re: Rock is dead. A reminder of its pinnacle.

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I just want to be able to turn on my car and hear good rock music

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so get xm radio.

Rock bands struggle with popularity now because they aren't being developed.

20 years ago up and coming bands were developed by the label.

Now, you need to be great immediately or you have no shot.

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Rock was king for 40 years until rap took a huge chunk of its audience in the '90s. Young listeners are not interested in maintaining a classical form. They want novelty.

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Not untrue but you have to wonder why. If it was okay for 40 years, that spans at least a couple of generations and if one generation wants to rebel against the previous, what happened from the 50s to the 90s? The consistent thing during those years was an active CURRENT rock music atmosphere. Ever since Y2K rock music has settled into a backward-looking culture. At some point it was like "Okay we've done enough, let's just delve into the past and rest on our laurels".

Classic rock radio compounds that by NEVER adding new music to their playlist while simultaneously being the dominant rock format in every market. With that in place, it's a surefire formula for failure somewhere down the line. Apparently the late boomer/gen X generations are hard to wear out but once they go, there's nothing behind it.

Rock is not dead. The music industry and platform as it used to be is dead.

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The thing that is most interesting is many of the iconic bands made it without a lot of radio airplay. We seem to forget this because Classic Rock stations have played much of their music into the ground. ETA: does anybody here from Baton Rouge remember WJBO-FM 102.5, aka "Loose Radio?"

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Around here that was FM radio (maybe WJLN-FM - I forget) and labeled 'progressive/underground rock'. Before then no one had FM it was all AM and suddenly everyone started ditching their factory radios. Much like 8tracks gave way to cassette decks.

Back yonder the choices were few and you never heard so called deep cuts. It was only the most popular top-100 or so at best. With FM they'd play whole LP's and you'd get large blocks without commercial advertisement. And when coupled with the new technology of recording on cassette (not reel to reel) the advent of the personal playlist* took off. It was a revolution like digital, where you could pirate most anything, or just make copies to save the LP. And really the preferred everyday mode til CD's and Walkman's came into existence (think mp3 and ipod).

Perhaps technology has done more than format; there has always been the audiophile who lived music, but never before had so many had the chance to only hear what they wanted. Instead of only being able to readily hear what someone was being paid for them to hear. With choice has come selection and not the same mega-bands of the mid to late 20th century.




*playlist of the day > mix tape and cassette cases > no one went very far without

TNT