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Gene Simmons [still] Thinks Rock Is Dead

It’s sad not to be cool anymore.
you can say that again. ;)
It’s sad not to be cool anymore.


The need for rock music is what creates it.
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Or is it because nobody buys the music YOU grew up with anymore?
i voted "yes" --- twas ever thus.


the music that began as youthful rebellion is now the staid soundtrack of an aging generation
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The title could also be "Boomer thinks stuff from his era was better and the current era sucks"
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It will never die because it was never not here to begin with. As long as somebody was finding a way to get down on a sound of some kind, there was rock. Maybe the first rock literally came from rocks. Maybe it was inspired by the welcome sound of thunder just before a hard rain parched dry ground. Who knows where it first came from. But, it's always been there and will always be there.
 
Not to be contrarian with the unpopular opinion. If you think rock isn't dead...

Name 10 rock bands that could fill a stadium in 2019.
How many of them are younger than 20 years in the business?
Not that I agree with Gene, but that's what he is talking about.
 
Probably somewhere out there is some kid that will radically alter the future of music and be the next big genre (not merely a mega-hit!). We just don't have the ability to recognize it yet. As far as I know, it has not arrived. I would say that I cannot wait, but there are a few music genres out there that my 11 year-old likes that I cannot stand. Whatever it is, it will not be rock and roll, but as long as us old people are out there, that particular genre will live on.
 
Not to be contrarian with the unpopular opinion. If you think rock isn't dead...

Name 10 rock bands that could fill a stadium in 2019.
How many of them are younger than 20 years in the business?
Not that I agree with Gene, but that's what he is talking about.

This is more due to the way music is listened to today than whether rock is or isn't dead. Think about the popular artists of today. How much of their audience actually attends concerts? Or even buys CDs? The way the "kids" listen to music today is streaming via youtube or Spotify. They may buy a single or hit, but not albums.

When I was a teen in the mid 80s, going to a concert was a HUGE deal, and at some point in my late teens and early 20s, I was going to concerts pretty regularly. My 17 year old daughter's first and only concert was for her 16th birthday and it was Taylor Swift. I was surprised to learn that most of her friends had never or don't ever go to concerts. It was the only concert she's mentioned interest in. By 17 I was quite proud of my decent album collection. She owns ONE CD, and it was free with the concert ticket purchase and it's still sitting there unopened.

I have tried to sit her down to listen to a full album... 2 songs in and she's done. I feel old saying, "kids these days!", but it's just truth. Kids today just listen in a different way and seem to have short attention spans. It's not their fault, it's just the way media in general is consumed (and served up). Who buys a newspaper and reads it front to back anymore? I know I don't. And why save an allowance for an album when you can listen to the whole thing on youtube whenever you want?

Obviously, it doesn't apply to all youngsters (or people in general; I know people in their 40s who only listen to music via Youtube and never buy or listen to full albums).
 
He is correct that rock is no longer all that relevant but it will never die.

Hard to find anything in the rock genre that still draws bigger crowds where the band is under 40. The Killers maybe but they have been around a while. Mastodon perhaps on the heavier side but not that young. Various picnic rock bands exist with large followings (Mumford and Sons, Vampire Weekend etc.) but they aren't exactly rock. Rock has lost most of it's mojo and edge. Last great stuff peaked in the mid 90's and it's been a slow death from there with the occasional gem.
 
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Gene is quite a character. He can be such an obnoxious jerk sometimes (e.g., during his interview with Terry Gross in which he sexually harassed and insulted her) between moments of obvious intelligence and thoughtfulness. One doesn’t know which Gene you are going to get. He’s certainly a savvy and successful businessman and a better musician than he is sometimes given credit for being. KISS is not generally my thing although there are specific songs and performances that I enjoyed. My reaction to Gene is somewhat conflicted. We have things in common (we’re both Jewish and both bass players) that cause me to feel a certain affinity amid my ambivalence.
 
The article is not new. NME is not the originator of this article. Like most online news rags they recycle old news for click bait and because they are lazy. I've seem this same story recycled over tons of times in on all these sites. It is mostly taken out of context. Obviously Rock is not dead and that is not what he was referring to. What he is saying is Rock isn't the popular music it once was in the 90s, 80s, 70s and I could go on. There are still great bands out there but the medium to get it out isn't what it once was. It has totally changed. Yes we got streaming sources now but bands make hardly anything off of that. MTV doesn't play new Rock bands anymore, hell they hardly play music anymore. We the fans of Rock, Hard Rock and Metal need to take it back.


Gene catches a lot of flak from people who despise the band or the guy himself. They look for anything negative that he may say or take out of context so they can jump on the soapbox and proclaim what a bad guy he is. I don't always agree with Gene but I respect his honesty in saying what he believes to be the truth, right or wrong. Now I'm not saying the original poster of this thread is doing in of this, he was just trying to bring up a point and ask a question I believe. However, reading some of the comments to this thread proves my point.

Gene and the band have done a lot for the troops and individuals the fans have spoken of the bands generosity. He just doesn't always put it out there for everyone to see. Sometimes he says stupid poopie, I know. But there is more to the guy than a article from an online rag that tends to post negative articles for clickbait. A lot of which tend to be months or years old, just recycled and are rewritten as if they were something new.

Apparently I can not type sh*t, it keeps changing it to poopie.
 
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It’s been dead for a long time, except on TB and Sirius XM. The most listened to music in the US is Hip-hop and R&B. (And that’s not the R&B that we used to listen to. Why they call it the same thing is beyond me.) The last gasp of Rock was in the seventies. Disco and Punk changed everything. Some Rock bands appeared after that, like Tom Petty and the HB, and Pearl Jam, (who are called Grunge but they’re really just a Rock band) But the days of Rock dominating mainstream radio are over and will never return.
 
Some Rock bands appeared after that, like Tom Petty and the HB, and Pearl Jam, (who are called Grunge but they’re really just a Rock band) But the days of Rock dominating mainstream radio are over and will never return.
A lot of material belonging to the broad category of Rock also splintered into multiple subgenres (e.g., metal) and sub-subgenres (e.g., death metal, thrash, speed metal, stoner, doom, etc.) during the 1980s. How on earth does one categorize R.E.M. accurately? They were a bona fide rock band with distinct influences from the Echo Canyon/Southern California sound but also from punk, New Age, and Southern folk music.