Readit News“People don’t want to come out and drink anymore. They’d rather sit at home and get drunk, or surf the Internet."
There's also the question of what kind of music people want to listen to. Rock music seems to wax and wane according to youth preferences and other pop culture and social trends. Bars and clubs that fail to adapt will usually fail.
In the late 90s dance/rap/electronic was rising while guitar-based rock seemed to be fading, or splitting into niches like nu metal. By the early 2010s rock really seemed to be in a deep trough ... at that time I saw some bands that had once been considered big rock acts in 90s like Deftones, Helmet and Kula Shaker playing much smaller venues and neighborhood clubs in Boston.
But 10 years later the pendulum seemed to swing back to rock. I saw Deftones once again on their 2022 tour, now playing a 4,000-seat arena.
On a separate note, I always saw Chet baker and Gerry mulligan as "real" musicians but was taught early on that Brubeck was "staid" and boring. After judging it myself I guess you could say his soloing was a little underwhelming but he was incredibly creative in a way that a lot of the "serious" musicians weren't. Jazz people can be such losers sometimes
Rock used to be this way too. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a real wall between punk and metal in the mid 1980s.
In punk circles grudging respect was given to Motörhead and a few thrash acts but everyone else was seen as hair-obsessed posers or dinosaurs. Neither camp would admit to liking anything “mainstream.”
20 years later Chris Cornell is covering Billie Jean (https://youtu.be/R0uWF-37DAM?si=V3Pqtq-3GDHqxJBd) and all kinds of unusual collaborations were kicking off. It was frankly refreshing.