Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[jeanbatman]

Potentially Huge topic but didn't know where to post it, so it went here.
I'm asking myself this question :
What do you think of musicologist Ted Gioia's theory about stardom in popular music fading exactly 80 years after of the artistic rise of a musical artist (e.g. Bob Hope)?
That time around, the fans of that artist would be dead (for the most part) and his music become more obscure and his name unknown to younger generations.

The article I'm reffering to:
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-lon ... re-stardom
It is suggested in the comments than even the GOAT of composers J.-S. Bach had a drop in popularity even if his music was brought to music sheets and was rediscovered long after his death by fellow classical composers centuries later.

[Dr_Jones]

Interesting question. Jarre has not been ultra-famous (Michael Jackson style) and isn't a prominent figure in popular culture. On the other hand: his concerts could attract people in the millions, so there's at least some cultural relevance there. He has pioneered electronic music and that's where lots of people acknowledge him for too.

I think it's hard to predict. Will the Beatles still be as relevent as they were up until now? Or Kraftwerk? Maybe they will. It probably also depends on how the record companies will keep an artist "alive", just like Jackson or Prince get their re-releases posthumously.

[nexxxus]

This is an interesting question that is difficult to answer. Especially since it is in fact the medium because if classical musicians persist in memory it is because scores have been written. There is the memory of what we are given to hear nowadays... it is heritage and above all lucrative.
Since the first sound recordings, access to music has evolved... artists through their works are transmitted from generation to generation in other ways (like literary works).
Now in the digital age, the multiplication of currents, the tendency of our new generations to forget... I don't know if this model is applicable.
But if the EON application still exists on the iPhone 421 MAX PRO SUPER then JARRE will be in the stars for centuries to come...

[Finaero]

The album "Everywhere at the End of Time" by The Caretaker (mainly its first volume) created a sort of a resurgence for the musician Al Bowlly, 75 years after his death. I think that if an avant-garde ambient album can increase public awareness for a rather obscure singer who most people today hadn't even heard of (myself included), it's not unlikely that 75 years after his death, a comparatively far more better known artist like JMJ will still be remembered rather well.

Elvis memorabilia reminds me of how I don't think it will take even 80 years for the Oxygene 7-13 LPs to be sold for a few euros or so (granted that I already got mine in 2008 for 4 euros, but still ).

[jeanbatman]

Great thoughts brought together, I agree with pretty much of all what you guys said.

This is an interesting question that is difficult to answer. Especially since it is in fact the medium because if classical musicians persist in memory it is because scores have been written. (…)

Let me be a bit more precise: If classical musicians persist, it's because their works are learned into musical schools (even jazz musicians learned from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart…).