Guitar sales piece in WaPo

[lalalandstudios]

Not sure where to post this but this is an interesting piece on the general decline of new guitar sales. A complex topic with no single root cause. Interested in your take on the implications for the future of the guitar...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... 0221e593eb

[jesterpunk68]

Do that also include the used market or just the new guitars from the top 3 brands (fender, gibson and prs)? From the article it seems to just be talking about new guitar sales and the profits from those. With smaller brands making good guitars overseas and the squier offsets which are really good for the money you dont need to spend the hundreds or thousands to get a good playable guitar. Also with people not having a lot of disposable income they are either selling what they have cheaper or buying used instead of new.

[Larry Mal]

Shit, I just posted the same thing. Maybe our threads could be folded into each other's.

[Francer]

It's interesting and good that girls are showing more interest in the guitar. One thing that wasn't mentioned and may be a factor is the rise of computer games. It's got to be something pretty special to prise the xbox controller away from most teenage boys these days.

[thenewromance]

It's interesting and good that girls are showing more interest in the guitar. One thing that wasn't mentioned and may be a factor is the rise of computer games. It's got to be something pretty special to prise the xbox controller away from most teenage boys these days.

I think that plays a role. I also believe that the cultural mood in the West at the moment, some sort of zeitgeist, doesn't work in favour of classic 4-piece rock'n'roll. People seem to become more solitary, bedroom equipment is readily available, and the world outside is getting scarier by the day. I have a feeling that popular music is entering a sort of Biedermeier period, which is just a different spirit and outlook than the West had in the rebellious 60s, or in the decades ever since. You maybe don't need a big blazin' electric guitar to express your attitude towards life at the moment.

Just a theory, though, I can't really back it up with evidence. And I wonder where all the Smiths and Joy Divisions of our time are, if I'm right and times are really that bleak and introvert.

[lalalandstudios]

Larry - I'd be fine with combining the threads if that is possible, sorry to accidentally divide this up.

Lots to consider here - The big name brand manufacturers vs the proliferation of amazing small/boutique builders, internet sales vs brick and mortar stores, the sad status of the big box guitar shops in general, saturation of the market with cheaper and increasing higher quality models, new vs used vs vintage, the ever evolving nature of popular/mainstream/youth music, the currently available role models, the changing nature of what strapping on a guitar means to each of us (think 60s-70s classic rock era dudes wanting to be a guitar hero, vs. punk and indie rockers, vs. introspective home hobbyists making solitary music with increasing technology, vs. now young women empowered by being able to authentically tell their story).

Love to hear your thoughts on any of this and more. I personally have tremendous passion and interest for music and specifically guitars and certainly have bought more than my fair share, but haven't bought a new big brand one in many many years. So where do we all fit in?

[burpgun]

It's a strange time. I feel like there's as much good guitar music as there's ever been, and I'm 46. I still find great new bands all the time, and I'm surprised to see the instrument pushed into new places.

But I have kids and they force me to put on pop radio in the car. Outside of the voice, almost every element of every song is synthetic. Drums machines, keyboards, even the voice is slathered with that f'inng autotune effect. I heard guitar in a Chainsmokers song and was almost shocked. Bruno Mars seems like the last guy operating in that tier with a traditional profile. So while the pop bands of my time were largely guitar based, what kids see now aren't. Hell, when I was growing up being into dance or pop music would get you the side-eye, and now this EDM stuff is completely ascendant.

Market saturation also has to be an issue. I'm shocked at how many makers there are. I met a Fender factory guy once and he noted that the Leo Fender-era Fender probably produced as many guitars at the world ever needed, everything after that has been gravy. That's probably not right, but it's not like guitars just disintegrate or become obsolete. I bet the bulk of the guitars that have ever been made are still out there, somewhere.

[Despot]

That's a really good point about guitars basically outliving humans.

I know that two of my vintage guitars outlived their original owners - and one outlived two. Hell ... all going well both will outlive me - I've already written a 'will' when it comes to where the guitars should go if I pass away suddenly - one goes to my nephew/niece (depending on which one plays guitar - if any) and one to an old college friend. The others can be divvied up as whomsoever deems appropriate.

The guitar boom of the '60s certainly saw a huge increase in the number of produced guitars (I have a list of the numbers of ES model Gibsons made through the '50s and '60s and you can see the huge spike in the mid to late '60s). Add to that the '90s boom and I'd say there are probably enough second hand guitars knocking about out there to cover existing demand. Sure - some are destroyed/lost over time, but I'd imagine that's less so now that people understand the value of some of these old guitars.

I still buy some new guitars - usually reissues of stuff that I couldn't afford as a vintage model (a dot neck ES335, or a very specific type of ES355 etc), but where vintage/new prices are similar I tend to buy vintagae (i.e. if a reissue Princeton Reverb costs the same as a silverface - I'll buy silverface every time). That's not really helping out Fender or Gibson - and I'm a guitar geek. If you're just not that much into guitars, but still into music, there's never been a better time to be making noise than today. Some of the most interesting music I've heard in the last few years has been electronic.

But ... you know what? I've been here before.

In university (funnily enough around the time that I was actually playing in bands) I went through a few years of listening primarily to electronic music (it was mostly stuff like DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, Leftfield ... all that mainstream electronic music of the late '90s). I still played guitar because I didn't understand how to make the music that I was listening to, and I used to like to think that I was contributing something different to the band by bringing other influences to it (though how that translated into playing the same hackneyed barre chords I don't know!). That phase probably lasted about 6 or 7 years - but music changed, as it has done before and will again.

And if it doesn't - so what? I can play guitar, I can't use a computer to make music - it's just not what I know. But I'm totally fine with some kid being able to make music completely synthetically if that music is brilliant and makes me sit up and take notice. I don't need music to be created in a form that I recognise - I just need it to stop me in my tracks and move me. How the music is made that does that isn't important to me.

[daemon]

It's a strange time. I feel like there's as much good guitar music as there's ever been, and I'm 46. I still find great new bands all the time, and I'm surprised to see the instrument pushed into new places.

But I have kids and they force me to put on pop radio in the car. Outside of the voice, almost every element of every song is synthetic. Drums machines, keyboards, even the voice is slathered with that f'inng autotune effect. I heard guitar in a Chainsmokers song and was almost shocked. Bruno Mars seems like the last guy operating in that tier with a traditional profile. So while the pop bands of my time were largely guitar based, what kids see now aren't. Hell, when I was growing up being into dance or pop music would get you the side-eye, and now this EDM stuff is completely ascendant.

Market saturation also has to be an issue. I'm shocked at how many makers there are. I met a Fender factory guy once and he noted that the Leo Fender-era Fender probably produced as many guitars at the world ever needed, everything after that has been gravy. That's probably not right, but it's not like guitars just disintegrate or become obsolete. I bet the bulk of the guitars that have ever been made are still out there, somewhere.

You know, I've often wondered about that as well. Unlike a car, unless you really beat the crap out of your guitars, chances are they're going to stand the test of time. Even if you do beat them up, all someone needs to do is slap some new pickups in there and get a different neck and it's fine (reliced, even!). Every year all of these guitars are still out there plus all of the new ones they're making. It still feels like there are a ton of bands out there playing guitar, and with all of the youtube lessons and Schools of Rock it would seem that there should be a demand. Reverb and eBay have got to be filling this gap.

[Kwyjibo]

It's interesting and good that girls are showing more interest in the guitar. One thing that wasn't mentioned and may be a factor is the rise of computer games. It's got to be something pretty special to prise the xbox controller away from most teenage boys these days.

Agreed somewhat with this sentiment. However, there have been a fair amount of younger folks who have started playing guitar because of games like guitar hero. While I think the games are stupid, if the end result is more axeslingers, listening to good music, then ends justifies the means

[indiandysummer]

I mean, it's pretty obvious why this is happening and most of the reasons have been mentioned already:

-video games
-emergence/prevalence of electronic music
-there are so many dang guitars in the world already, you can save boatloads of $$$ buying used

[gnoleb]

I mean, it's pretty obvious why this is happening and most of the reasons have been mentioned already:

-video games
-emergence/prevalence of electronic music
-there are so many dang guitars in the world already, you can save boatloads of $$$ buying used

Video games have been around in high popularity since the 80's (and games in the 80's and 90's took much, much more time to complete). The last two generations of consoles (PS4, PS3, Xbox One) have sold much less than their predecessors (PS2, PS1). It ain't video games.

Electronic music is part of it but let's all be honest--the guitar is "dad's" instrument. Not many teenagers want to dedicate themselves to dad's hobby because dad is as uncool as they can imagine. There are, of course, always exceptions, but for the most part there isn't much interest in Robin Trower and Richie Blackmore because those are "dad's" guys. To me, that is the biggest factor that I don't see anyone mentioning.

The good news is that it's cyclical. For a generation, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and Tony Bennett were all considered lame until the swank feel of Vegas and that "olden days" came back into style in the 90's (movies like Goodfellas and Swingers helped a lot). The punk scene had a hard time recovering from the lame "pop-punk" sell out of the late 90's (punk shouldn't do Taco Bell commercials and release rock operas with pop ballads) and is just starting to recover in the last few years (and I think it will grow because the world has become so commercial it needs punk).

I also think that there are just too many guitars and guitar makers out there, and particularly from the online / guitar center flood of the low end the past 20 years. They pushed out so many low-quality guitars out onto the masses that I see one in 50% of apartment/house listing photos when I look to move--"oh look, an epiphone sg in the corner of living room...like a decoration". When I look at craiglist or reverb, its just 90% of the same flood of generic junk (there are at least 150,000 mexican-made/squier fenders as well as epiphones playing musical chairs with owners at any one given time, from what I can tell).

[InLimbo]

-video games

Jesus. This response is getting about as old as the "millenials" moniker for the pejorative version of "a generation is different than mine". No need to re-hash the same argument as the above poster because he basically nailed it. But video games aren't the cause of the decline in sales for guitar manufactures, not even in the slightest.

This generation is different though, especially those "millenials" who, like me, have a decent-ish job along with crippling debt from college, that, 10 years ago as we were graduating high school, was the one and only way to be halfway successful in the world. Electronic music prevails not in a response to other music from rebellion, but out of the amount of money required to make it. While not necessarily the best of options, the means of producing electronic music is totally free thanks to piracy. Any DAW, any VST, and post-production tools, literally anything to make a good song of the genre can be had by anyone who knows what a torrent is and has the patience to learn how to use the software.

The point is that for the most part, we're too fucking broke to buy new guitars.

[Francer]

here's a link to the other thread on this here

[Jaguar018]

The point is that for the most part, we're too fucking broke to buy new guitars.

That's your conclusion? Really? You can get decent new Squiers for $300, and every single retailer offers interest free installment plans. Price is hardly a barrier these days for anybody who actually wants to play guitar.