Classic rock’s giants are mostly retired — yet the genre is a hotter market for the music industry than ever before. Inside the wild, sudden gold rush for old music.
. Entrepreneurs have begun entering Jampol’s line of work and trying to concoct new ways to profit from the legacy of rock stars from days past. Some well-heeled investors are shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars for lucrative publishing catalogs; others are making use of TikTok and developing technologies like holograms; others envision
But in the past few months alone, not coincidentally at a time when touring hasn’t been possible, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul Simon, and David Crosby, as well as Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick Fleetwood, have all sold their songs to outside investors.
And even though Young is no longer on speaking terms with his former CSNY bandmate David Crosby, they agree that selling their publishing at this point in their careers is a wise move. “Given our current inability to work live,” Crosby said, “this deal is a blessing for me and my family.” “Eventually age does become a factor,” says Jeff Pezzuti, CEO and founder of Eyellusion, a company that stages classic-rocktours. “How do you extend that? Does it just end? Do they just break up and they call it a day? Do they just release DVDs of the old shows? Or is there a way to actually continue that and make something cool and exciting that would cause buzz?”
There’s even talk of a new Doors movie. “The Oliver Stone one was 31 years ago,” Jampol says. “That means that everybody on planet Earth who’s 31 and under was not alive when that movie came out. That’s why we’re looking at making a new one.”so do smaller ones. During the lockdown in particular, artists and their reps have been learning how to extend their brands using technology.
Before the pandemic, Maureen Valker-Barlow — the L.A.-based president of DWP’s BrandMark Agency — noticed the success of Wisdome LA, an “immersive art and music dome park” in the city. Events there feature live bands playing music with kaleidoscopic visuals projected onto a planetarium-like geodesic dome above audiences’ heads.
And a lawsuit Chris Cornell’s widow has filed against the late grunge superstar’s bandmates cites her interest in tours with a replacement singer, hologram concerts, and “deep-fake renditions of Chris’ vocals drawn from extant recordings by artificial intelligence that could mint brand new Soundgarden hits.”
Nowadays, he’s especially eager to work with living artists on creating holograms they could use now and after death. “With living artists we would actually set up a stage of some kind, and we would actually record one show with the intention of creating holographic performances,” he says. “So basically you’d be creating a show where the artist looks like they’re there.
“We know, personally, that every hotel in the game is going to be looking for the hook,” he continues. “‘How are we going to get people to come here, especially now?’ Well, our shows are those hooks. ‘Come here and see this.'”
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