Ain’t no way to keep a band together—bands come and go.
—That Thing You Do, 1996.
Abstract
Though there is a long tradition of band members quitting the group or taking a hiatus, the rock group as an organization to produce music continues to be both popular and economically viable. The research question addressed in this paper is whether or not it is a good idea to quit or take a hiatus from the group. We begin with a discussion of the framework for understanding why groups are formed and why they may be difficult to keep together. We then discuss differences between groups in the decade of the 1960s versus today. We argue that there is something unique about the output of the group even with the changes in the structure of contracts, compensation, and consumer focus on the artist that explain the resilience of the rock band as an organizational form within which to create music. We compare the charting success of bands that have members leave the group with the charting success of the members who left the group. We identified the groups in five representative years: 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005. We then analyzed the entire Billboard Hot 100 charting careers of those groups and the artists who quit those groups. Our main finding is that when charting success is divided equally among members, going solo pays off—there is a clear economic rationale because solo acts have greater average charting success than the original bands they started in. The other ensuing side projects: duos, collaborations, and other groups are not as lucrative as the original bands. These findings are valid for members of charting groups from each of the 5 years examined. Despite the difficulties in keeping a rock band together, there are fewer band breakups today and remaining with the group generally results in a longer and more productive charting career. Thus, the rock group remains an important organization for producing contemporary music. However, there remains a compelling incentive to go solo. Superstars may benefit from solo projects, but for the average, non-superstar group member, in many circumstances it is better for the band to stay together if the income is divided equally.
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Notes
Though there has been enormous technological change in the music industry over the past 20 years, we are not able to say how this change has affected the viability of the group. We are also not able to compare groups with artists who were always solo artists, but rather only those who began their careers in a group and then quit or taken a hiatus from the group.
As an example, Neil Sedaka, a very successful performer and songwriter, began his career with the group The Tokens, but only remained in the group for a short time.
We include duos as groups, though it could be argued that the dynamics in a two-person group are significantly less complicated than a multi-person group. In the empirical section, we separate duos from groups with three or more members.
Mick Jagger has had far more charting success in the group when compared with his solo albums.
Tom Dowd (of Atlantic Records) and Rick Hall (of FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals, AL) are both examples of innovative sound engineers/producers/songwriters making substantial contributions creatively and technologically. It should also be noted that the roles are not necessarily mutually exclusive for any given individual.
After 1969, Frank Zappa organized the members of his band along the lines of the classical capitalist firm. The members were paid a regular salary and all profits went to Zappa, who also organized the tours, wrote the music, and hired and fired members of the band.
However, there were many unique models. For example, any one of the four members of The Doors held veto power over any decisions involving the group. This was to create problems years later when some of the surviving members of the group wanted to tour.
Cameron and Collins (1997) present a formalized model where in the typical outcome some members of the group will be exploited in the neoclassical sense of receiving less than their marginal product, and some may be exploiters.
Even for groups that do not add the name of a band member to the band’s name, it is often the case that some members become better known or are assumed to be greater contributors to the success of the band than others. Thus, it may be the case that the lead singer often becomes the one most recognized by the fans—like Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones or Jim Morrison of The Doors—and the drummer and bass player are in some sense viewed as making less of a contribution to the band’s sound.
It may have been in that case, the producer, George Martin, could have exercised some choice about songs to be included.
Fogerty for many years declined to perform his CCR songs after he left the group because he did not benefit financially due to the contract he signed as a member of the group.
Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico, was an exception to this. He charged a flat $75 fee per recording but usually asked for songwriting credits and that the music would be published through one of his music publishing companies Nor-Va-Jak or Dundee (Goldenrosen and Beecher 1996).
This may be a by-product of the rise of the ‘superstar’ phenomenon or what Frank and Cook call the ‘winner-take-all’ society (Frank and Cook 1995; Strachan 2010). There are large rewards to those who can attain superstar status in an industry, especially the entertainment industry, and it can be to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that The Rolling Stones can sell concert tickets for $500 means that there is less consumer disposable income to spend on other artists.
This also helps explain why 1950s groups like The Coasters can still tour today though all original members are deceased. The fans come to hear the songs sung faithfully to match the originals.
One-hit wonders—i.e., groups charting only one song—range from a minimum of 7 % of groups in 2005–20 % of groups in 1995 with no clear trend over the decades.
Due to space limitations, in the discussion below, we have focused on the differences in groups between the 1960s and today and ignore the different trends in music that occurred in each decade such as disco in late 1970s, punk and new wave in 1980s, rap in the 1990s and the resultant impact on the organization of the group. This we leave to future research (Crain and Tollison 1997).
The criteria evolve over time, especially in light of the digital revolution. In July 2013, Jay-Z sold one million copies of his album Magna Carta to Samsung for distribution with electronic devices. Though Jay-Z argued that this deal should count toward certification, the RIAA changed its rules so that these one million would not count toward Gold or Platinum Awards. Henceforth, sales of albums in digital format become eligible on the release date, while sales of albums in physical format will still become eligible for certification 30 days after the release date. Also see (Frank and Cook 1995; Strachan 2010; Giles 2007; Hong 2012 and Strobl and Tucker 2000).
Using the 14th edition, the solo and group career data have been updated through 2012 (Whitburn 2013).
The number of bubbling under positions averages from 20 to 35 deeper than 100, but there is some variation here and depends on what Billboard did at different points in time.
The yearly chart snapshots, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005, do not contain double-counted songs, but the career data for collaborations do contain a number of instances where songs overlap among members if collaborations are categorized inconsistently in the Whitburn books. This was corrected wherever possible.
The one exception is when a group has a solo artist ‘featured’ and listed after the group name in the song credit. This is a common occurrence and Whitburn lists those under the original group. However, there are a sprinkling of cases where a group is ‘featured’ with a solo artist and the group is listed after the solo artist in that particular song credit. Whitburn lists that collaboration in a separate category and we follow his convention.
Perhaps specialized innovation and importation from across the pond held off local emulation in the USA? We can only speculate at this point.
Again, this is speculation and will be considered in future research.
The term “group” is defined for our purposes above.
Some artists who are members of these charting groups go solo and pursue other projects that do not make the Hot 100. The criterion was that an artist or group had to have at least 1 Hot 100 single. The reason for this is that Whitburn lists but does not include the full information for these “bubbling under”/non-Hot 100 artists and groups. Consequently, there are artists and groups on the margin but not in our data set which released singles which did not quite rise above the 101st slot. An additional caveat is that there are certain periods of time when ranks lower than 100 are not available or reported (Whitburn 2013).
The female R&B group Destiny’s Child is shown in Fig. 16 of the “Appendix” as another example of the group/solo career evolution.
The album from which this single was taken, If I Could Only Remember My Name, is clearly a solo act by David Crosby. The album was released on March 20, 1971, and charted to #12 on the Billboard Album Charts. However, the single, “Music is Love” was co-written with Nash and Young and all three names appear on the single. Also, since Nash and Young sang and played various instruments on this record, we consider it a collaboration/separate group.
Frequency distributions for our measures of success for each year are in the “Appendix”.
It would be interesting to know whether a group does better or worse once an artist leaves the group, but we leave this question to future research.
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Appendix
Appendix
See Figs. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and Tables 12, 13, 14.
Frequency distribution for charting career length (in years) for 1965
Frequency distribution for number of charting songs for 1965
Frequency distribution for charting career length (in years) for 1975
Frequency distribution for number of charting songs for 1975
Frequency distribution for charting career length (in years) for 1985
Frequency distribution for number of charting songs for 1985
Frequency distribution for charting career length (in years) for 1995
Frequency distribution for number of charting songs for 1995
Frequency distribution for charting career length (in years) for 2005
Frequency distribution for number of charting songs for 2005
Destiny’s Child first charted in 1997. Since that year, members of the female R&B group were involved with 17 charting collaborations and all three members reached the Hot 100 as separate solo acts
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Phillips, R.J., Strachan, I.C. Breaking up is hard to do: the resilience of the rock group as an organizational form for creating music. J Cult Econ 40, 29–74 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-014-9226-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-014-9226-1