Each holiday season, thousands of teenagers tear gift wrap off shiny, new guitars. They giddily pluck at the detuned strings, thinking how cool they'll be once they're rock stars—even if almost all will give up before they ever get to jam out to "Sweet Child o' Mine."
For them, it's no big deal to relegate the guitar to the back of the closet forever in favor of the Playstation controller. But it is a big deal for Fender Musical Instruments Corp., the 70-year-old maker of rock 'n' roll's most iconic electric guitars. Every quitter hurts.
[...]The $6 billion U.S. retail market for musical instruments has been stagnant for five years, according to data compiled by research firm IBISWorld, and would-be guitar buyers have more to distract them than ever. So how do you convince someone to put down the iPhone, pick up a Stratocaster, and keep playing?
Seems Fender didn't get the memo: the music of the future is hip-hop and autotuners.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:57PM
Sadly most "music" is now created by producers in the studio for "pop stars" who are "performers" (aka lipsync artists in concert) rather than by the performance of actual musicians.
You forgot the part where they are charging $18.98 for the CD which has at most one good song, so the studio executives can get their hookers 'n blow