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In the 70s we had rock gods...

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Maybe...

Well partly that, but largely a comment on how little real musical development there has been in the last 30 years and how everything has become so safe and bland. Everything is derivative, or is the past "rediscovered". And the stars of today just aren't like they were in the old days :)

I suppose with so many more people and so much music being created everything just gets diluted.

You might want to turn off the top 40 radio station or TV music award shows then and seek out some proper music, which I can assure you, is still being made today.

Yes, modern pop music sucks. We all know that. It's designed to be simple and easy to sell though, get over it. I don't assume all country music sucks because Rascal Flatts exists.

The rock gods are still there for today's youth. They just stand on a different platform.

These threads are never as deep as the posters assume they're going to be. It just makes those people sound jaded.
 
He's a perfect example. He's a sad old man trying to relive the 60s singing (kind of) to thousands of sad old men trying to relive the 60s. Nothing "rock" about that. There are more orthotic shoes at a Stones concert than at a Dr.Scholls warehouse. Likely 80% of the audience had to grab a nap before to make sure they were awake at the end. Coffee likely sells more than beer.
:roflmao:

I disagree. Millions of fans still want to see him, including me. He makes millions on ticket sales. He still does a better show than most performers in any genre. He's not a "sad old man" at all. He's a rock star.
 
Bingo.

Don't perform until you die on stage. It's just depressing. Elderly rockers are not cool. Take up golf and play with your grandkids.
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And here’s a few others...

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Fans stream music for free. Hard to make a living that way. It's our fault
Our whole family subscribed to Apple Music for a fee, and my two sons also subscribe to Spotify for a fee. There’s very little free music in this house except YouTube, and that’s not because I preach it, I don’t. And there’s no radio except Sirius, which I pay for. We switched to family sharing of Apple Music because I was spending 2-3 times that every month buying music on iTunes.

Maybe artists should form unions or lobby groups to negotiate with Apple and Spotify on their behalf. But IMO amp musician or actor or director “deserves” to be a multimillionaire any more than Apple’s board deserves it.
 
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"Rock Gods" are some of the reasons punk and alternative came about. Up close and personal. Pioneers? Yes, some. I, for one, am glad music became de-centralized...fair trade *double entendre*.
...and none of us would be here without Elvis. Legend.
No Chuck Berry, Lil' Richard, Bill Haley, Beatles, Zepplin, Hendrix, or even Queen... When someone is "pushing" it in my face, I take a step back and ask, "Why?" Cui Bono...
 
Oh boy, "rock-used-to-be-so-much-better" thread #87,563. OK, I'll play.

In the '60s and '70s, rock bands had a huge ready-made audience (thanks to the Baby Boom--birth rates have been much lower for a long time now) to buy their albums and tickets to their concerts.
In the '60s and '70s, people had far fewer entertainment choices--no internet, no online games, no movies you could watch at home, no shows could be recorded, only three channels plus some snowy UHF instead of 500+.
In the 60s and '70s, concert tickets were cheap!
In the '60s and '70s, record companies served as gatekeepers, so only a limited number of artists could really have their music distributed--so not only did you have a far bigger audience, you had far less competition.
In the '60s and '70s, record companies lavishly supported their artists with massive promotions and huge recording budgets. If Steely Dan started today, no way could they afford to hire five full bands worth of the best studio musicians in the world to record a single track.
In the '60s and '70s, people had to pay for your recordings, so you made a lot more money.
In the '60s and '70s, there was no social media to track every single move a musician made--far fewer "sins" were exposed, and pictures and video were far more rare. Thus rock stars seemed more mystical and bigger-than-life. Today, if a famous musician goes out to the grocery store in sweats and a ballcap, 10 people are going to snap a picture on their phones before the person is 5 steps from their car.

The people haven't changed, just their circumstances.
Well said and, I think, a pretty complete analysis of the circumstances. Things change and people don't like change. We all seem to be stuck in our youth and long for legendary "good ole' days".
We're just going about being humans.
 
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He's a perfect example. He's a sad old man trying to relive the 60s singing (kind of) to thousands of sad old men trying to relive the 60s. Nothing "rock" about that. There are more orthotic shoes at a Stones concert than at a Dr.Scholls warehouse. Likely 80% of the audience had to grab a nap before to make sure they were awake at the end. Coffee likely sells more than beer.
:roflmao:
Your responses are always so cryptic. What are you trying to say here??? :D
 
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Well said and, I think, a pretty complete analysis of the circumstances. Things change and people don't like change. We all seem to be stuck in our youth and long for legendary "good ole' days".
We're just going about being humans.

The period from the 50s through the 70s though was a time of huge social and technological change, and I think the music and the individuals who made it reflected that.
 
Not saying this was the cause, but I feel the rock god/goddess thing started to die when Ozzie did the Osbornes.

That was a very sad moment in R&R history for me. Ozzie was a rock God to me growing up. That show took that all away. Made him into nothing more than a troubled, drug riddled buffoon.
 
The period from the 50s through the 70s though was a time of huge social and technological change, and I think the music and the individuals who made it reflected that.
Can't at all disagree about that. The change was in the music, too. We went from Bill Haley and the Comets to Chuck Berry to The Beatles, The Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and on from there. But, I think the social upheaval now is more pronounced than it was then.
 
Do only "rock" gods count? Are Beyonce and Taylor Swift not "goddesses" because the music they play (and have hordes of worshiping fans for) isn't "rock?" What's the difference between a "god" and a "celebrity" other than that the person bestowing the title is or isn't impressed by the candidate personally? What about Blues Gods and Jazz Gods?

Another angle on all this is the dynamic of the "classic." There may well have been smarter philosophers than Plato since the 4th century BC, but nevertheless "all philosophy is footnotes on Plato," because... well, Plato is the classic. There may be greater English writers than Shakespeare, but we'll never see it that way because Shakespeare was the genius who defined the field of English literature, in some sense. In any given field of human activity, you have the "classic" historical moment when the field blossoms to its potential and the masthead figure at that moment becomes the standard by which all subsequent activity is measured.

In the same way, today there are guitarists who could play circles around Hendrix, there are songwriters just as clever and meaningful as McCartney, there are singers more powerful than Elvis. But they will never have the title of "rock gods" bestowed on them because Hendrix, McCartney and Elvis already existed and defined the field as its "classic" artists.
 
ha. I was just going to say that taylor swift definitely fits the rock god archetype except for her music. The cult of personality that surrounds popular performers is still alive and well it's just present in different genres of music. Youth (since as long as there have been people) is more susceptible to putting people they admire on a pedestal and that age and life experience generally counteract such idealization.