Can Rock ever again be (truly) culturally relevant?

Stop being a "die hard rocker" Try also to be a jazz cat, a woodsy trucker, an ambient space head, classical conductor, a sampler, it's all culturally relevant.
If being "culturally relevant" can only include teenagers and young adults then the concept is fleeting, always dying and unimportant.

Now playing, V.A. Chillout Lounge

 

"It'll go down in history, just you watch my friend."

 

There will always be young artists making great rock music, but how can it ever be culturally relevant again when it's biggest ''supporters'' are so stuck in the past, i'm looking at you SHF.

 

No, rock will never again rule the roost like it once did and it's pointless to long for the grand return. Rock had its day, but all things must pass. We live in a more culturally fragmented era and I don't imagine that one genre will be universally dominant like that again. I also do not believe that that music in general is as relevant among young people as it once was. We have a lot more competing forms of entertainment vying for our attention now and music is increasingly relegated to background noise as we look at glowing screens.

 

Jazz was a niche music long before the internet- I've been a jazz fan since the early 70s and outside of fusion there hasn't been anything that was popular.

 

The answer is clearly no, unless you want to deny reality. As for why, there are many reasons.

 

I've been a jazz listener since the 1970s also. Yes, jazz was shifting toward becoming a niche market at that time, but it has become a nichier and nichier market with each decade. The final nail in the coffin was its evolution into a legacy genre and the rise of the neocons and JALC.

My point was that jazz was culturally relevant from the 1920 to 1940s, and to varying degrees into the 1950s or 60s.

 

How much of that is the music and how much of that is folks liking a festival? Not everyone goes to these events to focus on the music.

 

No, I remember the Ed Sullivan show only showed Elvis from the waist up. Rock and Roll was causing a lot of controversery. In the 60's the Beatles invasion of America was a huge deal. Musicians were writing anti war protest songs etc. Now whether a singer is successful is decided by judges on shows. pretty pathetic

 

Not unless the young people are on board with it........

 

I think that a better question to ask would be why would anyone realistically expect one genre of music to remain culturally relevant for young people over the course of more than fifty years. Young people want their own culture to embrace, not their parents' hand-me-downs.

 

Agreed. The thread should be titled, "How did rock manage to remain culturally relevant for as long as it did?"

 

The way culture at large, and music itself, has splintered into so many demographic niches, it'd take quite a paradigm shift to lift music to the relevance level we once knew...having said that and seen the continuing interest in artists of all eras, it's a definite possibility and one that keeps me focused on living til my late Nineties in the hopes of seeing and hearing it!...dc

 

Haven't read all the pages here, but, if I could put in my 2 cents:
Rock USED to be an 'ever-changing, ever-evolving' animal!
Taking from EVERY genre, old and new, and giving it a wealthy dose of 'bad-boy/girl' FUN!
PLUS, rock was never afraid of new technology! From 'tape-manipulation' to 'electronics', rock USED to have NO PROBLEM adding these things to it's arsenal!
Now, to me at least, everyone is 'Rutle-ing' it.
Don't get me wrong.... I LOVE The Rutles...., BUT, to stay in one 'style'... as Woody once said, "What we have here, is a dead shark."!

 

So then I must ask, when's rap gonna die? (Just my POV).

 

I agree that it's the wrong question to ponder. Music changes, it both reflects and influences culture,
and in some ways, it gets explored by the greatest talents of the day, to the point that it's all been done,
and there is little left to invent that hasn't already been done better by someone who got there first.
As someone said, a genre eventually develops a legacy.

The traditional core of any genre really stands the test of time when it taps into something authentic,
and a cannon develops within the body of work of the artists who define a style. Does the world need
a Michael Buble when we already have Sinatra and Dino? Do we really need more country songs
about heartbreak?

For new generations, there is value in going back and exploring what's been done. For every genre
there are iconic artists who pioneered a style and pushed music in new directions, combining ideas
and stirring the mix. Some Folkies got heavy and became Neil Young, or like Joni Mitchell explored
Jazz. Run DMC or Beastic Boys combined rock and pop samples with hipHop. Punk bands full
of energy took it back and stripped rock music down. New Wave made it clever and synthetic.

I think what makes music interesting and dynamic is the way it changes and invents new languages.
By all means be educated about what's been done, the trick is not to get trapped, and keep exploring.
Some people lack that curiosity, which is a shame, there is so much out there to discover.

 

It probably already is waning. I honestly wouldn't know.

 

I may be totally 'off-mark' here, but:
Rap is like 'country'!
There's a base, there are rules, and it's an industry unto itself!

 

I hope not. Rock is fun but back when it was seriously culturally relevant, it made people stupid.

 

We need to remember that whatever opposition that Rock had during its rise from the 50's to the 80's has largely dissapated. Biggest case in point? The very EXISTENCE of what is known as the"School Of Rock". That organization has parents everywhere not up in arms and screaming to their churches, but sitting giddily in club audiences and grinning ear to ear. In other words, ROCK 'N ROLL WON ITS WAR. It's culturally accepted now and is like going to Disneyland. Go to YouTube and count how many kids there are that have "I Saw Her Standing There" or "Whole Lotta Love" not as records, but as Homework Assignments!!

 

Because "rock music" is a wide umbrella that doesn't just represent just one narrow sound. The question why is so many different forms of expression are considered outdated and what is being offered instead. "Rock" is still being offered to young people, but in an extremely watered-down form. That is teenage rebellion?

 

It's because popular culture moves on and it has always been so. What was wrong with the big band/swing sound? Absolutely nothing, it was just right for its moment but to later generations, it sounds old fashioned (aside from the occasional, short lived revival movements). Well, classic rock now sounds old fashioned to most young people. Yes, aspects of it are still out there in the broader mix but the prospects for a widespread resurgence are slim to nil. It's impossible for me to even imagine a Led Zeppelin scale phenomenon taking hold today. Any band that tries too hard to ape the old stuff sounds hopelessly derivative while those who stray too far from the original formula by incorporating newer styles aren't pure enough for the old timers.

I would agree that rock offered a wide umbrella and that's a big part of the reason why it lasted as long as it did. The same could be said for jazz too, successfully incorporating a diverse range of different styles and adapting over time. Jazz had its day too and now rock is pretty much where jazz was back in the 80s. Rock will continue but only as a specialty niche.

 

Music for many young people, especially the stuff aimed to appeal to a mainstream audience, is not that different than fashion.
There is a huge bias towards the contemporary, it's a strong cultural belief in a lot of young people that "new" is what's worth knowing.
We are obsessed with both newness and youth as a culture, and like everything else music is largely disposable. We consume it, and on
to the next big thing.

 

"Cultural relevance" is pretty misleading. Every genre of music is relevant to some form of culture. I know the OP is talking about broad popularity, but I don't personally think it matters what's at the forefront of the general populus' ears. In fact I think rock taking a backseat to other genres is generally better (in terms of a vague nebulous "culture") anyway.

 

The question turns on the supposed 'fact' that it is not. But I see & hear it everywhere; TV, internet, news, clothing, peoples slang or lingo. It may not be the foremost news of the day but thats because its became integrated into culture.