Is Rock Music Dead? Whatever Happened too Rock Stars not Pop Stars?

[Drudge]

It's my personal belief, around the time of 1986 Rock music started too die a slow death. Not because of pop, but, because of lack of talent, shallow, hollow music. How many times can you sing about fallen in love, sex, and party music. Led zeppelin, Beatles, and Rolling stones sung about some interesting topics you can relate to. Beatles song 'revolution states "you say you want a revolution... well you know. We all want to change the world." Did you know there's a hidden meaning in the song that states..
"Well you know that you can count me out.....In". You have to listen real closely to here the In. But its there. I state that to say, music had feeling with emotions involved. Todays music is void of anything meaningful


Artilcle below written courtesy of
Antimusic.com

Throughout his short and turbulent life music critic and author Lester Bangs would repeatedly denounce the state of rock and roll, regularly criticizing it and on many occasions declaring it dead. Bangs’ prophecies about rock’s premature death were always greatly exaggerated since rock still remains and will endure for generations to come but none can question the overall decline of rock radio’s ratings in North America. 

As reported by Steve Knopper in a June 24th, Rolling Stone article; five rock radio stations in major U.S. cities switched formats in recent months after ratings dropped for six consecutive years. This does come at an odd time since, as explained by Knopper in his article, rock albums have dominated the charts the past few months. Artists such as Coldplay, Green Day, Audioslave, System of a Down, Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, the Dave Matthews Band, and Rob Thomas have all experienced success on the billboard charts this past spring and summer. 

But this success is fleeting since rock radio station ratings are still in decline. In a March 8th article in Rolling Stone, Bill Werde reported only six percent of teenagers in the U.S.  listen to rock at any given time, compared with nearly twenty percent listening to urban radio and forty percent listening to Top Forty radio stations. Since 1998 album-oriented rock stations have seen listenership fall seventy percent while Spanish-language radio ratings are up thirty percent the latter of which could be partly attributed to the Hispanic population becoming the United States’ largest minority population in 2003.

Along with demographic reasons, the decline of rock radio could also be attributed to the Internet and illegal downloading, Satellite radio and the overall ignorance of the music industry towards rock music. 

“It seems the current music industry doesn’t focus on rock musicians as much as pop stars,” says rock fan T.J Karpinka of Sherwood Park, Canada. “Too me, it’s more of a cash grab than anything.” 

And it’s not just fans that feel that way but performers as well. “An act like ours wouldn’t even be around today if someone hadn’t brought us along and let us make mistakes and grow at our own pace,” said Tom Petty in a Rolling Stone interview with David Wild in 2002.  E-street Band guitarist and Sopranos actor Stevie Van Zandt said similar comments in an interview earlier this year with News Hour Correspondent Terrence Smith where the rocker stated that if the Rolling Stones were starting out today, they wouldn’t get airplay on regular radio.

An employee from 97.7 HTZ-FM in St, Catharines, Canada who wished to remain anonymous blamed the decline mainly on the quality of mainstream rock. “I think the primary factor numbers have slid because of mediocre music. If you don’t have great music than you don’t have competitive format and listeners will start looking elsewhere for their entertainment. Be it building libraries for their iPods or listening to old CDs.”

The emergence of satellite radio, though still in its infancy, has the potential to take a significant chunk of listeners away from standard radio over the next few years. XM Satellite Radio declares themselves America’s most popular satellite radio service with over 150 digital channels featuring 100% commercial-free music, over 30 channels of news, sports, talk and entertainment, over 20 dedicated channels of traffic & weather, and a deep playlist with access to over 2 million titles. Sirius Satellite Radio is also making inroads landing popular shock jock Howard Stern who debuts this upcoming January in all his uncensored glory. Sirius declined to comment on rock radio’s situation saying, “Unfortunately, we are not able to accommodate your request to speak to someone at SIRIUS regarding the decline of rock on terrestrial radio.” 

And it wasn’t just Sirius who declined comment from my requests for interviews but also programmers, on air personalities and managers from standard radio stations. Ryan Zimmerman, Program Director for Edmonton’s modern rock station 100.3 The Bear was one of many who responded by saying “not interested.” So obviously many of these stations are putting on a brave face saying everything is fine but behind the scenes there could be a genuine fear that the future may be bleak for all types of stations and not just rock radio stations 

[Trauma-san]

Rock is dead, has been dead for a long long time.  It died about the time Kurt Cobain did. 

[MidoriHaze]

lol..isn't everything dying these days? People state that rocks dead, hip hop's dead, i was even reading an article few mths back saying MOS has had a massive decrease and proclaimed that dance/electronica is dead.

Now it seems to me there's too many people out there reflecting upon the glory days of music i.e. 60's, 70's etc, where they can see the impact that the past artists have made and the problem is today's musicians impact isn't as reflective. Music is subjective and the problem with that is people love to jump on these sort of bandwagons because it makes them feel as though their opinion is correct because it goes with the majority.

Through out the history of music there has always been novelty/shit songs, but they fade and artists of quality are remembered, guarenteed it will happen with this decade.

Rock isn't dead, truth is it's quite easy to make these ignorant statements but if new music isn't supported/ignored then of course it won't continue to progress

[Doggystylin]

Rock is dead, has been dead for a long long time.  It died about the time Kurt Cobain did. 

If Rock died with Kurt Cobain then Rap died with 2pac

[Drudge]

lol..isn't everything dying these days? People state that rocks dead, hip hop's dead, i was even reading an article few mths back saying MOS has had a massive decrease and proclaimed that dance/electronica is dead.

Now it seems to me there's too many people out there reflecting upon the glory days of music i.e. 60's, 70's etc, where they can see the impact that the past artists have made and the problem is today's musicians impact isn't as reflective. Music is subjective and the problem with that is people love to jump on these sort of bandwagons because it makes them feel as though their opinion is correct because it goes with the majority.

Through out the history of music there has always been novelty/shit songs, but they fade and artists of quality are remembered, guarenteed it will happen with this decade.

Rock isn't dead, truth is it's quite easy to make these ignorant statements but if new music isn't supported/ignored then of course it won't continue to progress

Valid Points. But, name an artist besides Nirvana, Tupac, Biggie, etc...  and basically we should stick to Rock Music. HipHop is still on Top. Hell, even Metallica went downhill.

"Rock is dead, has been dead for a long long time.  It died about the time Kurt Cobain did"
Trauma, Nirvana was good. But, I have to disagree with you on the time frame. After Genesis, the Police, and Journey split it was hard to  find good ole fashioned rock music. That's why in my state Classic Rock is the number 1 in ratings according to Arbitron. ACDC getting close to outselling thriller Not in world wide sales but in U.S sales.

[MidoriHaze]

It's hard to mention names of artists in a thread of this context because people are ready to compare and shoot their talents down.

However only just last weekend i was at Splendour In the Grass, which is a two day festival held on the coast of Aust, which featured Queens of the Stone Age, Bloc Party and Interpol amoungst a vast amount of other bands. QOTSA in particular i rate highly, definatly my favourite rock band out at the moment, while the other two have tremendous potential. All three put on highlight performances

Others would include;
Radiohead, Oasis, White Stripes, Beck (to an extent), Tool, U2 (it's given their not as good as they were), Peral Jam, Green Day, NIN, Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters and as much as i dislike their later music i guess you could include Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Potentially good artists;
The Killers/Bloc Party - At the moment i'd say they're just a good bands, but great bands gotta start out somewhere.
The Mars Volta - Latest album was average imo, but older tracks shows potential.

For a non-rock sound Norah Jones. Ok fair enough she's not of legend status but i rate her talents and felt the need to give her a quick mention.

[Compton Casanova]

today most rock is that dry stuff, about white boyz complaining about their parents, a girlfriend that has left them, ect. We don't have the true rock from grateful dead, beetles, rolling stones, and areosmith. It's sad that most people don't even know it is black people who started rock n roll. 

[Don Breezio]

"The problem with hip hop...shit...nothin at all
its an artform it ranges and it changes it evolves
its not always for the better but be patient with it yall
for our time will come and the wicked will fall"

----Murs on "The Biggest Lie" from Felt 2

I agree with this....not just for hip hop....Rock applies to this to. Its all growth....music would be boring as hell if it was still the same as it was 19 years ago. I sure as hell wouldn't listen to it

[Diabolical]

Well id say rock is bigger than ever in the US right now. Look at Emo.

[Suffice]

i think real rock is dead as a popular genre, but there is lots of really dope indie shit that u hardly see on MTV

[Don Breezio]

but what is "real rock"....who decides what real rock is? its all personal preference

[white Boy]

yea rock isnt as good now as 60s and 70s, but theres still a good amt of good rock out, enough for me to love the genre, but theres also a lot of crap.

[Kill]

*entered topic banging "Back In Black"*

Rock is dead, has been dead for a long long time.  It died about the time Kurt Cobain did. 

what do you base this statement upon? If rock music is dead, an album like "Californication" is a damn good example of dead music

There are a lot of bands that are still active which make good and creative "rock" music. People tend to glorify the past anyways, that applies to rock as much as it does to hiphop. If you think about the 60´s and 70´s, you think of Jimi, The Doors, Led Zep, Beatles etc. Matter of fact, at that time, shitty rock bands were as abundant as fish in the sea - we just don´t know them now. But I´ve talked about this with my parents who were teenagers/semi-hippies at that time, the rock scene was as full of crap as it is now, according to them.

Nowadays, for several reasons, we might not have a Jimi or a band like the Beatles. Denying that there is a lot of talent in rock music is pretty much demonizing the situation though. Coldplay, Mars Volta, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, still-running-strong ass Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam (there´s a reason they survived grunge), Radiohead, to name only a few, all make good music and are successful.

Of course, rock, like every genre, is always influenced by the time it is made in. It ain´t 1968, so we can´t have no "Electric Ladyland" or "Strange Days". Duh. That doesn´t mean today´s rock musicians are less talented or creative. I can´t understand why so many people keep comparing today´s bands to Led Zeppelin or The Doors; the comparison itself is inadequate. Considering the background rock musicians have today, I cannot say they all make bad music. The statement just seem stupid to me.

Plus, bands turn into legends and albums turn into classics with the time. "Illmatic", to make a hiphop comparison, sold little when it came out, "Back In Black" was released in 1980, had sold 5 million copies by 1984, but 19 million in 2003. You can never compare the stuff of today to earlier records.

To sum up, while I do agree we are not living in the glory days of rock music, people see things a lot to simple. It´s not like fewer talented artists were born after 1970. There is a lot of good stuff and time will tell how long it´s gonna last and what significance it´s gonna have in 10 years

[Suffice]

actually i think theres a lot more music nowadays in general, and we just don't hear a lot of good stuff because theres only so much one can listen to. Theres plenty of talented rock bands right now, but i guess the reason i agree with the statement that "Real rock is dead" is because good rock isn't the most popular genre anymore, as it used to be. NOw it's either dumbass dirty south hip hop or whiny emo pop-punk bands who sell the most records

[Don Breezio]

i agree with suffice....I mean....all you ever hear on the radio is the mainstream stuff....Yeah back in the years your talking about the good music was a lot more apparent...now most people don't listen to the good stuff they listen to that shit mtv plays. But you can still find tons of good rock music. You just have to search a bit