Gibson files Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

[alanp]

As far as radio goes, I'm quite happy to never again listen to any of the stations in town that seem to be proud of autotune.

Cher is the only person who gets away with autotune. Everyone else, it's, "Shame I can't sing, but that's okay, the computer will fix that!"

[Muadzin]

Popular music moves in cycles (or fads). Meaning the electric guitar may never be as dominant as it was in the music of the 1960s and 70s, but that EDM, hip-hop, DJing and sampling will also change and evolve and not necessarily always be the king. Maybe they'll be replaced by K-pop-style boy bands and those will be replaced by CGI'ed artificial intelligence and then a new human-punk movement will arise up against that, hopefully carrying guitars.

I'm sure the guys who made the kind of music that was popular before rock 'n' roll dethroned them said the same thing.

Also, country music. Currently wildly popular and lots of guitar. Personally, I like classic country music and find much of modern country music sterile or cliched, but it's a steady market for acoustic guitars and Telecasters at least. That may not help Gibson as much.

Maybe in America its popular, rest of the world not much.

That Washington Post article is good and everyone interested should read it. I thought the guy from Fender seemed to have a grasp of the issue, if not a solution. It was interesting what he said about Taylor Swift being the #1 influence on kids picking up a guitar now. Grumpy old guys on guitar forums may not approve of that direction, but it's an important fact for a guitar company CEO to understand.

But with Taylor Swift the guitar is more an accessory. Hardly OMG here is the new David Gilmour/Eddie Van Halen!

I think we are far from seeing guitar music die. Just in the punk rock/post rock scene alone there are thousands of great guitarists making amazing music. There is also a very healthy jammy/festival band audience as well. Country is booming also. These bands just don't get played on the radio for the most part and don't reach the stardom that rock stars of old did. Rock musicians have to live well within their means (taco bell, sleeping in the van, etc). That being said, I see lots of younger players wanting vintage, boutique, and easily modifiable equipment. The DIY community is going strong, at least among players I know. And, like Aentons said, there is a massive market for used equipment due to a half a century of baby boomers buying up everything.

That kind of stardom is key though in regaining mainstream dominance. The fact that no modern rockband has joined the ranks of U2 and the Rolling Stones who can go anywhere in the world and sell out an arena or stadium proves that rock is dying. What you're describing is a local niche. 'Yeah, but in my area.......' That doesn't matter. If anything it goes to show that even we have forgotten how utterly dominant rock used to be world wide and that we have been living in the decline for so long we're used to it.

  I had this same type discussion with my buddy who owns a local music store, and I think this type thread 6 or 8 most ago here. Guitar sales follow music trends. Right now, they're selling acoustics and Ukes of all things. I told to the other local music store owner in town whom said the exact same thing. The guitar isn't dead, guitar music is currently not top 40.  I'd love to see / hear Bonamassa or the likes on the charts. That being said, I haven't listened to the "radio" in a good 20 years. I listen to my iPod or iPhone only. The kids at work listen to "beats" and the lyrics don't matter.

I haven't listened to the radio since the late 90's either. Which proves that utter shite music has been dethroning rock for decades now and that we have been living in the decline for a very long time now. We are like soldiers in a losing war, kidding ourselves that we can still turn things around, just because here and there we still win a battle. The general trend has been against for a long time. 

There is something deeply alluring to the concept of the rock band. Which is why its still inspiring people to take up playing. Only for the most of them to discover that there is just no audience for it. Occasionally one band still manages to find some audience and enjoy some success. But it pales in comparison to the success that pop and electronic music artists manage to find. Some scenes are more tenacious then others, and bands in that scene manage to do better then others. But I wouldn't call it signs of an upward trend.

[somnif]

As long as there are high school students thinking a talent will give them some purpose in life (or at the very least get them laid) there will be a market for guitars.

A market for 3k$ guitars though.... that is questionable.

[gordo]

I just saw an email ad for Wild West guitars and they're selling Charvel (Fender custom shop) San Dimas quilt tops for $6k.  Six f**king thousand!!!  My Chevy Volt isn't worth that much.

I was at a Rush show a while back with a buddy of mine that's about 20yrs my junior and was explaining that even with only 3 guys all the sounds were being made live and by human controlled computers as opposed to just playing pre-recorded backing tracks.

He replied "I don't really care how it's done, I just want to be entertained".  That single sentence pretty much defines the current perception of the music industry.

[jimilee]

^^^^^what he said. I am just as interested in how they're doing it as the entertainment value.


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[EBRAddict]

That kind of stardom is key though in regaining mainstream dominance. The fact that no modern rockband has joined the ranks of U2 and the Rolling Stones who can go anywhere in the world and sell out an arena or stadium proves that rock is dying.

In the US at least, IMHO that kind of stardom was mostly marketing facilitated by a stranglehold on the distribution channels from the 1960's up through the era of Napster.

[alanp]

Perhaps I'm far too cynical, but I think that the music industry is being very deliberate in which artists get prime airtime and mass-media broadcasting.

Rock stars, almost by definition (Keith Richards, Liam Gallagher, Keith Moon, the list goes on) are very hard to control. They are charismatic, have loyal fans, and tend to speak their mind about whatever they damn well please. They write songs about doing drugs (Champagne Supernova) and slave rape (Brown Sugar), and get away with it. Even if, after they become troublesome to PR, the record industry tries to bury them, the fans keep them alive and in the public eye for quite awhile.

Pop stars, on the other hand, are micromanaged and airbrushed to within an inch of their lives. All their lyrics are carefully crafted, anodyne, to appeal to as broad a base as possible while offending as few as possible. Any passion is of the usual love story kind, whether unrequited love, or whatever. But never the Hey Joe type, she-done-me-wrong-so-I-sorted-her type, as that could be problematic. And if they do become an issue, then they can be safely dropped and replaced with the next airbrushed hopeful with nary a beat dropped. Any fans of their unobjectionable music is unlikely to be particularly loyal to the artist, as much as they are to the general sound (oh what a lovely love song!)

And the easiest way to control that lack of PR problem is to make sure that, as step one of the filtering process for who gets airtime, is to remove as many rebellious symbols as possible. And rock and roll is
with it's electric guitars is punk as hell, middle fingers flying.

Maybe, though, I really am being too cynical.

[ahiddentableau]

Perhaps I'm far too cynical, but I think that the music industry is being very deliberate in which artists get prime airtime and mass-media broadcasting.

Rock stars, almost by definition (Keith Richards, Liam Gallagher, Keith Moon, the list goes on) are very hard to control. They are charismatic, have loyal fans, and tend to speak their mind about whatever they damn well please. They write songs about doing drugs (Champagne Supernova) and slave rape (Brown Sugar), and get away with it. Even if, after they become troublesome to PR, the record industry tries to bury them, the fans keep them alive and in the public eye for quite awhile.

Pop stars, on the other hand, are micromanaged and airbrushed to within an inch of their lives. All their lyrics are carefully crafted, anodyne, to appeal to as broad a base as possible while offending as few as possible. Any passion is of the usual love story kind, whether unrequited love, or whatever. But never the Hey Joe type, she-done-me-wrong-so-I-sorted-her type, as that could be problematic. And if they do become an issue, then they can be safely dropped and replaced with the next airbrushed hopeful with nary a beat dropped. Any fans of their unobjectionable music is unlikely to be particularly loyal to the artist, as much as they are to the general sound (oh what a lovely love song!)

And the easiest way to control that lack of PR problem is to make sure that, as step one of the filtering process for who gets airtime, is to remove as many rebellious symbols as possible. And rock and roll is
with it's electric guitars is punk as hell, middle fingers flying.

Maybe, though, I really am being too cynical.

I like this!  Bring on the conspiracy theories!  alanp for truth!  Show me Taylor Swift's birth certificate!

[lars]

True "Gibson" guitars are still manufactured at 225 Parsons Street, Kalamazoo, Michagan under the brand name Heritage. If you want a "Gibson", that is what you will buy, a Heritage guitar. The pathetic corporate knock-offs that have been carrying the Gibson name for the last 33 years are not true Gibsons. None of those guitars have shared a workbench that once held a '58 Burst, but Heritage guitars do. No, there will be no comeback for Gibson. It's been gone since 1984.
1993 Heritage H150 Quilted Burst...$1,700...(they don't get the credit they deserve; how much would Gibson charge for a guitar like this??).

[reddesert]

Popular music (including rock) is culture. It isn't a war.

The idea that Taylor Swift is not a "real" guitar player while (longhaired guitar hero's name) is a real guitar player, is a little foolhardy, because it's also about fixed ideas of what a guitar player should look like or play like. I mean, yes, Taylor Swift doesn't actually have to play a guitar in her music videos now, but she did start off that way. In the Washington Post article, the CEO of Fender is talking about how Taylor Swift is the major influence getting people to pick up guitars, and the CEO of Gibson is lamenting the decline of stadium-filling guitar heros. That's not why Gibson is bankrupt (it's the bad investment in consumer electronics), but only one of those people is showing the flexibility needed to survive in a world of evolving musical trends.

[culturejam]

In the Washington Post article, the CEO of Fender is talking about how Taylor Swift is the major influence getting people to pick up guitars,

And it's true. My daughter (3.5 years) loves Taylor Swift and watches some of the older videos. She plays her ukulele and her mini Squier Strat (pink, of course) and pretends to be Taylor. Of course, she also plays guitar because she sees me playing guitar, but when she's putting on a show in the living room, she's not pretending to be me. 

[culturejam]

Reverb speculates about how this filing will impact the used Gibson market:
https://reverb.com/news/how-will-the-gibsons-bankruptcy-affect-used-gibson-prices

[Rockhorst]

I actually see a lot of nice developments in guitar, looking at youtube. Granted, there's a small group of really good channels about guitar and they are quickly getting intertwined which runs the risk of getting boring. But these channels have spawned affordable guitar brands that tap directly into their market, like Chapman and Solar and there's a few others. The guitar facilities in the east have so much capacity that basically anyone can start a guitar brand now. You design a model, have a pre=sale for your YT following and then order the batch. I see these guitar batches sell out before they are actually build. Gibson is so big that it can't do this 'grass roots' thing in a credible way, but it's a much bigger development than robot tuners.

[Rockhorst]

As another side note, I think Gibson's current line up is very weak. The HPs aren't my thing, but there is a gazillion variations of Les Pauls to choose from. They are just ridiculously expensive to get into. But look at other models. The outing is just weak if I compare it with Epiphone (!). Take Flying Vs: want a Korina? Epiphone. Want binding on it? Epiphone. Trem? Epiphone.

[jimilee]

As another side note, I think Gibson's current line up is very weak. The HPs aren't my thing, but there is a gazillion variations of Les Pauls to choose from. They are just ridiculously expensive to get into. But look at other models. The outing is just weak if I compare it with Epiphone (!). Take Flying Vs: want a Korina? Epiphone. Want binding on it? Epiphone. Trem? Epiphone.

There is an affordable les Paul studio line up, about what you'd pay for an mim Strat. I'd love an affordable V or explorer.


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