I once read a critique of Elvis Presley written right around 56. I don't remember who wrote it or what magazine it was in. But the guy basically said that Presley's music could be boiled down to three words: "Gon' git luv". After I finished laughing my @$$ off, I thought about it and realized that it's not a criticism, it's the selling point. The "yeah baby!" leer is an essential ingredient in rock & roll. Help me out here. Can you name the last big hit rock song about wanting to bang the babe with the rockin' body? Now that might not be fair, because rock songs don't make the US or the UK singles charts any more. How about just the last hit rock song with any variation on that theme?
This is so true. Even the playlist for a single Top 40 station in the '70s had a wide swath of genres.
Another thing is education. I don't know about the USA but in the UK music history is barely a flicker on the school schedules if covered at all. Same goes for art history in general. I know for every class of 14 year olds forced to sit through a class on music history there might only be a couple who take any interest but maybe those two would go on to explore the subject in more depth or even think about doing it for themselves and picking up an instrument or writing some lyrics. Must run, next doors cat is in the garden again.
This is the case in the US now, generally speaking (although there are definitely some exceptions.) Fifty years ago, many, many elementary schools had free in-school instruction on instruments for those kids that were interested, and there were enough kids doing it that that there would be elementary school orchestras. This is far less prevalent now, and for the most part tends to be available only in more affluent suburbs. If a kid is going to get instrument lessons, it's something that is initiated, paid for, and entirely taken care of privately. I can't back it up with empirical data, but I think that a serious, life-long interest in music is far more likely to result if you've taken a whack at trying to play at some time in your life.
To answer the original question, and not “are there any good rock bands any more,” which is entirely subjective, and what this has devolved into, you can make a living at playing rock, but the days of tax shelters and private jets are long over, unless you’re The Rolling Stones or U2.
Let me throw a monkey wrench into this discussion. 2017 US report on album sales: http://www.buzzanglemusic.com/wp-content/uploads/BuzzAngle-Music-2017-US-Report.pdf Item that caught my eye: The Rock genre (22.2% of total) was the top genre in terms of total album consumption, Rap/Hip Hop and Pop followed with 17.5% and 17.2% respectively. Latin was the top-growing genre, gaining 23% versus 2016. Song consumption was different with Hip-hop beating out Rock, but not by much. Of course we don't know what is included in the Rock genre in this report, be it sub categories like Metal / Indie and how much was catalog items versus new.
Well, Rock on the Range, now the largest rock festival in the midwest, announced that all Field tickets, as well as all VIP, camping, and hotel packages are now sold out. Only stand tickets remain. 135,000+ people, three days - Tool, Jane's Addiction and Avenged Sevenfold to headline. Tool and J/A are veterans, of course, but A/S are in their 30's. There are a few younger acts on the lineup as well.
Agree - my daughter who is 19 played violin for awhile when she was around 14. I had to fund it all - no help from the school. She wasn't any good at it and gave it up but she has developed an interest in classical music.
OP: Is there even an audience for new rock anymore? Yes: There will always be an audience for music performance. No matter how obscure somebody always "gets" what an artist produces. As a consumer of music I don't discriminate by genre. It's all music to me. Whether it's Beethoven or Beefheart. Can you make a living as a musician? Only if you capitalize on whatever the most sheeple consume. my 2¢.
All music genres have their time, doubt there are many Be-bop or Trad Jazz fans on here going, 'no it's still modern and relevant'....guitar based bands are in no way as popular at music festivals as they used to be, Radiohead, Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem were probably the last three that can headline in Europe the youngest of these is 12/13 years old as a band....the rest of headliners are electronic acts or DJ'S or 'Heritage' rock acts topping up the pension fund. All music needs to progress and change, no one is saying all past bands are not good, but we can't live on a diet of golden age rock...the same way hip hop wouldn't still be a massive genre if it was just still Public Enemy and Run Dmc, the fact that no new bands have come through since those three i spoke about seems to highlight the feeling guitar based bands are no as longer the most popular in the mainstream of modern music, in his book 'Hit Makers' Derek Thompson says that scientific research has found that people crave a limited amount of repetition in music for it to be catchy but to much and they get bored, similar songs played on similar instruments stop selling after a while but similar songs played on new instruments will sell again in great numbers.
I disagree. If that were true classical music would have been dead long ago. Beethoven, Mozart, etc. would have been long forgotten. No one would ever want to see old paintings ... because they were old. Using your logic the only relevant art is new art. Sorry not the case. Quality rock music will be around forever, imo. How do you measure quality; time. Rock music being played a hundred years from now will be the art that stood the test of time. And I bet there will be people that live on a diet of that old rock just as there are people now that listen to a steady diet of the old great symphonies. The question is not does new rock music still have an audience, but will new rock stand the test of time. Will a 25 year old that loves today's rock still be as passionate about their rock well into their 50's, 60's, and beyond. Will that same person like the music being released 30, 40 years from now. Only time will tell.
I'm not really talking about quality...i'm talking about popularity...there were some rotten punk and prog bands that were still pretty popular...as for classical music...yes of course it's stood the test of time, because it's can be played by any orchestra....are you willing to go pay 100 bucks to see a stones tribute band once they are all dead? i doubt it, and will those tribute bands headline big festivals....nope. kids today seem to have a far more eclectic taste in music...the days of 'i'm a goth, i'm a metalhead ' are kinda gone...musical youth tribes...sadly music for most kids (not all) is just part of the distraction industry....and if you don't think music has to change and progress why is the top 40 album charts not full of new bands that sound like genesis and springsteen with fender guitars.....the reality is it's rappers singing into autotune and making albums on macbooks
As far as tribute bands there is a pretty good industry right now for the good ones. And some classic rock music is being played by symphonies. Putting a $100 dollar price tag on them is far fetched though. The last time I went to the symphony it wasn't a hundred dollars a head. Why would you put that price tag on a tribute band? And why do they have to headline festivals? Let get realistic. One reason rock music will last is that you don't have to have a symphony to play it live ... some of it can be played with a person or two on acoustic guitars ... and the last time I checked people still enjoyed going to see live rock music played by semi pro musicians.
I guess I don't know what "lasts" means. Will it survive as a niche music form? Sure. There are still a handful of guys making a good living performing Frank Sinatra crooner-style music; there are still some jazz musicians who play what's pretty much the bebop of Parker and Gillespie; there are guys out there playing blues not that much different from Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, etc.; there are blues-rock guitarists like Joe Bonamassa who play stuff which is pretty much right out of the 70s; I'm sure that there are some singers making popular soul music that isn't that far from Motown and Stax records classics; there's still a do-wop circuit touring; a few years ago there was a smallish resurgence of swing/big band type of music that drew dance crowds (I think former Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer was making records along those lines), etc., etc.. Those forms will always have some audience among people who grew up with that kind of music, but also with other people who are open-minded and looking for something off the beaten track. There's often room for people who are solid performers of a certain niche genre long after that genre's heyday has passed. Hey, Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo hung on for a long time. I think the issue is more whether any of those forms of music will ever become a dominant, extremely popular form of music again like the rock music of the 60s and 70s was. Seems highly unlikely to me. When popular forms make a comeback, it's usually confined to a small audience, and tends not to last very long. In other words, it's more of a temporary fad, and that can happen, but a big-time comeback, where it dominates the field again? I just don't see it. After all, why would it? It really doesn't matter, though, because there are lots and lots of very different kinds of music out there for people to choose from; some are very popular and some definitely aren't. Why should anyone really care if not that many people like what you do? Very, very few people care about the music that interests me, and it doesn't matter to me at all. If it's available to the people who want it, that should be good enough.
I think you are right. When I was in the 4th grade (1970) you were REQUIRED to learn to play a recorder. There was no getting out of it as we all played together in class. Then if you were interested, you could start learning a real instrument in the 5th. Trumpet, sax etc. Parents had to provide the instrument, but instruction was free. All of the teachers were old jazz musicians. I dunno if this was the way it was everywhere at the time, but the result of this was that my small town in North Carolina had one of the best and most musical High School marching bands in the country. We regularly went on extended trips up and down the east coast and Midwest and one group toured Europe. Even some of the best football players were in the band, but they dropped it when the season started. They were involved in the symphonic band and jazz band though. I got to march in the Orange Bowl Parade which was something I never forgot. It was actually considered cool to be in the band at my high school. So most of us had a real appreciation for all types of music. Black kids listened to a lot of rock and white kids listened to a lot of funk. This was around 1978. Long time ago...
i'm not saying rock isn't or wasn't good...or won't be revered for a very long time, but its not the dominant for it once was the charts and every major festival show that it once was, when you look away from the mainstream, there are amazing bands using guitars and making interesting music...but its not mainstream.....re the 100 dollar tickets, buy the time those classic bands have no longer any members alive in maybe 20 years....tickets to see tribute acts will be 100 bucks...due to fastly increasing ticket prices in general and inflation..and the fact its the only way you will hear a close approximation of them live any more will be those acts.....or a tupac style hologram
I think for NEW rock, as in first album in 2015-current, I would say it is very rarely possible to make a living, even owning a small home and used car is a stretch, more likely share a house between the bandmates and still have to work part time at the pizza place to be able to afford records and beer
I think that it's going to be largely impossible to make very much money selling CDs/LPs for the foreseeable future. There will be a few stars who really hit the big-time and can sell to a national or even international audience. But most musicians are going to be pretty lucky to just eek out a living, and they're going to have to rely heavily on income from their live performances, which cannot be pirated or illegally distributed. (Of course, there can be bootlegs, but that's not really a substitute for being there.)
Natural Child is awesome. I was looking for a dedicated thread but of course no dice I assume because they are current. They sure are flying the Faces flag.
Yes. You have to search for it, though, since mass media pushes certain acts. Music and Hollywood have always reflected the times. Look to the festivals in England to see that, yes, there is an audience! I hope music lovers here will, maybe, discover someone they haven't heard before. Posted below is 1 Excellent Example: Along with Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, and Catfish & the Bottlemen Terrific new bands coming out of Canada: The Glorious Sons (song: Sawed Off Shotgun) Arkells (song: Relentless) The Blue Stones (Black Holes, Solid Ground) Black Box Revelation - Belgium (blues/garage) (Rock has b/c obsolete categorization. Bands' don't want it...use alternative tags, but yes...certainly an audience (may be small, but there is still an audience; just not for "classic" 70s sounding rock) P.S. Can anyone advise me how to find a thread I'm looking for? I entered "Live" and "Bands" in search, but all that came up is 22 pages; after cursory look, not seeing it. It's about Best Live Bands you saw that you can't see again? or do I look for moderator for assist? - Thanks! This is great thread to post some new stuff. Whatever you deem call it, since there's much crossover, & rock's just old terminology since there's blurring of "categories". I'm sure lots of you here are musicians & don't appreciate getting pigeonholed with 1 category. Let's help each other discover new music, instead of members' arguing over old.
A lot of folks don't realize the difference between an actual genre, and a marketing slogan. "Soft Rock" for instance being one of the worst disengenuous label foisted on the public. To most people who are excusively fans of "rock", if you are rockin' softly...you ain't. So, to call a radio station "rock", but to only play the Rod Stewart that doesn't rock, for example, is a betrayal of the description (Rod only to be used as an example, since he's enjoyed a comeback in the pre-Idol Glut based on singing old-guy standards). The conceit is, to most casual listener groups ("casual" being, people who ony consider the music a part of their identity and lifestyle, and fit into a much larger age and buying demographic), it's not a legitimate music, unless you can call it, "rock", because of the age of the culture you relate to. So, you can either identify the music you use to get listeners to know what your radio station sounds like, by clearly identifying it...or, somehow shoehorning the adjective, "rock" into it. And people will buy that, as all the "good" music they've ever known in their lifetimes, is always identified as "rock", even if they know it's not. So, "soft music" becomes, "soft rock", and it's such a benign change - particularly to a group of listeners who couldn't give a crap - it gives them just one more legitimacy to give them when they turn it up at the office, and pretend you're listening to something with all the sassiness and swagger of Rock. Aaannd, cue Wilson Phillips...!
