> One of the most striking differences between the Stones and the Beatles is that the Beatles split up after a mere seven years at the top, whereas the Stones are still going. One startup flashed brightly and burned out; the other established itself as a long-running corporation.
When it comes to fame the Beatles' model is the clear winner.
In 56 years the Rolling Stones performed more than two thousand concerts around the world[1]. They did so many concert tours that there exits a Wikipedia category[2] just for the tours.
Sure, the Rolling Stones are world famous, but what effort was required to become and stay that way. Compare that with the Beatles. They put in ten years of work to reach universal long lasting popularity - how efficient is that.
When it comes to fortune I'm not so sure. Comparing net worth of McCartney ($1.2 billion [3]) and Mick Jagger ($360 million [4]) it looks pretty clear too. But when we compare the overall wealth generated by the Beatles vs that of the Rolling Stones I'm not sure if that would be as clear cut. I don't have any number though and I think it's difficult to compare.
The question is, would the Stones be as popular today if they also split up after 7 years at the top? I'd argue they would since all of their best work (with the exception of Exile on Main St. - which was released in their 8th year) was released in this time.
Of course I'm not going to argue that anyone is as popular as the Beatles, but I'm pretty sure the Stones would also have had universal long lasting popularty if they had only been around for the same amount of time.
You also can't compare the wealth of McCartney to Jagger. Firstly, McCartney had a very successful solo career after the Beatles, during which time he released way more albums than the Stones in the same time period and did his own share of touring. Secondly, McCartney owns a significant music publishing catalogue and has other business ventures.
> You also can't compare the wealth of McCartney to Jagger. Firstly[...]
I'd say firstly because even if they had 100% comparable careers comparing the current net worth of two people makes no sense when you're trying to establish what was a more "successful" approach in terms of earned income.
Maybe Jagger made way more money than McCartney and just spent it all on private jets, gambling etc., while McCartney invested it.
The Beatles broke up a full ten years before John Lennon was shot. That only cemented their fame, it didn't do much to create it nor did it do anything for the band while they were active.
Plenty of bands from then have toured with original members of a couple replacements years after they initially broke up. The Rolling Stones, for instance have changed much of their line-up. Pink Floyd is another example.
If John Lennon had not been killed, the Beatles could have toured in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010’s by reuniting or replacing a different member or two. Many other bands of that era have broken up and then reunited to tour.
I can base this only on my father's anecdotes as a guitar player from that time, but he told me that the musical complexity and chord progressions used in the Beatles' songs were significantly different than the music he had heard from other bands of the time. I'm not sure if one would say "mindblowing", but they were the kind of musician that inspired other musicians, not merely audiences. [According to my father, at least]
> the Beatles split up after a mere seven years at the top
Not exactly. The Beatles, as a business, continues to this day. It's controlled by the remaining living Beatles and their direct heirs. (Basically, Paul, Ringo, Yoko (John's Wife), and Dhani Harrison. They're pretty active with various ways to re-introduce, such as actively promoting the movies, the Beatles Rockband game, the Love remixes, ect.
The Beatles even reunited in the mid-90s to make the Anthologies. They used demo recordings approved by Yoko to work with John. In the films they openly admit that, if John was still alive, they'd probably have reunited in the 1980s.
The difference between the Beatles, and other bands, is that they can't bring in replacement musicians. They decided that it's only the Beatles when it's John, Paul, George and Ringo. This is unlike the Beach Boys where there is a "Beach Boys" touring band that only has Mike Love and session musicians. (Still a fun show, BTW.) Otherwise, Paul and Ringo could get together, bring in some session musicians, and call themselves "The Beatles."
Some bands that stay together for a long time change in ways where the band is fundamentally different than when they had their main popularity. For example, with the Moody Blues, the years after Mike Pinder are so different that they almost sound a different band with some of the same band members. Asia had so many band member changes that, when the original lineup wanted to reform, there were two bands that used the same name.
"Yes", when it only had one original member, had the rest of the members from their popular years reform and make an album that sounded more like "Yes" than what the actual "Yes" sounded like.
Many musicians say that performing is the most fun thing they do. If that's the case then the Rolling Stones take it. Basically, don't take life as optimising a single metric. It's a balance (or a Pareto frontier, if you're formally inclined). The core members of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles certainly have enough money and enough fame. Are they happy though?
Doing this kind of analysis is fun but the assumption that wealth maximization was a driving factor for these bands is laughable. Go watch "Crossfire Hurricane" and you'll see that touring is the glue that holds the Stones together. And IIRC, it effectively saved Keith Richard's life when he was toeing the point of no return with heroin.
It's also the case that the Beatles spent their time after the Beatles doing mostly less critically and commercially successful solo work - over 60 solo albums between them, and that's with Lennon dying young! Paul and Ringo still love being Paul and Ringo enough to tour, and for that matter some of Paul's billion comes from his less-celebrated solo material - he makes half a million a year in royalties from Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time alone. Difficult to imagine they wouldn't have been more successful still if they'd been able to reconcile their differences and stay together as a band.
There probably are bands where get famous and then split up because our competing writers want to go in different directions was a "model", but I'm not convinced the Beatles was one. Or that there was much science behind the Stones' division of responsibilities
Part of the ex-Beatle's wealth (particularly Paul's) is savvy investments. McCartney bought up Michael Jackson's back catalog, for example. There's lots more here and obviously the Stones didn't just bank their loot (and I'm not really arguing with you) but I think to have a decent comparison we would need to define terms and draw boundaries pretty carefully. I have a splitting headache so don't really fancy doing the research, but a proper apples-to-Apple comparison should probably be limited to tour revenue, LP/single sales revenues, and image, name, and catalog licensing. That's the money in, which is really the first order measure of wealth generated.
How much of McCartney's fortune was generated post-breakup in 1970 vs. that earned during the Beatles hey-day? I'm considering his Beatles catalog royalties to be part of the before-breakup period. Still paying him money today, that, alone, has probably earned him hundreds of millions.
I'm guessing here but I suspect the Stones catalog, even though its probably larger, doesn't generate as much revenue as the Beatles. The number of artists who cover the Stones music isn't anywhere near those that cover Beatles songs.
For those who are not into rock music or music in general necessarily, this article is still worth reading and thinking about. A couple of lines stand out for me, especially:
"...every group has a threshold for tension that represents its optimal level of conflict. Uncontrolled conflict can destroy the group, but without conflict, boredom and apathy set in."
This is consistent with my own experience, both in bands and in companies, and perhaps in personal relationships also. A certain amount of friction is actually optimal in terms of output of the band / company / couple.
I'm not sure, there's definitely people (I mean, there must be others than myself ;)), mostly introverted, that shine best when they know that the relationship is based on pure facts and no unforeseeable tension may arise from hurt egos.
That being said, maybe we're such a minority that virtually no human group would be comprised of only that kind of mind (even in couples).
I cannot imagine a non-trivial environment where everything is deterministic and there's no room for argumentation. For example, when deciding on the color of a new logo, or what to do for a company trip, there's no obvious canonically true solution. Therefore, opinions and personal preferences come into play, which is a source of conflict.
> For example, when deciding on the color of a new logo, or what to do for a company trip, there's no obvious canonically true solution. Therefore, opinions and personal preferences come into play, which is a source of conflict.
Ha, those are great examples where I will absolutely refuse to give my opinion :)
"What's your idea on the new logo color?", "I don't care, I'll be ok with whatever you choose", "No really, tell me", "No really, I don't want to think about it", "I don't get it", "I know you don't". Quit harsh, I conceed :)
I was in a band for a while, and there can be tension without it needing to derive from egos. I would say all of us were ego-free and I can't remember us ever having any interpersonal conflicts. But we did have different musical inspirations. The lead singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist loved folk rock, like Bob Dylan. I was more into metal and electronic music. The drummer was a devout punk. Our bassist swore by classic rock.
In addition, I've always been of a very analytical mind, whereas our songwriter has always had a very artistic temperament. We philosophically disagreed about whether music was primarily art or science. But he had the spark of artistic inspiration to write the songs, and I had the music theory backing to write the accompaniment, so that philosophical tension actually made the whole thing work. Then we split to pursue our respective goals and neither of us have done much musically since then.
>The notion that bands should make music for the love of it was always romantic and now seems positively quaint. Rock groups are mini-corporations
The top 0.1% of rock groups maybe. The vast majority don't make significant money and probably do it mostly for the love of it and maybe a bit in the hope they'll make it one day.
I don't entirely agree. If you want to have a chance to make it, you have to be more than just a group of guys playing music. You need to be professional, manage your booking, do networking, manage your music production...
I'm not saying you're wrong, but this is technically true for any sort of business. Software, Restaurants, anything really. I quickly learned growing up that doing something you love means doing it as a hobby. Doing it professionally means you don't mind doing all the other responsibilities instead of doing your hobby.
What if you don't care about "make it"? I'm in several bands, and I'm quite content to play to a small audience of friends, or even just for ourselves. We play for the love of the music.
That's right, but start by writing some good songs first (whatever the genre)...otherwise, business wise, it' probably better just to focus on being a tribute band.
I'll go along: you're pitching your music and receiving feedbacks since the early stages of your startup band, so no need to study how to fit the market. Go fast, break strings.
This is a poor attitude to assume about artists (I'd also challenge your assertions that 99.9% of people in rock groups "love" dealing with broken down vans, shady promoters, and trying to understand the nuance of record deals). They're putting in hard work just as anyone, and even if they love what they do, they're doing it to make a living. This type of thinking that devalues art and artists.
Art is not a hobby, it's not a labor of love, it's a profession just like web development or project management.
Not every artist makes art to make a living if it, nor do they need to. Some can’t (e.g. because they don’t have and struggle to aquire the necessary business skills) and some don’t even want that... they just wanna make some art and are happy to do it just as a hobby, no business, no chores... There’s nothing wrong with that , it even has some upsides, because you really absolutely never need to do the slightest sacrifice in your works for economic or marketing reasons.
Completely agree, profit is only one measure of success.
Take a look at the progressive rock band Rush, they've been going since the late 60s. They still love what they do, and have evolved their styles over time.
Even Iron Maiden who I would argue had commercial success and fame have survived a tumultuous time during the 90s and have come back even stronger.
Musicians have a history of taking long periods off. Sonny Rollins took a few multi-year stints off, during which time he worked on technique and ideas he didn't have time to work on as a touring musician. The Who have been in and out of retirement like 10 times.
We'll see how long it lasts. He'll probably dedicate himself to writing for a few years and get himself back in shape with long-distance bicycling. But, he'll probably be back. I could easily see him not want to do arena tours anymore though, maybe some jazz gigs or small-venue acoustic sets with Rush.
It's kind of interesting that two iconic drummers from the same generation - Bill Bruford and Neil Peart - decided to get out of the industry.
> If rock groups are businesses, businesses are getting more like rock bands. Workplaces are far more informal than they used to be, with less emphasis on protocol, rank and authority. Many firms try to cultivate the creativity that can come from close collaboration. Employers attempt to engineer personal chemistry, hiring coaches to fine-tune team dynamics and sending staff on team-building exercises. Employees are encouraged to share lunch, play table tennis and generally hang out. As the founder of Hubble, a London office-space company, put it, “We hope that our team will become friends first, and colleagues second.”
The problem is, most of these companies are closer to formula driven Justin Bieber than the less pop-focused (say) Radiohead.
Both have their merits. However, talking the latter while walking the former (or vice versa) creates disconnect - for employees, as well as customers.
Ultimately, culture matters. It's a process. It must be cultivated and curated. It is __not__ a speech or memo from the top that intends to magically everyone with the snap of their fingers.
There's far more to "We're going to innovate..." and "We're going to be creative..." and "We're going to be customer focused..." than simple saying such things.
p.s. Heart and commitment matters. When you think of any great band you can hear their all-in-ness. Those who fake it, are far less likely to make it, and last.
> One notable exception to this rule was The Smiths. When Morrissey and Johnny Marr founded the band in 1982, they insisted on taking a bigger cut of income, from all sources, than the bassist, Andy Rourke, and the drummer, Mike Joyce
Has anyone ever found any redeeming personal qualities to Morrissey?
The Stones are like Apple, arguably Brian Jones was their Steve Jobs, after Jones passed they became this tried and true formula, they may have added in a disco beat in the late 70s but it was basically an iconic sound with iconic songs, but their creative genius had passed long before. I don't expect Apple to die off any time soon but Jobs was definitely their Brian Jones. But like the Stones I expect them to continue long into the future playing out the same formula over and over.
I wanted to argue against this, and I don't necessarily agree, but I guess the Stones did their best work after Jones died, but not too long after he died and I guess one could argue the same about Apple after Jobs (so far)
What an incredible experience it must have been to be around such a creative group of guys. Even today, I can listen to Stipe's lyrics and find different meaning with my changing life experiences.
I know they didn't like it, but Fables of the Reconstruction is one of the most moody, creative works in modern music IMO.
>John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s artistic partnership enabled them to vertically integrate the hitherto separate functions of songwriting and performing.
Ugh, really? We're going to bring corporate buzzwords to the Beatles now?
Lennon and McCartney had perfectly complementary qualities.
When Paul would write "I've got to admit it's getting better", John would add "It can't get no worse".
Paul is a great multi instrumentalist and has a great ear for melody, while John had lees musicianship but was a subtler and sometimes wickedly funny lyricist.
Did you every see a video of an octopus capturing prey, the way they wrap themselves around it and smother it?
That is what capitalism is attempting to do with everything.
> Did you every see a video of an octopus capturing prey, the way they wrap themselves around it and smother it?
That is distinctly reminiscent of Matt Taibbi's take on Goldman Sachs:
> The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
The book "Beyond Category" is a fantastic book that profiles Duke Ellington as a band leader. He kept a large number of high-level musicians, often with challenging personalities, employed and working together for decades. He managed to accomplish it in the face of a "pivoting market": around the late 40's/early 50's listeners turned more toward bebop with its small-group sound.
It's a worthwhile read for anyone with both music and leadership interest.
>Underpinning R.E.M.’s flat governance structure was an egalitarian economic one. As Tony Fletcher explains in “Perfect Circle”, his biography of the band, each member received an equal share of publishing royalties, regardless of who contributed what to each song. The same was true of their recording and performing royalties – although here equal splits are normal. One notable exception to this rule was The Smiths. When Morrissey and Johnny Marr founded the band in 1982, they insisted on taking a bigger cut of income, from all sources, than the bassist, Andy Rourke, and the drummer, Mike Joyce. This introduced an instability into the group, hastening its demise after five years.
My understanding is that truly equal shares across the board are pretty rare, and probably even rarer if you filter for success. I think Van Halen was run that way, at least in its glory years (ie until DLR left).
Marr & Morrissey insisting on a larger share of performing royalties and gig fees is just mean, considering they dominated songwriting. That's actually a minefield for some acts, because the songwriting money is WAY BIGGER (at least traditionally) than performance royalties.
This came up in some of the more amusing sequences in the old VH-1 "Behind the Music" about the Go-Go's, who like many bands split songwriting royalties by actual authorship. The overwhelming majority of their songs (and all their hits) were written by Jane Weidlin and/or Charlotte Caffey, so after _Beauty and the Beat_ blew up they started getting checks that were much, much bigger than the other band members, who took exception.
Weidlin's response to their ire was "well, write some fucking songs!"
This seems a remarkably wholesome article given how vicious showbiz can be around song writing rights, recording deals etc. There's no discussion of the actual management of these acts - people like Peter Grant/Led Zeppelin or Mike Jeffery/Jimi Hendrix Experience, who both had very questionable business practices.
Those are the people who control and exploit the talent, it seems very few acts have management who are looking out for them...
The owner of a music school in my neighborhood graduated from Berklee Music College in the mid-90's. Even then Berklee had its students taking classes in business. A lot of being a successful musician is promotion and understanding how contracts work.
Friends who once gathered in garages to thrash out songs on guitars and drums are now as likely to get together to brainstorm ideas for apps
Kind of a case in point: Smashing Pumpkins' drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who is the CEO of a tech company focused on live events (https://www.modeproject.com/liveone-crowdsurfing/#liveone-fi...). He got the gig through a connection with Groupon's Andrew Mason.
I think the study of bands' management styles really does give useful insights into creativity and venture creation. Bands (more than most startups) represent an almost ideal opportunity to have a balance of complementary job responsibilities; it's then up to the members (or leader[s]) to creatively optimize the output, including song creation, live performances, recording, fan outreach, marketing, etc.
One area where things get interesting is when professional management gets involved. I was intrigued by that part in the article about the grizzled manager telling Tom Petty to put his foot down, and the repercussions that followed. This manager cut his teeth working with Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, perhaps the two most mercurial and insistent creative forces of the late 60s rock scene. It's interesting to think what would have happened had Petty hired someone else who had a different perspective.
Another area that fascinates me is when things go wrong, and how these entities adjust. The scene in Bohemian Rhapsody where Freddie Mercury splits with the record exec who doesn't like opera is fictional, but a true story that is even more bitter is the split with Queen's early manager Norman Sheffield, a former drummer and later founder of the UK's first Apple dealership. Listen to the first track off the album Bohemian Rhapsody, written by Mercury, "Death on Two Legs," probably the ultimate rock diss track. It's so powerful and bitter. It amazes me they didn't try to work it into the movie, although that may relate to the fact that it is unfamiliar to most audiences, probably because radio was reluctant to play it back in the day.
A third topic is scaling the business. I've written about Led Zeppelin in the past (see http://leanmedia.org/lean-media-example-led-zeppelin-i/) and believe the band was the ultimate rock startup: A talented creative team that clicked, an experienced pro (former Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page) leading the way, using audience feedback cycles to help shape the first songs before they entered the studio, and management that didn't try to mess with the creative core.
Manager Peter Grant was a fearsome character (https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-last-days-of-led-ze...), but only focused on the business end (especially touring) and let Page lead the way in the studio and on stage. Because Led Zep was bootstrapped and didn't have a record deal when they started, they didn't have some record executive trying to call the shots in the studio and they worked quickly. Inception was in August 1968 and the release of the first album took place in January of the following year. Led Zeppelin II was similarly lean, recorded while they toured. Four of their first five albums were certified RIAA "Diamond" albums, each selling more than 10 million copies (see http://leanmedia.org/chart-shows-rise-fall-music-album/) which I think may be a record.
Yet by the mid-70s Led Zeppelin really bogged down. They started living the rock star life, and were doing massive tours that sucked the energy out of the band. Physical Graffiti took something like 18 months to produce (yes, it was a double album, but still). By the late 70s, Page and Bonham had serious substance abuse problems and the creative mantle passed to Jones and Plant. The band folded after Bonham died in 1980.
I'll say American, or Western business culture has a lot of "non-problems." To even imagine what makes a "problem" to a rich Western multinational, one has to put up some effort.
I'm not a fan of S. Jobs, but generally approve of ways how he reanimated Apple Computers. A lot of commons sense based decision making in corporate structure, and HR policy. For one, he fired a lot of business degree holders from running actual engineering units — an issue of "inversion," I think is what the prime majority of big tech companies suffer from, and can't do a thing about.
Remembering that, I can only continue to laud and appraise what it is the mainstream Chinese way of running a tech company. I was dealing with Chinese electronics since my first job in a trade company in Singapore 12 years ago. Just how freaking efficient they are. This baffled me 12 years ago, and it still does today.
Nowhere but in China, you can have "signed contract in the morning, widgets in the evening." Rather sizeable collectives of up to 100 men are running here without a single "business" degree holder except of a single accountant/tax filler. Such companies run almost like as if they were a computer program, except they exist in real world.
If I am asked to summarise what that malaise is that ails Western business in a single sentence it is "Western business culture is not about doing business."
Too artsy, too talkshopy, too much "empty thinking," some people don't even know what they are supposed to do — if I take upon Jiang Zemin's style of a maxim statement.
Having grown up and worked in the US and lived in China for the past 10 years, I think you're overreaching with your characterization of corporate culture.
China, like the USA, has a wide range of companies that span the spectrum of efficiency. Try to get some customer service at China Telecom and you'll see the bottom-tier of efficiency that resembles, or is even worse, than trying to get your cable fixed with Comcast.
> China, like the USA, has a wide range of companies that span the spectrum of efficiency. Try to get some customer service at China Telecom and you'll see the bottom-tier of efficiency that resembles, or is even worse, than trying to get your cable fixed with Comcast.
True. There are horrifically bureaucratised private companies with SOE roots, or ones ran by the "old boss" class. But in China, nobody will place them as an example to emulate, but in America, the amount of people hellbent on "running the company like a F500 multinational" is just scary, and these people _don't even realise_ that they are doing, and wanting something that is wrong.
Are you telling me there are startups that want to run like F500 multinationals?
No company has SOX compliance departments, mandatory HR trainings or audited travel expense policies because they want to, they're just there because beyond a certain point you'll find out the hard way that they're there for a reason.
> Are you telling me there are startups that want to run like F500 multinationals?
Yes.
And their polar opposites are not better either.
Many of those guys are claiming that they know a thing about tech industry. Some have actual tech education, maybe some low effort projects, but I meet a lot cadres that put forward statements like "Our CTO has 20 years engineering experience, we have zero reservations about our execution ability," but then it finds out that the guy ran RnD offices for 20 years, but every time he actually had to make anything he ran from one agent to another "to deal with those Chinese factories." In other words, a dude on a CTO job with zero actual manufacturing experience. In such cases I almost feel obliged to whisper to the CEO or the founder "if he can't make you anything, why do you even hire him?"
I'm not speaking about our clients, but, say, "the feel of industry in general" :)
When I see people coming to SZ with an aspiration of making the next Ihpone, some of them come with a crew the size of our our entire engineering consulting company (around 50 people,) but they already have a baggage of "product managers," "corporate strategist," "experience managers," and some 10 other managers with titles I never ever heard of.
That way you can have startups with 10th of megabucks in funding, huge teams, and no products to sell...
A recent HN story that impressed me was about Chinese manufacturers making inexpensive airplane engine parts that turned out to be defective with cheap casting and shoddy repairs, pretending they used proper tools and materials instead. Maybe they were working "like a computer program", but they were criminals.
Can concur. Most people have no idea how ineffective we can be until they see something else. I love how fast Chinese companies move. You should write an article about your experiences.
Having worked in Chinese tech companies, they are both more and less efficient (fast to execute really).
They're fast because there's no planning being done. Because there's no plan being followed, people can jump on a new project. They're not held up with long term projects and goals.
On the other hand, some large projects are half assed and started fresh over and over because they keep failing due to lack of planning and proper organization infrastructure for execution (processes).
When it comes to fame the Beatles' model is the clear winner. In 56 years the Rolling Stones performed more than two thousand concerts around the world[1]. They did so many concert tours that there exits a Wikipedia category[2] just for the tours. Sure, the Rolling Stones are world famous, but what effort was required to become and stay that way. Compare that with the Beatles. They put in ten years of work to reach universal long lasting popularity - how efficient is that.
When it comes to fortune I'm not so sure. Comparing net worth of McCartney ($1.2 billion [3]) and Mick Jagger ($360 million [4]) it looks pretty clear too. But when we compare the overall wealth generated by the Beatles vs that of the Rolling Stones I'm not sure if that would be as clear cut. I don't have any number though and I think it's difficult to compare.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_concerts
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Rolling_Stones_co...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Jagger