Is rock out of the conversation?

Except for Jethro Tull.

 

I was never a fan of Kings of Leon, but when I saw them play 'Waste a Moment' the other week on Jools Holland, I thought I was listening to a new Editors song, and thought KOL is not too bad, although then I realized that I might as well listen to my Editors first 2 albums/CDs. I give KOL props though for trying a new sound. No idea if the rest of their new album sounds similar to 'Waste a Moment' though.

 

Rock isn't dead. It's...

 

I'm saying that if it doesn't have guitar, there's a better than average chance that it's not rock.

 

Are you sure that you even watched it? Because that wasn't a six-sting, it was a bass guitar.

Except that I did say 80s pop, I said 80s new wave particularly synthpop.

 

Sure, but you could say the same about the drums.

 

Are you saying that you don't understand the point that I'm trying to make?

 

Forty years later, and folks are wondering why today's bands don't still sound like The Allman Brothers. Gosh... I don't know why that is. Passage of time, maybe?

Apologies for the snark.

 

Well, what is your point? No guitar most likely = no rock? Same can be said about funk can't it?

 

Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran were both certainly 80s new wave, synthpop acts... Duran Duran is probably one of the first bands people name when they're asked to namedrop a 1980s new wave synth act. Brandon Flowers is a huge fan of both acts (Neil Tennant even guested on Brandon's solo record) yet those guys still managed to sound rock, which is something you can't say about 21 Pilots or Bastille.

I mean, if you don't consider Duran Duran a 1980s synth-pop new wave act... who would you consider one? They're as identifiable for that genre as Def Leppard or Motley Crue were for 1980s hard rock.

 

It's been happening for ages. Chillwave was just a generation of bedroom DIY artists who all discovered old yacht rock and early 80s jazz-pop and R&B records, after all.

 

New Romantic and synth pop were not the same thing. You clearly weren't there at the time.

 

Why can't you.

 

In what world were these overplayed, safe, worn to death staples "forgotten"?

1."Hooked on a Feeling" Blue Swede 2:52
2. "Go All the Way" Raspberries 3:21
3. "Spirit in the Sky" Norman Greenbaum 4:02
4. "Moonage Daydream" David Bowie 4:41
5. "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" Elvin Bishop 4:35
6. "I'm Not in Love" 10cc 6:03
7. "I Want You Back" The Jackson 5 2:58
8. "Come and Get Your Love" Redbone 3:26
9. "Cherry Bomb" The Runaways 2:17
10. "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" Rupert Holmes 4:37
11. "O-o-h Child" Five Stairsteps 3:13
12. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell 2:29

 

This one.

 

Don't know which one you mean - the forum or the real world?

 

Ha! The real one.

 

I realize you're in the UK and there's a completely different music scene over there, but I assure you, in the US at least 10 of these songs are overplayed to death on the radio and in movies. You can turn on any lite rock FM station or classic rock station and hear almost all of these songs up to twice a day, easily. I'm sick of most of these songs, and I assure you, it wasn't because I overplayed them. They're required radio songs.

On top of that, just for example, these songs are used in movies all the time. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was THE main song used in Sister Act with Whoopie Goldberg back in the 90s. (distant example, but I don't believe it was "forgotten")

 

maybe I wasn't, but I've helped keep bands like PSB (who were definitely not new romantics as that fad was over by the time they even emerged in 1984-1985) and Duran Duran around by continuing to support their new music compared to all those 1980s fans who reduce them to Rio and West End Girls and see them as fun 80s throwback artists you'll listen to on an 80s night playlist, so I've the right to an opinion. I mean, the last two Duran Duran albums to me were both killer, most of the girls who threw panties at Simon in 1984 probably stare blankly whenever they play something newer than Ordinary World in concert. But alas, my crime was being born in 1979 lol

Regardless, if we're talking the effects of 1980s music with synths and new wave overtones... those two acts, both humongous influences on The Killers (who in fairness also claim Springsteen as a huge influence), definitely fit the "pop, synth, new wave" sound much more than they would college rock or glam metal or some of the other waves in the 1980s rock scene.

 

It's simple, really...you can't kill an art form as powerful as rock music.

 

What did you guys think of the debut from Public Access TV?

 

You mean that's not the same thing?

 

I guess that anyone can say anything they want to. But that doesn't make it true. The defining instrument of funk is the bass. I don't know why that would have to be explained to you or to anyone.

 

Edit: I'm wrong on this. It was "I Will Follow Him". Still, that's how common this song is.

 

Sure, but those wah effected guitar lines/playing is equally as distinctive & synonymous with the genre. You can say it's not, but that doesn't mean it's true. Remember that art is subjective, and music is art & everyone hears different things, so what might be the defining instrument to you, might not be the same for someone else, ya dig? And the guitar is not the defining instrument for all rock, see Royal Blood or Little Richard. It might be for you, but for me it's a lot of things.