Maintaining Musical Groups As A Brand

Posted by jerry as finance

I was driving home the other day, listening to Squizz on XM. A new song started and a glanced down at the screen on my dash and saw that it was the group Dokken. I listened, but I didn’t recognize the song, though it was clearly Dokken. At the end of the song, the DJ announced ‘that was a new from Dokken’. Holy smokes, Dokken is still making albums!

I have a long drive, so my mind tends to wander. I started to ponder the question: “why don’t musical groups continue to maintain an ongoing brand, even after the original artists fade away?”, like Pantera and the Beatles. It seems that successful groups spend many years, and millions of dollars in building their brands, and that the brand essentially dies once the group disbands.

Allowing popular bands to dissolve is akin to the management of a successful company saying ‘well, that was quite a ride, time to go our separate ways’, and the company dies then and there. There is one clear problem with this example – musical artists continue to make money after the group disbands, because their works continue to sell without additional effort by the former group.

I suspect that the major problem with the continuity of musical groups is the pervasive use drugs, and general bad behavior and even worse business decisions.