So many legends wouldn't even be signed these days simply because...
1. They aren't cute
2. They aren't marketable
3. They can't dance
which is a travesty. Talent is no longer required; it's all about looks.
Janis Joplin was hands down the greatest female vocalist I have ever heard. Her live recordings fully display the intensity of her singing style. But she couldn't dance, and didn't look good in a bikini, and would have fallen flat on her face if they tried to make a MTV teenybopper show around her. Hence, the world would have been denied the wonder of Janis if she were trying to make it today. Which make you wonder how many potential Janis Joplins, John Lennons, Johnny Rottens, or even David Lee Roths are out there right now getting ignored.
The music business has never been more of a business than it is right now. Talent means nothing. IMO, the most musically talented artist on the contemporary scene is none other than Lenny Kravitz. The man can play anything, and play it will. He writes good songs. He has a decent voice. He gets ignored in favor of some twitching little slut who lip synchs everything. Said slut will be a distant memory in a year.
Just look at it...what music survives the test of time? A glance at the charts from, say, 1985 might show who was being force fed to us over the airwaves, but is it what we remember liking? Is it what is still being played on radio twenty years later? No.
I've studied this phenomenon for damn near 30 years now, and it is always the case. Music label execs shove artist A down the public's throat, pile PR money on them, blow the entire wad on making them successful. Artist B gets virtually ignored. Music fans, the ones who BUY music instead of following the trends and hearing artist A for free at every conceivable outlet, are the ones who really control the music industry's long term success. If they flock to artist B, then twenty years down the road artist A (oh, let's just say...Debbie Gibson) is a trivia answer, while artist B (umm...say Motley Crue) has millions of sales, concert and merchandising revenue aplenty, and a lasting place in music history, like them or not.
Perfect example of what I am talking about...we all remember (some more fondly than others) the hard rock explosion of the mid 80s. There were more bands in LA alone than the industry could support. But of all of them, only one band is still to this day regularly releasing albums...the rest have faded away or on some sort of "comeback" mission.
Motley Crue...no.
Poison...no.
Ratt...no.
Guns N' Roses...no.
Great White...no.
Only W.A.S.P. Never immensely popular, and certainly never a band that the label actively supported or backed. That was left to the fans. And they have.
Leads me to one conclusion. Music taste is fickle. In the end, the only people that matter are the fans. If they buy it, the artsist and label make money. If not, the artists becomes a truck driver and the label goes broke. And try as they might, the labels will never be 100% able to dictate acceptance of their pet projects so long as an active underground of music fans are willing to open their wallets and support the artists they like. The Sex Pistols outsold and outlived almost every single disco act ever conceived, despite the labels' attempts to shove disco down our throats.
[/SnP on soapbox]