The History Of Music Merchandise.

Wearing band merchandise started to come into fashion around the 1960's, which is about fifty years ago. Bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, The Who, Elvis and many more. The Beatles was one of the first bands to actually start merchandise. Everyone loved the Beatles and they wanted to show their love for them.

The Beatles were so popular in the 1960's that selling merchandise didn't prove a difficult task for them. In 1964, a factory in the US helped The Beatles to produce band merchandise. The merchandise included dolls of each bands member, liquorice with the bands name of it and chewing gum with the bands name on it. The band earned millions within months of selling the merchandise, and by selling the merchandise it helped them become more famous around the world.

The Beatles in their early days.

Two more bands come into light when it came to merchandise in the early 1970's; they were AC/DC and KISS. These two bands set the standards for band merchandise. Both of these bands released all kinds of merchandise which would inspire many bands in the future of music.

AC/DC started to create merchandise before KISS did. AC/DC was also one of the first bands to start selling merchandise at their own concerts for fans to buy. The first world tour AC/DC did they started out with more t-shirts than tickets to sell. AC/DC wanted to see all their fans wearing devil horns and t-shirts of themselves. The devil horns where a huge hit with the fans.

Fans wearing devil horns at a AC/DC concert.

When it comes to KISS creating merchandise, they are on a whole different level to The Beatles and AC/DC. When KISS was formed back in 1973 they made an immediate impact on the world of merchandise. They created merchandise such as t-shirts, jackets, jewellery, pinball machines, video and board games, comics and even condoms. KISS have created so many merchandise, they even have their own separate business dedicated to creating KISS merchandise around the world.

Of course through out my college project I want to focus on band merchandise from the music genre metal. I chose metal out of all the other genres for a number of reasons; first, not only do I listen to metal music my life revolves around it too as I am in band myself and second, metal bands have created some amazing merchandise throughout the past 40 years, from t-shirts to hats.