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Thread: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with it?

  1. #76

    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Petrus View Post

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    Is "Onion-esk" a word? Because this is.

    BTW Guitar Center going belly up?

    Breaks my heart. If I had one.
    Last edited by farmerjones; Jun-26-2017 at 9:21am.

  2. #77
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    I saw this article yesterday - the Post is my hometown newspaper, sort of - but didn't read it as I was heading off to play bluegrass under a tree with some other guys, unamplified. So you have a little of my perspective.

    I have to quibble with the comment that an instrument with a pickup is an electric instrument, unsuitable for "traditional" music. The pickup in an acoustic instrument is the replacement for a microphone, a volume enhancer used in performance. Sure, the pickup may produce something other than the pure acoustic sound, and the player may intentionally add distortion or other effects. But the quality of the sound depends on the quality of the electronics, placement on the instrument, etc. And when you turn off the amp, you'll still hear the instrument. That's different, I think, from an electric instrument.

    But in any discussion of the popularity of guitars, don't we have to address the fact that a vast amount of popular music today has no melody? None. A rap performer doesn't need a guitar, or anything else that provides music other than a beat. It's all speech and rhythm. So lots of kids wanting to become pop stars don't gravitate to the guitar, or keyboard, or horn, or anything else except a microphone. That has to depress the sale of guitars to some extent.

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    Registered User Jill McAuley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    There are so many great "boutique" electric guitar builders out there now - if I was in the market for an electric guitar again I'd be spoiled for choice and most definitely wouldn't be looking at Gibsons or Fenders, which I played for years.
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    "Gibson Brands transforms guitar-making into diverse 'music lifestyle' firm" - L.A. Times June 18, 2017:

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

    (not sure how to create pdf like the OP file and not sure if everybody will be able to read this article.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by jefflester View Post
    "Gibson Brands transforms guitar-making into diverse 'music lifestyle' firm" - L.A. Times June 18, 2017:

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

    (not sure how to create pdf like the OP file and not sure if everybody will be able to read this article.
    Nice article. It's where a lot of things are headed, the music industry in general, including performance. Everything needs to be tied in with several other things to increase the base of fans, sponsorship, visibility across demographic groups, marketability. There will always be some grumbling of selling out, but I'd rather have survivability.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by jefflester View Post
    "Gibson Brands transforms guitar-making into diverse 'music lifestyle' firm" - L.A. Times June 18, 2017:

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

    (not sure how to create pdf like the OP file and not sure if everybody will be able to read this article.
    The tech checking out the guitar appears to be playing it through a Peavey Bandit 112 amp with a Gibson logo taped over the Peavey logo.
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    OK, the paper hasn't been recycled yet, so I read the article. Looking for the word I didn't see anywhere - RAP. Music free of melody. Wildly popular, successful, performed and loved. So people are surprised to see weaker sales of what is above all a device that produces, or supports, melody? The Post, typically, threw a lot of words at an opinion, packaged it with a nifty burned-Strat photo, and failed to provide much context. Guess that's why there's a forum here, right?

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    It's where a lot of things are headed, the music industry in general, including performance. Everything needs to be tied in with several other things to increase the base of fans, sponsorship, visibility across demographic groups, marketability.
    Cross-platform branding synergy, leveraging proven assets into high-growth opportunity segments to exploit innovative resources, optimizing shareholder value.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Petrus View Post
    Cross-platform branding synergy, leveraging proven assets into high-growth opportunity segments to exploit innovative resources, optimizing shareholder value.
    Superb use of business-speak! It drives you up the wall, but hey, what are you going to do? Somehow wee have to leveragate the fungicidable aspects of monetized drivel.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by dshipp View Post
    OK, the paper hasn't been recycled yet, so I read the article. Looking for the word I didn't see anywhere - RAP. Music free of melody. Wildly popular, successful, performed and loved. So people are surprised to see weaker sales of what is above all a device that produces, or supports, melody? The Post, typically, threw a lot of words at an opinion, packaged it with a nifty burned-Strat photo, and failed to provide much context. Guess that's why there's a forum here, right?
    Yeah, you said this before, and while rap may not have guitar work, most other pop music does, and there's lots of it. Americana, country (the new rock), don't leave out the Taylor Swifts of the world, etc. Motown and it's predecessor, Doo-Wop didn't feature guitars, or have any at all, and it didn't slow down sales then.

    Right now pop music features vocals far more (and that's any form of pop music) and instruments far less. The types of music we on this site prefer is more instrumental oriented, so that's the way we look at things. Despite some people's assertion that there's no glut, you simply can't have that many companies making that many guitars (what's Martin up to now??) and not build up some sort of reserve.

    Everything is cyclical. Complaining about rap now is no different than my parents complaining about the Rolling Stones.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    +1!

    For our parents and The Rolling Stones, it was "What are they saying? I can't understand a word they're saying!

    For our generation and rap, it's "Where's the melody? I can't here any tune!"

    AND " What are they saying? I can't understand a word they're saying!"

    The double whammy. Unintelligible lyrics AND devoid of melody!
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by multidon View Post
    For our generation and rap, it's "Where's the melody? I can't here any tune!"

    AND " What are they saying? I can't understand a word they're saying!"
    Unfortunately, when it comes to a lot of rap that I hear being blared through car windows at stoplights, I can hear and understand what they're saying. And they ought to be ashamed of themselves. I hate to sound like an old fogie or a prude, but there's no other way to describe it other than "filth". It's offensive.
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  21. #88

    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    Yeah, you said this before, and while rap may not have guitar work, most other pop music does, and there's lots of it. Americana, country (the new rock), don't leave out the Taylor Swifts of the world, etc. Motown and it's predecessor, Doo-Wop didn't feature guitars, or have any at all, and it didn't slow down sales then.
    Right, typically stuff like the Run DMC/Aerosmith crossover has been the exception, rather than the norm:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...walk-this-way/

    Not to mention the even earlier song, Rock Box (1984), which the feature article above seems to ignore:



    Quote Originally Posted by Tobin View Post
    Unfortunately, when it comes to a lot of rap that I hear being blared through car windows at stoplights, I can hear and understand what they're saying. And they ought to be ashamed of themselves. I hate to sound like an old fogie or a prude, but there's no other way to describe it other than "filth". It's offensive.
    Well, that may be coincidence, or it could be the modern punk rock ethos manifesting itself in a new way....blast the most offensive song you have where the maximum amount of people will hear it. Nothing is as offensive as the 2 Live Crew type stuff kids my age were listening to in the 80's. What you're hearing at the traffic light may not necessarily be representative of the best rap that's out there, and let's not forget that, as with any style of music, what is "best" isn't necessarily what's popular with the masses.

    This is something I would hold up as an another example of quality rap/hip hop:



    They start out with the chorus, as a group, and then each member adds their own individual flavors with a solo rap.

    My problem with so much modern rap (unlike the song above) is that there are barely any verses, and thus, you could just as easily call the style of music "Hook" or "Yell" rather than rap, since there's barely any rap in it.

    Also, there are rappers like Wyclef who also play (in his case) or feature guitars and other "real" instruments. Of course there's also the Beastie Boys, who played instruments on all their later records, with songs like Sabotage, which is straight up guitar, bass, and drums.... with rap over it.

    In the 80's they thought guitar was dead, and then came Van Halen. The guitar's "death" has come many times, only to be "brought back" by groups like Avenged Sevenfold, or The Darkness, or Buckethead or whatever.

    Games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Rocksmith have also helped a bit to keep it viable in the minds of kids.

    With popular music, like fashion, the pendulum always swings back eventually. The tastemakers/media filters who try to control common trends eventually run out of ideas about what should be "cool", and somebody eventually says "Hey, let's bring bell bottoms back!".

    It is the way of things.
    Last edited by Billkwando; Jun-27-2017 at 10:40am.

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  23. #89

    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    For my adolescence, there was no getting away from Rap. Like many, my first exposure was "Walk this way". My dad bought a used truck and the tape was in the stereo. It was hard not to be drawn in. Shortly after, The Beastie Boys, with many of the songs crossing into rock. Again, hard not to be drawn in.

    At this time I lived in a nice mountain town, where a good portion of it was people's summer homes. Higher income brackets, not exactly ethnically diverse. So in the summer you go to the school playground where the teens would be skateboarding, BMXing, or just hanging out and what would be blasting on the boombox? 2 Live Crew. With samples from Van Halen and Gun's n Roses, again, hard to not get drawn into it (if you like rock). And I can't underestimate the effectiveness of the shock factor. Even if it is completely offensive, people end up talking about it, you end up on the news with televised hearings. It is great for business, and not just rap. Zappa!

    So guitar survived all of this, and even thrived alongside it. It would be absolutely crazy to think guitar will disappear anytime in the foreseeable future. But in the present, popularity is on the decline with more options and places to purchase than ever in history. There must literally be 100 times the options for brands/models, with demand around 30% of the peak (electric guitars). It will most likely make a comeback. These things go in cycles of a few decades. Mandolin had it's little come back at the beginning of this century, but is still overdue for a widespread comeback. It has now been 100 years! I don't think it will be that long for guitar, but a 20+ year cycle seems realistic.
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  25. #90

    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    It's too bad Chris Cornell passed away before he could release a mandolin album like Eddie Vedder did for ukulele. Ukulele has had a huge resurgence since their last heyday of Laurel and Hardy et al playing them, I guess the very low cost of a quality instrument helps with that.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    I think the larger problem – the gorilla in the room, if you will – is a potential loss of a major retail outlet. The impact of the loss of sales generated by a Guitar Center or any other failing mass retailer could have devastating – and even lethal – effects on a number of manufacturers.

    I don’t shop at Guitar Center, so I don’t know all of the brands and models that they carry. However, just a quick look at their web site indicates that they carry Gibson/Epiphone, Fender, Martin, Taylor, PRS, Yamaha, Gretsch, Breedlove, Guild, and a host of others in the stringed instrument category alone. I have no idea of the quantities that they maintain for each brand or model. Wikipedia reports that Guitar Center has 269 locations. That equates to a lot of inventory, and a lot of orders for each manufacturer.

    Regardless of the size of manufacturer, a Guitar Center could represent a substantial portion of their annual production. Manufacturers work off of sales forecasts. Then they essentially “tool up” to meet those forecasts, which include employees, tooling, and raw materials.

    A sudden loss of a large customer, like a Guitar Center, could dramatically impact any manufacturer. Employees could be laid off; plants could be closed; and, depending on whether a large supply of raw materials is warehoused or whether there are significant numbers of non-deliverable finished goods on hand, cash and credit could quickly disappear. Unfortunately, existing independent retailers are not capable of picking up the necessary slack. All this simply means the potential demise of some brands or a totally different company producing those brands.

    And this does not even touch amplifiers, PAs, keyboards, or ancillary products.

    In my early business career, good business sense mandated that no customer should ever represent more than 10% of a manufacturer’s production. It could be substantially less than that now. We can only hope that our favorite manufacturers exercised good business sense and could somehow weather such a loss.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Wow, a turn into genre bashing. Seems like a convenient outlet for some views that have no place here. That'll be the end of it.

    As sung by Del McCoury:

    Eli Renfro killed his wife
    With a long sharp bowie knife
    Hacked her up and put her in the ground

    And we all know there's no violence and bad language (or behavior) in rock and roll, or our beloved folk and bluegrass.

    I took her by her lily white hand
    And dragged her down that bank of sand
    There I throwed her in to drown
    I watched her as she floated down

    Was walking home tween twelve and one
    Thinkin’ of what I had done
    I killed a girl, my love you see
    Because she would not marry me

    All rap and hip-hop is not violence, nor is it pure as the driven snow. Plenty of crap to go around. Linking it to an ethnic group is convenient, until the white people adopt it. There are as many drug, alcohol and domestic violence issues in bluegrass as any other genre. Subject for Facebook. Head there if you wish but this discussion is going to return to where the subject matter is or I'm happy to escort a few to the door if you're unable to adhere to the forum guidelines.

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  30. #93
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    I caught Wilco last week and that was a 'guitar' show ... of course, young people were far and few between (except the one a few rows back who got sick) .....
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  31. #94

    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Seter View Post
    It's too bad Chris Cornell passed away before he could release a mandolin album like Eddie Vedder did for ukulele. Ukulele has had a huge resurgence since their last heyday of Laurel and Hardy et al playing them, I guess the very low cost of a quality instrument helps with that.
    Yes, as I mentioned in another thread a little bit earlier, the 5 or 6 songs foray into mandolin that R.E.M. did (mainly Losing My Religion) is the the main mainstream breakthrough for mandolin I can think of.

    Ukelele has had a bit more of a resurgence thanks to folks like Jake S.:




    and then there's this guy, making the world safe for cheap uke buyers everywhere:



    My wife already had a purple Mahalo uke (that she hasn't yet learned to play) when I saw this video, so it gave me hope for the cheapy instrument (which I later installed a pickup in, after doing it on my mando first).

    Garfunkel and Oates are also doing their part to spread the uke love, with their Tenacious D-esque (but smarter) sound. I'd post a video of my favorite song of theirs, but (speaking of "filth" haha) it's so NSFW, it's basically on the moon. The initials of the title, in case anyone has a burning curiosity, are "FMITABILJ". You won't have to search long to find it.

    Again, it is really sad about Chris Cornell. I'm sure his group helped sell more than a few electric guitars, as well!
    Last edited by Billkwando; Jun-27-2017 at 12:11pm.

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    I think electric guitars will be fine despite sales dropping in the big box stores. What may have to change is the sales model. Big Box-type enterprises of all types seem to be going away for good or ill, but the services and products will still have value. I work for a newspaper and I could tell you stories about what happens when a corporation either mistakes or changes its mission, downsizes to become more profitable in the short-term and tries to rebrand itself to expand its reach to an increasingly splintered market. It's not pretty. But when the heroes go away, there still are people who want what you provide, whether its dreams of glory or a good electric guitar. I think the point's been made several times earlier in the string -- simply because people aren't buying scads of new electric guitars from big box stores doesn't mean people aren't playing electric guitar.
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Someone may have mentioned this already, but it seems like the worst thing for new electric guitar sales is the used electric guitar market. Surely this is a factor with sites like Reverb, Craig's List et al. I bought a used Strat last summer via Reverb. Made way more financial sense than going to GC.
    ...

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Guitar , acoustic or electric, is not as popular as it was in the 60s & 70s when I was a teenager. I didn't know anyone then that wasn't trying to play guitar,most unsuccessfully. There are great instruments available now for 100 dollars new, while maybe not with a good setup, often with a better setup then you got with a new Martin in the 70s. However, new music is likely to be made on a laptop or tablet. This is not good or bad but just is! New music is made and touches people's hearts or souls. Electric guitar may fade, mandolins too, but music will be made with the tools of their time.
    Jim Richmond

  35. #98

    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Caleb View Post
    Someone may have mentioned this already, but it seems like the worst thing for new electric guitar sales is the used electric guitar market. Surely this is a factor with sites like Reverb, Craig's List et al. I bought a used Strat last summer via Reverb. Made way more financial sense than going to GC.
    Absolutely. I was saying that 4 of my 5 guitars were bought used, and the one that was bought new was from Thomann, which (admittedly) is a big box store in Germany, but they have their own line of guitars that are insanely affordable (mine was under $200), and they ship internationally for $40.

    Guitar Center can't compete with this at that price:



    (forgive my errors, I didn't practice the first part as much as I did Prince's solo at the end)

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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    I agree with the idea the real story is the going away of the big box stores. With the amount of inventory tied up in those stores, I would think Fender, Gibson, PRS, Martin and Taylor would be more or less worried. The builders will need to change their business model to survive. And it wouldn't surprise me if all of them are quite a bit smaller in the next couple of years.

    And as others have said, the worst enemy of new guitars is used guitars. Whether that part of the market ever corrects itself is impossible to say. Unless I need a specific instrument, most of the time I'm looking at used. But that's just my way of doing things. If there had been a new mandolin available nearby, I may have purchased that instead of either of my present models. But it wasn't, so I went the used route. It work for me.
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    Default Re: Is the electric guitar dying, taking Gibson and others with i

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    All rap and hip-hop is not violence, nor is it pure as the driven snow. Plenty of crap to go around. Linking it to an ethnic group is convenient, until the white people adopt it. There are as many drug, alcohol and domestic violence issues in bluegrass as any other genre. Subject for Facebook. Head there if you wish but this discussion is going to return to where the subject matter is or I'm happy to escort a few to the door if you're unable to adhere to the forum guidelines.
    Yeah I get enough of the political stuff on Twitter for a lifetime.

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