Is Rock music dead ?

I.R.S. tried to get Stephen Hague, who would later produce New Order and the Pet Shop Boys, to produce Murmur. R.E.M. arguably grew their audience slowly and steadily despite their label, not because their label was OK with that strategy.

 

Agreed!

 

Seems to me that there are a whole bunch of excellent rock bands that have sprung up in the last ten years or so and certainly, where I live, they are finding decent sized, young audiences.

The media and radio for whatever reason want rock to be dead so they give the genre very little exposure. However, driving rock underground has had the effect of making it cool with a lot of young 'uns who are bored with what they are being spoon fed. This may or may not lead to rock reaching the dizzy heights of the Seventies & Eighties but it gives bands a fighting chance of making a living and allows us music fans to discover exciting new (if retro) sounds.

 

This was a blow to what was left.

 

Rock isn't dead .. but if someone could point me in the direction of some good rock and roll, I'll follow.

 

Well, there's more variety in rock available today than ever before so I gotta' say now.

 

Answering the OP's comment directly. Firstly, Guns n' Roses weren't even the last hard rock band of the 1980's.

I think the issue is, rock has evolved since 1987's Appetite For Destruction and some people have just missed that point. Rock wasn't the same in 1987 as it was in 1967 or 1957, didn't mean it was dead. That comment isn't meant to be snarky or facetious, just look at the progression of guitar based music over the last 35 years.

The 80's the rise of metal, the 90's saw metal strip that sound back. The underground alt-rock sound of the 80's merged with punk and 70's rock and gave birth to Grunge. The UK's alt-rock scene morphed into Britpop. Then influences from electronic music gave us Industrial metal, Electronica and Trip Hop. Hip Hop and metal gave us Nu-Metal. The 2000's gave us Indie Rock and the Garage Rock revival.

The biggest change in the 2000's was not so much the rise of Hip Hop and RnB, but the rise of metal among guitar music lovers. Most kids would get their guitar fixes from Emo, Metalcore in the 2000's and into the 2010's. Indie music either kept looking back or moved forward into electro-rock and pop. The influence of electro-rock has pretty much shaped mainstream rock bands today. That's why groups like Imagine Dragons get confused looks from Gen-X'ers and Boomers when they're called a "rock band". The guitars are still there, they're just turned down to make way for the synths.

 

Until it's no longer "rock" so yeah.

 

Sheesh... what's with all the death ?

D.D.

 

come on. The "death" of a cultural form is a really final thing. There are still people around who listen to Slim Whitman and Eddy Arnold. Mario Lanza. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

For that matter, I just heard a 1950s Doris Day record a few months ago. And now I own one. She could actually sing. I did not know that.

 

I like Doris Day. But the Doris Day/Steve and Eydie easy listening genre is clearly dead as a living genre.

There are still people who read, and perhaps even write, sonnets. But that’s a dead literary genre, and has been for at least a century.

 

Sitting here enjoying a documentary from the recently released super deluxe edition of a terrific 2002 rock album...


Porcupine Tree ‎– In Absentia
Genre:
Rock
Style:
Alternative Rock, Symphonic Rock
Year:
2002

Paraphrased from Steven Wilson in the documentary...

"The problem with rock music right now is that there is nothing left that hasn't already been said with the electric guitar."

True or not, it doesn't really matter. Thing is, in the progressive genre, there is plenty of rock being created, some of which I discovered thanks to Mr. Wilson (thank you for Opeth).

Rock may not be in the mainstream consciousness any longer but it certainly isn't dead.

In the meantime, I'm reminded of this band which is gaining quite the following here in SoCal.

Slaves To Humanity

They got a killer endorsement on KLOS radio (Frosty, Heidi & Frank). Methinks they rock pretty well.

Rock isn't dead. You just have to be willing to look, listen and explore.

 

Only if you let it.

 

@alexpop must be busy listening to his Hot Rats Sessions box. He knows rock n’ roll isn’t dead

 

Because it’s so boring !!!

 

that is not dead
which can eternal lie;
and with strange eons,
even death may die

< hahaha

It's the nature of recorded music that it's provided expanded opportunities to revive genres that were practically forgotten for decades.

But even before the era of recordings, there are many, many cases of artists whose music disappeared for decades, or centuries. J.S. Bach was the least-known composer in the Bach family, during his lifetime. His music was revived by Felix Mendelssohn nearly 80 years afterward. Mendelssohn also revived interest in Franz Schubert.
This has also recurrently happened with literature.

Time-bound information is the basis for human advance. With all due respect to oral transmission and unassisted mnemonic skills: without recording technologies, human beings can only hold so much in their heads.

 

The OP does bring up a point, that few of the other rock-is-dead mourners consider -
rock music wasn't necessarily killed by other forms of music, it was replaced with other forms of media -
largely from Japan. Video games, manga, anime, and earlier, Pokemon captured (and held) the attention
of young teenagers more than any musicians did. I've been a classroom teacher for 23 years and have witnessed this
sea change. And now, it seems, teenagers are more interested in YouTubers and other social media influencers.
I don't really have an opinion on this trend, but it is observable.

 

Yes. Nothing to see here. Move on, folks.

 

Check out Javier Escovedo.

 

Yes

 

I din't know she rocked either,

 

I really don't care if anyone thinks it is; if it's dead or alive... it lives in my house. It may just go by another name.

 

If anything, there's TOO MUCH hard rock out these days. I can't keep up.

 

If you’re referring to it dominating the charts for the last20 years and selling in droves? Yep. If you haven’t heard some of the newer and not so new acts out there that are vibrant and terrific, well, then no and you just have missed out.

 

Yes! Alejandro's brother? Didn't know he had one.