A university study says the Vegas music scene is lame–it must be true! From the LVRJ:
A recent study contrasting the music scenes of the top 50 markets in the United States finds some mixed results for this city. Done by the University of Chicago, the report, “Chicago Music City,” shows that Vegas still is lacking when it comes to luring top acts and the most critically acclaimed performers to town.
“We were surprised by how tilted the music scene seems to be towards evergreen performers and how low it ranked in terms of performers who are either on the pop charts now or who are critical favorites,” says study researcher Larry Rothfield, who used the Village Voice’s annual “Pazz and Jop” best-of poll as a measure of an act’s critical pedigree. “It’s clear that the music scene in Vegas is designed to appeal to tourists, and it does so incredibly successfully, of course. Where it’s doing extremely badly is in drawing in college-educated 25- to 34-year-olds.”
In terms of gross receipts of live performances, Vegas is a smash success, earning $164.67 million in 2004, trailing only New York City, with more money generated per seat — $642 — than any other city. Per capita, more tickets to live shows are sold in Vegas and there are more seats in small venues than in any other market.
But while there’s a bevy of clubs, fewer than 3 percent of them are specialized in any genre (i.e. indie rock, hip-hop, metal, etc.) meaning they’re not the sort of venues that nurture any particular scene.
“Las Vegas has fewer niches than any other city,” Rothfield says. “There’s a hugely high percentage of clubs that just don’t bother to distinguish what they’re doing.”
Thus the musical landscape tends to become overly homogenized and stale, though there is hope for a turnaround.
ReviewJournal.com – Living – SOUNDING OFF: Musical landscape bland
So the city’s music scene makes a ton of money, but doesn’t have much of an identity. Sounds just about right. Although I think there are lots of niches in Las Vegas casinos that you don’t see in many other cities, particularly for ethnic music. Granted it’s probably just the same watered down pop music that predominates elsewhere performed in Vietnamese or Arabic, but it is something different.
Talk about a downer–according to the University of Chicago, I’m on the cusp of aging into the Vegas entertainment demographic. I think I’ll wait another 20 years or so, when Rob Zombie’s alternating at the Colosseum with a reunited Soundgarden, a la Celine and Elton. You might think that’s unlikely, but even though I wasn’t around then I’m pretty sure that when the Beatles released “Revolution” in 1968 no one…absolutely no one…thought that forty years later people would be paying $150 a pop to listen to the song in a big Vegas casino while watching people bopping around on trampolines.