From MSNBC.com


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For boomers, ‘R&R’ means rock and roll
People 45 and older now account for 25 percent of all music sales

By Janet Shamlian
Correspondent
Dec 18, 2006

DOWNER'S GROVE, Ill. - The golden oldies are hotter than ever.

A ticket to see Mick Jagger on a frosty night in the Windy City? $450 — and sold out.

Barry Manilow's got the feeling again — an album debut at No. 1. Rod Stewart's enjoying a resurgence, and Paul McCartney is as popular as ever.

These former No. 1's are getting a musical second life, as rock and roll, once the provenance of the young, continues to gray.

Anne Sommerkamp is a 40-something reliving her 20s, a soccer mom kicking it up at concerts.

"In the last year I've seen The Strokes, (Eric) Clapton, George Thoroughood, Gwen Stefani, Black Eyed Peas," she says.

How much has she spent on music in the past 12 months?

"Oh man, probably a couple thousand," she says.

The over-45 crowd is now responsible for 25 percent of all music sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, twice that of any other age group. Hip, younger listeners are no longer the bread and butter of the music industry.

"Since younger folks have found other ways to consume music, rather than buying albums, the older consumer has become more conspicuous on the Billboard charts," says Geoff Mayfield, a senior analyst with Billboard magazine.

Purchases by boomers and beyond are up from 15 percent a decade ago, and aging rockers are embracing technology in its infancy.

"The older consumer is absolutely a force in buying MP3 players, buying digital tracks online," says Mayfield.

"I got rid of all my CDs because I put all my music on my computer, and then I transferred it all to an iPod and that's how I play back my music," says baby boomer Joey Ford in Chicago. "I have my favorites from years back. I was a big jazz-rock fan, groups like Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and The Allman Brothers Band. And I like all the Motown stuff. I think I have pretty much everything the Beatles did."

With more disposable dollars than generations X and Y, boomers are rocking the industry, a musically active group for which R&R is more likely to mean "rock and roll."

Isn't Downer's Grove the place where they voted to outlaw guns way back in the early 80's? See what happens when there's no hardware to thin those old fossils out? They hang around WAAAAY into their dotage buying ipods full of Manilow and 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Cowsills and Bobby Sherman, skewing the sales numbers, and generally making all those file-sharing, tattoo-festooned indie-hipsters less relevant. It's a mess this world is in, I tells ya.

Downers Grove did give us LEAPIN' LANNY POFFO , though.