make the stuff you like and as much of it as you want.

I watched The Beach Boys live at county fair a few years ago, which it was the official band but basically a cover band since most of the originals had moved on or passed on. The main headliner Beach Boy actually talked about why he was still on tour, like he mentioned that he drove a Bentley...he wanted to maintain the style of living that he had become accustomed to.

Certain musicians/bands can be even more successful even if they're not at the top of the charts anymore, like multiple bands make more money now on tour than they did when they charted. I kind of disagree with the premise due to this in that you can be more successful not charting new songs, but touring with past hits to your now more-affluent fan base. The Rolling Stones for instance have a lifetime tour gross of over $2B. I think it's like the ultimate musician longevity plan where if you have one or more iconic songs that are part of culture, you can make a good living touring for as long as you're willing and able to tour, perhaps even making more touring your hits than when you were charting.

I really enjoyed this. I think about this a lot, especially with young famous artists or social media creators.

How long can they sustain the act that got them famous? Will we want to see Olivia Rodrigo at age 30, 40, 50, performing her hits from today?

on the flip side, improvised instrumental music (which has relatively no market or fame) is kind of the opposite- the top dogs basically stay there their whole life. but thats in terms of status, not money, which is mosty nonexistent.

I came to the realization a bit ago that musical stardom is essentially a finishing school for a personal brand. Most of the extremely successful artists seem to use their career as a springboard to some other venture; your time touring and putting out albums is more about networking and showing that you're dynamic, poised, attractive, etc. Basically, that you're qualified to be the "face" of something else. If you don't seize that once-in-a-lifetime marketing opportunity... Well, it's once-in-a-lifetime. You should essentially have some plan ready to go the moment you realize your name is on everyone's lips. Fashion partnership, acting gig, merchandising deal, something.

I'm surprised to read so many comments that think a 'natural' phenomenon is being described. As with famous actors, it seems to me that certain faces are heavily promoted for some reason, and others are not. Certain people get endless publicity. The attention they get from the public is due to time they are gifted on TV, in newspapers - its not a natural phenomenon.

Eg Elton John and Madonna have got some good songs, but are they that good to merit the limelight they are given for so many years? And if you take anyone really, but give them access to the best producers and musicians etc, surely you will come up with lots of hits that would be associated with that act, even though the talent is in the group?

There's the 'long tail' aspect to ephemeral stardom and what people get from it. Most musicians I know (and I know a lot from the local music scene) want foremost to perform. Money and fame would be really great, but getting up in front of an audience is what they most want to do.

A lot of 80's and 90's bands come through the 200-500 cap venues where I mostly work. People like Midge Ure, Nik Kershaw. They're still happily performing and touring despite (as far as I know) not being in Billboard top 100 for some time (tm)

So the fact of having been super-famous once and then not again is probably disappointing but not crushing, and no reason for other people not to try for the 15 minutes of fame

> Throughout this analysis, I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would aspire to become a mainstream music star—to achieve professional success that bears a near-immediate expiration date.

I think this quote demonstrates that the author hasn't really understood what they're writing about. Many musicians (especially those that have only one hit, or even no hits at all) simply make music because it's what they love to do. If enough people are interested in them for them to be able to make a living out of it, that's enough "professional success" for them. That's the reason why many bands stay together (or artists stay active) for decades after they had a top 40 hit. If they were just chasing stardom, they would have probably given up after a few years. For example, this band I went to see a few weeks ago in Cologne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INiKwU2JPF0 (the concert recording is not mine) - they were pretty big stars in the nineties with two hit albums (and a James Bond title track), then had two less successful ones, had a fallout with their record company, went on hiatus, then reformed in 2012 (with the original lineup!) and since then had three more albums (recorded in their own studio, published by their own record label) which were critically pretty well received, with a fourth one apparently on the way. Most people probably don't even know they're still around (or rather, around again), but as long as their loyal fans keep listening to their music and going to their concerts, they're happy...

> I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would aspire to become a mainstream music star

Perhaps the author should check out the song with the lyrics "money for nothing and chics for free." Quite a number of musicians are open about being in a band makes for easy sex.

I think you're missing an enormous part of being a musical act if you're only looking at Billboard chart placement. My wife and I have made a hobby of going to concerts and festivals for the past few years. Just in the last three years, we've seen KMFDM and NIN multiple times, Tool, Madonna, Judas Priest, Kreator, Queensryche, Slowdive, Echo and the Bunnymen, Metallica, Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Filter, New Order, Ministry like five times. We've got Slayer, Weezer, and Flaming Lips coming up in the next couple months. I have pretty badly wanted to see Massive Attack, Juno Reactor, and Spiritualized, but their tours never hit the US.

Some of these were multi-generational megastars. Some of them charted once or twice 30+ years ago. Some of them never charted at all. All of them have devoted fanbases and they sell out venues. Some of these are 80,000 seat arenas, some are small clubs with standing room only, but they're all enough to sustain the band for decades.

You don't need to be on the Billboard top 100 to make a living. A whole lot of fans continue to be fans and will love you their entire lives regardless of whether a single one of your songs hits the mainstream ever again or even if you don't release new material at all. KMFDM thankfully does release new stuff damn near all the time (now 40 years of conceptual continuity), but my wife and I met at one of their shows. We've gone to see them every single time they come within 100 miles of us ever since and we always will. They're a far more important part of our identities than Icona Pop is to the casual radio listeners that sung along to their one popular song for a summer and then forgot about them.

By the time you play the Super Bowl half time, you're already past the peak.

Green Day + Rancid are still filling stadiums to capacity. And that is such an outlier.

A friend of mine is a wonderful musician who never “made it”, but continues to play bars and restaurants and small venues weekly, as he has for 30+ years. He’s done some session work as well.

Another friend said he feels bad for him because he never lucked into greater fame, but he’s too good to give it up.

As long as he’s happy performing, I don’t see this as a bad thing. I can go see him perform regularly, he seems happy, he has a dedicated local following.

Like most everything else, "success" falls under the Pareto Principle (aka 80/20 rule). That is, unicorns are rare and most are (naturally) bunched around the middle of the curve.

People knock one-hit wonders but that's not easy. Any band with longevity was at one time with only one-hit in hand.

Get that "hit" (product). Figure it out from there.

Odd, for a site named "statsignificant", that they didn't try to fit a distribution or two?

This is kinda bullshit. He’s basing everything in his “analysis” on having a “hit.” There are many working musicians who sell seats and make a good living, and many stars who have toured their way to success without ever having a Billboard hit.

This applies to any ultra-bright success and not just music, no?

I was briefly a "star" in silicon valley for a project I did. Random people at conferences knew who I was and would smile when they met me. But the years roll by and despite a nice career, I understand that work is now forgotten and my (real) name will never be in the press again.

"If you're reading this and thinking to yourself, "What's Of Monsters And Men?" then you've proven my point."

Not proven, sorry. Actually prefer their other tracks, like 'Empire', from the 2nd album.

This is worth the read if you happen upon it.