On the life cycles of successful rock bands

A typical feature of life cycles of rock bands is that they seem to consist of two distinct stages. A first stage associates with initial entry and a second stage seems to be related to more mainstream success. This paper proposes a simple model to describe these two stages in the life cycles. The model is put to an empirical test by analyzing the numbers of annual shows of forty-nine heavy metal bands. It is found that initial peak success is attained, on average, after seven years, and that the second wave of success occurs after twenty years, again on average. The second peak associates with twice as much success as the first.