Okay, I’m going to admit up front that I’m not a huge fan of the REO Speedwagon. Absolutely. I’ll also admit that I’ve bought two REO Speedwagon albums in my life, “You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can’t Tuna Fish” (based solely on the fact that ten-year-old me really liked the title) and ” Hello-INFfidelity” because my tastes were not as developed as they are today (!).

I remember getting tickets to see the Journey directed by Steve Augeri in Las Vegas right after Journey’s “Arrival” CD came out. I realized that I had never seen a big band play without their original lead singer and thought it would be interesting. Also, it was at Mandalay Bay and any excuse to go to Vegas, to me, is one I’ll take.

I mention this concert because the opening act that night was REO Speedwagon.

Let’s jump to the Wayback Machine, okay? Whether you like REO or not, his is one of the most unusual career arcs in rock & roll, dating back to a time when record labels took a completely different approach than they do today.

After forming in the late ’60s, the band signed to Epic Records and released their self-titled debut record in 1971. It sold perhaps a dozen copies. That may seem like an exaggeration and, yes, I admit it. I rounded up to a dozen.

Singer Terry Luttrell jumped ship to join Starcastle and Kevin Cronin was hired as his replacement.

Undeterred by poor sales and personnel changes, the label financed a second album, REO/TWO, a year later. It sold even fewer copies than the first.

With the label still behind them, they began work on a third album, but Cronin’s growing differences with Richrath led him to leave the band during the sessions. He was replaced by Mike Murphy and the band released two albums in 1974; “Riding The Storm Out” and “Lost In A Dream”. Both albums managed to make it to the top 200 albums list. “Riding The Storm Out,” for example, featured the great title track that managed to get moderate radio play throughout the Midwest. Heck, “Lost In A Dream” actually made the Top 100, though I have no idea why. There’s not a single song from that album that I’ve heard on the radio, or, come to think of it, heard period. Murphy and the band then recorded the aptly titled “This Time We Mean It” in ’75 and continued to build on its success. The album peaked at number 74. It included a cover version of the Eagles’ “Out of Control”.

Then, luckily, Cronin returned to the band in 1976 and they released the “REO” album, losing much of the ground they had gained during Murphy’s tenure. The album crept to a low chart position of #159. Still, the band’s label remained dedicated to the cause it seems. In and around the band’s hometown of Champaign, IL, they were the next best thing to the Beatles, playing major venues to sold-out crowds. That alone must have kept Epic’s bosses confident that, at some point, the rest of the country would take notice. Of course, when it comes to recording budgets, the least expensive album is a live album, which is why the band released their first concert album “LIVE: You Get What You Play For” in 1977. In addition to being inexpensive and quick to record, it achieved its highest chart position, #72. Within months of its release, the rejuvenated band were playing sold-out concerts and recording their next studio album, to be released in 1978. The album was the aforementioned “You Can Tune A Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish”. which featured a short song called “Roll With The Changes” which received much rock album airplay and became the band’s first charting single. The album also charted at number 29.

Note that this was his eighth album for the label.

Would the band have been given so many opportunities if they had signed with Epic Records today? hell no.

The ’70s were a time when major labels developed artists. Bands like Journey, Styx and Cheap Trick, for example, took a few albums to hit their commercial groove and had the support of people at their respective labels who believed that success would come in time.

But I’ve never seen a situation like REO, where it took eight albums to finally reach the top.

Of course, Epic must have looked like geniuses when the band’s 11th album “Hi-INFidelity” hit No. 1 and scored the band’s first No. 1 single in “Keep On Loving You.”

To date, REO has sold over 40 million records. Epic’s investment in the band during the rough years obviously paid off and the fact that they released so many albums gives Epic a larger catalog to mine, which is why they continue to sell copies of the band’s records to this day. today.

That’s kind of lost on the bean counters who rule the industry these days and they see no problem cutting their losses early. If a band’s first album doesn’t sell enough copies, or creates any reason for interest in a second album, the band folds. All the money invested in the band is lost and the label starts from scratch with someone else.

In the case of REO, the first ten years of their career saw the recording of eleven albums and the development of a band, and a brand, that eventually became very popular.

By comparison, ten years of record labels cutting their losses when a band’s album falls short of expectations leaves them with no bands, no labels, and no catalogue.

Perhaps the industry has forgotten that the only thing that kept them afloat during the latter part of the ’80s and ’90s, aside from the occasional hit album, was the fact that the introduction of a new format, in this case the compact disc , prompted millions to repurchase their music collections. Thus, back catalog sales prospered and the industry flourished.

However, the growing anti-bean mentality at most labels has failed to recognize this in their rush for immediate hits at the expense of artist development. The result is that there are few ’90s bands, for example, with anything even remotely close to the significant back catalogs of bands like REO, Journey, or Styx, to name just a few.

Third Eye Blind, by comparison, released its first album in 1997 and sold six million copies. They have released only two albums of new material in the ten years since.

This “live for today” industry mentality has eaten away at the very foundations of the industry, leaving only an empty shell. Golden parachutes fly out every window as executives continually fail to ignore the obvious fact that this industry, and its paychecks, are funded by the steady sales of albums that came out twenty and sometimes thirty years ago, when record labels were taking the time to develop bands (and, again, brands) across multiple albums.

Unless they return to this kind of mentality, the major label system will implode in on itself. Until then, there are hundreds of worthy bands not getting the attention they deserve, prisoners of a business that is in such steep decline that it sees quick hits and big opening weeks as the only answer. The industry sees no reason to take the slow path of “artist development, even to save itself. Unlike any other industry that reacts responsively to changing consumer patterns for its own preservation, the industry Musician would rather spend broke so we can buy Fergie’s new single, while copying “Dark Side of The Moon.”

Keep up the changes, in fact.