re: The death of rock music in two senses

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Antarctigo Vespucci released an album last October too if you need more Rosenstock, granted he isn't on vocals

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I enjoyed the hell out of that one too. Freakin U Out was in the running for my track of the year.

Oh there are some really fun rock bands out there, but they won’t be headlining anywhere likely ever. It’s not that there isn’t any good music out there. It’s that very few are mainstream accessible and even those few have a hard time sustaining success. AWOLNATION’s Megalithic Symphony album was fricking great. Sail was a MASSIVE hit on pop and rock stations. They were signed by Red Bull so they had a great platform (X-Games etc) for their not-as-good 2nd album release and started inching up on that “right below headliner” spot, but they just fell off. Foster the People was a similar story except they fell off quicker without the platform for their not-as-good follow up to Torches.

I listen to Sirius Xm Octane all the time and the host said something along the lines of “people that say rock is dead haven’t heard this new song from Skillet”. I’ve never been embarrassed for Octane before even with some of the god awful songs I’ve heard, but I was just thinking “god rock is dead” hearing that line from the host.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.

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certain genres continue to generate commercial excitement: pop, rap, hip-hop, country

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And I think all of these are forms of pop music today. Simple, superficial, catchy beats and melodies lacking any depth...just dressed up a little differently.

It was in fact heavy metal that killed rock & roll

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You can't kill the metal
The metal will live on
Punk-Rock tried to kill the metal
But they failed, as they were smite to the ground New-wave tried to kill the metal
But they failed, as they were stricken down to the ground

Grunge tried to kill the metal Ha,hahahahaha They failed, as they were thrown to the ground

No-one can destroy the metal
The metal will strike you down with a vicious blow We are the vanquished foes of the metal
We tried to win for why we do not know

New-wave tried to destroy the metal, but the metal had its way

Grunge then tried to dethrone the metal, but metal was in the way

Punk-rock tried to destroy the metal, but metal was much too strong

Techno tried to defile the metal, but techno was proven wrong

Yea! Metal!

It comes from hell!

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I actually kinda agree, to some extent, with that joking hypothesis. I believe that Pantera and Nirvana together killed rock n roll because they were novel, incredibly influential, and each took rock n roll in a direction far away from what teenage girls like. Now, you might say: who cares what they say? The reality is that most pop music is aimed at teen girls because they buy albums, and where they go, teen boys follow. The bar business and the music business is driven by young men buying drinks and tickets for young women. If the young women like it, the young men will spend money on it.

Pantera took metal into the direction of this unwinnable battle of edginess that eventually resulted in most metal being unintelligible pig squeals and screaming over shreddy, drop-tuned guitars with so much distortion that it’s impossible to discern the individual notes being played. While girls could kinda dig the power metal and more blues based hair metal, they largely weren’t into stuff like Job For A Cowboy or Cannibal Corpse.

At the same time, Nirvana took rock from dancable music (hair metal) into non-dancable music (grunge). This music was sad, melancholic, self-loathing, and nihilistic as opposed to positive, fun, and adventurous. Most young women enjoyed hair metal when it was popular for those reasons, but most also rejected grunge. Instead, young women jumped on the hip/hop and rap bandwagon because it was fun dance music. While there was a brief pop/crossover movement in the early 2000’s with pop punk, rock quickly moved away from that kind of music in the latter half of the 2000’s, and the young women who weren’t into rap dove deep into bro-country and EDM.

So, the reaction is once-again to introduce more pop elements into rock by incorporating trap, EDM, and country/folk influences to attract more female fans. Because women are gravitating to these “Alt” acts like Portugal the Man, Revivalists, Bastile, and The Head and the Heart, alt rock radio has gone in this direction, leaving what most recognize as “rock” music behind.

While metal has a large niche following, and traditional rock still has a significant niche following as well, rock as a whole finds itself bring consumed, much like disco nearly destroyed it in the 70’s. As musicians, we must question whether we want to adapt to the demands of the market (more poppy sounds like the Alt 92.3 bands), continue to stick to more traditional sounds to cater to the loyal niche market of metal heads, or simply hope that fluid public opinions might drift back to rock someday and that your music will be ready to ride that vvave.

There are, in fact, signs of this resurgence happening underground. Emo is making a big comeback and guitars and more emo style lyrics and vocals have been infiltrating the rap, hip/hop, trap, and edm scenes in recent years. While emo music was pretty much universally panned in the mid 2000’s, it seems to be leading The underground resurgence with teens and kids in their young 20’s under the labels emo, shoegaze, post rock, and mopevvave. Often times, this new version features emo vocals and lyrics with the spacey, mellow sounds now being employed by a lot of trap and alternative music. If what’s underground emerges, this guitar and effect-driven music could drag rock n roll back into the mainstream.

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Most young women enjoyed hair metal when it was popular for those reasons, but most also rejected grunge.

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Nope. Pre '92, the alt rock scene was mostly guys and mostly sparse. Once Teen Spirit hit, the crowds got huge mostly because girls were very into it.

Painting with a broad brush to try making sense of pop culture and musical trends always fails and comes off as dilettantish speculation.

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Painting with a broad brush to try making sense of pop culture and musical trends always fails and comes off as dilettantish speculation.

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No dilettante filigree fancy beats the plastic you.

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Pro Tools and programs like it are a big cause IMO. They are great and allow a lot of people to make music, but they make it an 'easy' way out

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Music has become like movies. Both have been influenced by digital innovation, making it much easier and less expensive to "create". It's become far too democratic, allowing untalented people, without much to say to produce something for distribution.