The Death and Rebirth of Electric Guitars in Australia

Over the past decade, electric guitar sales have significantly declined in number. Many media outlets and music websites sought to pronounce the death of the instrument, which was once a linchpin in almost all genres of 20^th century music.

However, this pattern may soon change. According to market reports from the Australian Music Association, electric guitar sales in Australia have risen once again, with a positive outlook for the remainder of 2019.

The period of 2012 to 2017 saw sales drop to its lowest in the decade. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons behind this behaviour is the shifting popularity of music genres and a diminishing number of guitarist icons.

A brief glance at ARIA’s top 100 singles of 2008 indicates the rising popularity of American hip hop and R&B, supported by the perpetual dominance of pop. These genres rely heavily on artificial instruments, rendering the electric guitar to commence its slippery slope into obscurity.

Many acclaimed hip hop artists today including Kendrick Lamar (whose discography is displayed on the graph above) rose to prominence during the electric guitar’s death throes.

As hip hop began to take over the mainstream, the advent of ‘SoundCloud rappers’ also began their climb to fame. This phenomenon consisted of relatively young and unknown rappers achieving viral stardom (often infamously) through the Soundcloud audio platform, gathering millions upon millions of streams and shares seemingly overnight.

Artists like Post Malone, Lil Peep and Lil Pump began to permeate mainstream popularity through their eclectic mix of trap, hip hop, R&B and pop elements in their music. In a similar fashion to R&B and hip hop of the past, these songs relied on electronic, synthesised instruments and production rather than traditional instrumentation.

Needless to say, this seemed like the final nail in the electric guitar’s coffin.

However, all of this happened right on the cusp of another important event in music history – the streaming revolution.

The graph above shows the Google Trends search data in terms of search interest, compared to usual search volume. The success of SoundCloud brought upon other competitors including Tidal and Apple Music, but none of them managed to measure up to Spotify’s command over the globe.

Spotify was a combination of all its competitors’ best features – the reach and audience of Apple Music/Tidal, and both the individuality and idiosyncrasy of SoundCloud.

The platform was a further boon to independent artists during its peak interest period of mid-2017 to late 2018 – many of them belonging to the indie-rock or singer/songwriter genres.

And their primary instrument of choice? You guessed it: the electric guitar.

The Australian Music Association reports the most popular family of instruments is the guitar, which claims just under 50 percent of all instruments played in Australia.

And according to Fender (one of the world’s largest manufacturers of guitars), 50 percent of new guitarists are female. It’s not hard to imagine this in Australia – Tash Sultana, Stella Donnelly and Angie McMahon are but a few guitar heroines turning heads both locally and around the world.

With a new realm of guitar-centric music and a swathe of new guitarist icons on the horizon, the unlikely revival of the electric guitar certainly seems possible.

But will it be enough to see the once ubiquitous instrument restored to its lofty heights?

Only time will tell.