• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Is Rock and Roll Dead? Not quite yet...

Clearly, you haven’t been looking hard enough.
I'm looking pretty hard.

My post was, of course, a bit tongue in cheek, but... Yeah, rock is not doing well these days.

The top 10 grossing concert acts for 2018 were, in order:
Ed Sheeran (pop)
Taylor Swift (pop)
Jay-Z/Beyonce (hip-hop/R&B)
Pink (pop)
Bruno Mars (pop)
Eagles (a 48 year old rock band; Henly is 71)
Justin Timberlake (pop)
Roger Waters (rockin' for 54 years; he's now 75)
The Rolling Stones (57 years; Mick is 75)
Kenny Chesney (country)

Rock is basically absent from the Billboard Hot 100 charts these days. It's all hip-hop, R&B, pop, and a tiny bit of country. Almost every rock album on the Top 200 is decades old. Even the acts people tout as being "new rock" often sound like they are stuck in the 70s or, at best, 80s. Innovative rock music is rarer and more marginalized than ever, and half the time it kinda stops being rock in the process anyway.

I mean, really. What are people in this thread excited about? A bunch of young kids playing a song that is 50 years old? C'mon.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to yell at a bunch of kids on my lawn. :D
 
I'm looking pretty hard.

My post was, of course, a bit tongue in cheek, but... Yeah, rock is not doing well these days.

The top 10 grossing concert acts for 2018 were, in order:
Ed Sheeran (pop)
Taylor Swift (pop)
Jay-Z/Beyonce (hip-hop/R&B)
Pink (pop)
Bruno Mars (pop)
Eagles (a 48 year old rock band; Henly is 71)
Justin Timberlake (pop)
Roger Waters (rockin' for 54 years; he's now 75)
The Rolling Stones (57 years; Mick is 75)
Kenny Chesney (country)

Rock is basically absent from the Billboard Hot 100 charts these days. It's all hip-hop, R&B, pop, and a tiny bit of country. Almost every rock album on the Top 200 is decades old. Even the acts people tout as being "new rock" often sound like they are stuck in the 70s or, at best, 80s. Innovative rock music is rarer and more marginalized than ever, and half the time it kinda stops being rock in the process anyway.

I mean, really. What are people in this thread excited about? A bunch of young kids playing a song that is 50 years old? C'mon.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to yell at a bunch of kids on my lawn. :D
Don’t doubt that at all. Worldwide revenues for the top two positions are:
Rap/Hip-Hop
EDM
 
I remember when they claimed Punk was dead.

Here I am thinking my punk band could cut "25 or 6 to 4" to around the two minute mark between the tempo change and swinging the musical axe...

I tend not to listen to they anymore...
 
the first one was good, the second not so much as the horns really, not quite there.

As for rock music not dead. Rock means nothing anymore. It is so diluted that it has no value anymore. For some people it is the early days like Elvis and the 1-4-5 blues pattern ... for someone else as long as there is distortion ( so even metal) so it is rock ... for other is like pop mainstream music with real instrument ... for someone else it is during the golden years of the 60 and 70s
 
I don't want to be the Simon Cowell of Talkbass, but neither video was very good. I do appreciate their enthusiasm and hope that they'll keep at it. I saw Head East in the early '80s and they were great. Flat As A Pancake brings back a lot of memories.
 
Those guys/gals are friggin' awesome. I love how when someone steps on her cord and unplugs her while she's Terry Kathing it out, and it doesn't faze her a bit. Someone plugs it back in and she doesn't miss a beat.

Thanks for posting this. It made my day.
She only needs the wah-wah pedal going on...honestly, I think she played it better than the guys I have played this tune with. And some of them were/are damn good players.
 
This is my son, last year, basking in some applause after his high school band pulled off a darn good rendition of Roundabout (using the "Bumblebee" Peavey Milestone <modded by Dad>). The other two songs were from Toto and Zep. It seems a lot of kids are embracing what they're hearing in classic rock.
The music scene is always in the midst of transformation. Maybe rock will become a force again....
Iandale (Medium).jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: OldDog52
Greetings from the North,

I was down in Detroit last weekend and caught the Raconteurs at the Masonic Temple. That place was all the way LIVE! It was Jumpin Jack! That was one of the most raucous shows I've ever experienced. The vibe and audience were incredible! Nah Man Rock ain't dead. Just a lot of Zombies dancing to the beat of the automated living dead trying to call the tune for the rest of us. And that stuff doesn't work on me ;-)

Rezdog
 
Ed Sheeran had the biggest tour of 2018, in terms of both attendees (4.8 million) and gross revenues ($432 million).

So yeah, rock is definitely dead.

I don't get the correlation. Collectively, rock radio stations still have more than 4.8 million listeners every day for more hours than Sheeran spent on stage at any of his shows. Neither this nor Sheeran's tour statistics accurately depict the health of rock music.