Rock and roll was always supposed to be about rebellion anyway, what better way than avoiding corporate music and going underground. You can self promote, self produce, self publish, etc these days, the internet can accomplish a ton for you. Becoming almost like a garage band movement again, I love that, it encourages experimentation. Only a matter of time before a city becomes a hotbed of a certain sound and something blows up again. You just have to convince the kids it's the cool thing to do.
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Rock and roll is dead?
- Thread starter ghostrider
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wmhill
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Rock and Roll is not dead. The kids today just listen to different stuff, and its toned down. That will eventually turn. There will always be an alternative scene as well.
I guess I would pose the question, what exactly is rock and roll? Is it Elvis? Kiss? The Beatles? There are still many bands out there playing these styles of music. So how would it be dead? I think Gene is just bitter. He's never been about the music and always been about the money. So his opinion is pretty pointless.
Ric5
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Pfft. Simmons is talking about the music business, about record companies funding up-and-coming acts and the public buying records by the millions. Which, I suppose, sums up what "Rock and Roll" means to him. No doubt he's right, that the 15-year-old plugging into a Marshall (he can afford a Marshall?) in his garage is not going to get the opportunity to become Kiss any more, that's pretty much gone. But that 15-year-old is still going to rock out. "Not making millions" =/= "dead."
For someone who wasn't alive during the golden days of rock'n'roll it sounds like outside of distortion on guitars, it was all about the life style.
The thing is rap is also all about that same life style of sex, drugs and music...
The reality is even classical composer, especially during romantic era, did that kind of life style and other stupid stuff to write "better" music.
It is nothing new to abuse of everything in hopes of making good music ... the problem is rock'n'roll seems to be just about that.
But yeah there will be others style of music that will need drugs and alcohol and to do stupid stuff the be "genuine" like R'N'R was. But don't expect distortion on guitar and the same type of lyrics, kids leave different stuff, the culture is somewhere else now etc
let it go already
The thing is rap is also all about that same life style of sex, drugs and music...
The reality is even classical composer, especially during romantic era, did that kind of life style and other stupid stuff to write "better" music.
It is nothing new to abuse of everything in hopes of making good music ... the problem is rock'n'roll seems to be just about that.
But yeah there will be others style of music that will need drugs and alcohol and to do stupid stuff the be "genuine" like R'N'R was. But don't expect distortion on guitar and the same type of lyrics, kids leave different stuff, the culture is somewhere else now etc
let it go already
I just read this as well. As much as it pains me to agree with a self aggrandizing huckster like Simmons (he had is own son write the article 
) I think he's right.
To the general public, music is no longer art or emotion, it is commoditized entertainment for a public with an attention span just longer than that of a well trained German Shepard. The music that a band creates is no longer an experience to be savored, it is now, more than ever, like the proverbial chewing gum that is only enjoyed until you get tired of it and you spit it out. The similarities to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World are frightening.
As a musician myself music is like water or oxygen, but America's animal spirits of the Free Market have decided that musicians, who actually create and perform, are valued at about the same level as the guy making your lunch, if not less because at least he gets paid.
) I think he's right. To the general public, music is no longer art or emotion, it is commoditized entertainment for a public with an attention span just longer than that of a well trained German Shepard. The music that a band creates is no longer an experience to be savored, it is now, more than ever, like the proverbial chewing gum that is only enjoyed until you get tired of it and you spit it out. The similarities to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World are frightening.
As a musician myself music is like water or oxygen, but America's animal spirits of the Free Market have decided that musicians, who actually create and perform, are valued at about the same level as the guy making your lunch, if not less because at least he gets paid.
I just read this as well. As much as it pains me to agree with a self aggrandizing huckster like Simmons (he had is own son write the article
To the general public, music is no longer art or emotion, it is commoditized entertainment for a public with an attention span just longer than that of a well trained German Shepard. The music that a band creates is no longer an experience to be savored, it is now, more than ever, like the proverbial chewing gum that is only enjoyed until you get tired of it and you spit it out. The similarities to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World are frightening.
As a musician myself music is like water or oxygen, but America's animal spirits of the Free Market have decided that musicians, who actually create and perform, are valued at about the same level as the guy making your lunch, if not less because at least he gets paid.
Yes, but they don't get to decide. WE decide.
Rock and roll cannot die, as long as even ONE person is keeping it alive.
It is important we remember that.
I've actually been giving this a lot of thought lately as I'm trying to get my own metal band gigs.
Musical forms rarely "die" but can certainly be past their apogee, heading into a flatline of obscurity. Classical music, big band, and swing never completely died either, but have certainly been relegated to the fringes. When it comes to rock in general we may be witnessing the end of an epoch. When something moves from drawing attention for its current progress as opposed to be a retro throw back for outliers, that means something. Kids in their late teens see rock as retro now, as something cool to get in to because its different than what is currently happening. To them listening to Dio or Metallica is like someone my age getting into my Dad's Hendrix vinyl.
I'd like to believe that the consumer and the musician has the power, but all data says otherwise. Nearly every metal band I know plays for free, and those are the good shows. The bad one's are where you pay to play with a bunch of bands that have nothing to do with your style, but you'll do it because the club has a name that people recognize and you are willing to gamble. In the US today money means more than it ever has. The Haves tell the Have Nots what to like so they can get more money, which by and large seems to work. My love for metal is huge, but it can't compare to the money that a fabricated act like One Direction makes, which means more of that and less of what I like.
The "Hard Rock/Metal category of the Grammy awards isn't on the air any more.
At MTVs VMA show Lorde was nominated for Best Rock Performance. I have nothing against Lorde, but she certainly isn't a Rock act; however the rest of the sackless Gap ad boys in the category weren't much better (Arctic Monkeys, Imagine Dragons, Black Keys, Linkin Park).
wmhill
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The end should have been obvious to all of us the year Jethro Tull beat out Metallica for metal album of the year!
Saying "Rock Is Dead" is a pretty black-and-white sort of statement. Neither Rock nor Rock n' Roll are dead. Rock was a subset of Rock n' Roll, which itself was declared prematurely dead over and over. Rock n' Roll was a hybrid to begin with. Music changes and evolves and morphs, the number of bands increases, the means of accessing music even changes. You can't just turn on the radio and expect gold anymore. If we were going back to the time when one hop into a Camaro, throw in Journey, crank up "Any Way You Want It", go cruising and pick up girls simply on the basis that you had a cool car and liked to have a good time, then we're going back to a completely different time with completely different expectations. The "Rock" that Gene Simmons is thinking of, in my estimation, is from a completely different time. A better time, in my opinion, but that's beside the point. The music was just a manifestation and a soundtrack to a world which some consider to have changed for the worse, but even that's just perception.
I don't know. I just think, with all due respect to the man, that he's wrong about this. Mostly.
I don't know. I just think, with all due respect to the man, that he's wrong about this. Mostly.
I'm a 51 year old. I grew up on classical music; am radio fluff; a little bit of old style rock and roll, and hadn't heard hard rock until a neighbor kid bought KISS Alive. My first concert was KISS, in 1976. I was 13, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever experienced. At that time, the FM radio sold us a pretty diverse selection of music, but by the time I was in High School, it was dominated by Stadium Rock, with a corporate fueled big money blandness that was REO Speedwagon, Journey, Styx, Foreigner, etc.
That music DIED big time with the advent of Punk and New Wave, which I embraced at first, when it was Ramones, Sex Pistols, Blondie, Elvis Costello, The Clash, etc. My friends didn't like that stuff, and embraced the stadium rock that I had started to find a bit empty. Besides the punk rock, I leaned toward nerd-rock, such as Rush, or older acts like Edgar Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Beatles, The Who, etc. Much of that you couldn't see live anymore; some of it you could. I saw The Who in about '81, and we brought a homemade banner that said "Long Live Rock," and we hung it in the stadium, where they hang hall of fame players' names, and tugged on it to raise it at appropriate times. Their opening act was Bon Jovi, who I detested with every fiber of my being.
At that time, the FM Rock Radio we loved so much started playing Flock of Seagulls, and Duran Duran, and all kinds of stuff we didn't consider rock. Rock was dead.
Then the Bon Jovis, and other hair metal bands revived it, but in a different form. I didn't like it at all, and I stopped listening to the radio. I got into folk, jazz, back into classical, and sometimes threw on some odd sixties stuff. I would hang out with older people, and they would get me into strange, obscure bands, such as Big Star and Love and King Crimson and all kinds of stuff. I was buying Arlo Guthrie, and Joni Mitchell, and super mellow jazz bands that I have since forgotten.
Rock was dead to me. In the late eighties, Aerosmith came back, and I saw them, with Guns and Roses, along with a 16 year old kid that told me Aerosmith was "done," and GNR was going to be the next long-running huge band.
I liked some of the rock of that era, but not much. I was still going back, and finding R&B and Soul, and all kinds of stuff from the sixties and seventies I had missed the first time around. I was writing my own music, and doing my originals thing, and the furthest thing from my mind was listening to the likes of Bob Seger, or Foghat, or even Jimi.
In the 2000's, my wife wanted to do a cover band, and it would be a hair metal cover band, with a little bit of classic rock thrown in, and I was going to run sound, and maybe do a guest vocal once in awhile, but they didn't have a vocalist, and I said I'd fill in until they found one. They had me singing Neil Young, REO Speedwagon, and other stuff, and my wife asked if I could play bass on some of the songs she sang, so she could be freed up to sing.
The only problem was, I was a lousy bass player. But it was for my wife, so I practiced really hard. The hair metal guitarist quit; we auditioned some guys; a kid of 19 who liked classic rock, such as Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Beatles, etc showed up, and the next thing you know, I was rediscovering the great classic songs of my youth, but in a whole new light.
Rock had never died, at least not for me. When a 19 year old is grooving on "Communication Breakdown," that's all I need to know. That kid is going to turn 26 in a couple of months, and I've been rocking with him this whole time.
GENRES die, but rock and roll lives on. If you saw Sha Na Na performing at Woodstock, you would know that. A bunch of kids tripping their brains out on acid heard the most upbeat version of "Let's Go to the Hop" that had ever been performed that day. Later, they heard Hendrix's version of "the Star Spangled Banner."
Jimi is long dead, but one of our own TB members often plays with Bowser from Sha Na Na. He's making a living playing ROCK AND ROLL.
Swing music went from the top music of the forties, to the fringes in the fifties, and other than small revivals, it is not a hit.
In early 2013, People Hell and Angels, by Jimi Hendrix, debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200.
That's over forty years after the man DIED.
That music DIED big time with the advent of Punk and New Wave, which I embraced at first, when it was Ramones, Sex Pistols, Blondie, Elvis Costello, The Clash, etc. My friends didn't like that stuff, and embraced the stadium rock that I had started to find a bit empty. Besides the punk rock, I leaned toward nerd-rock, such as Rush, or older acts like Edgar Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Beatles, The Who, etc. Much of that you couldn't see live anymore; some of it you could. I saw The Who in about '81, and we brought a homemade banner that said "Long Live Rock," and we hung it in the stadium, where they hang hall of fame players' names, and tugged on it to raise it at appropriate times. Their opening act was Bon Jovi, who I detested with every fiber of my being.
At that time, the FM Rock Radio we loved so much started playing Flock of Seagulls, and Duran Duran, and all kinds of stuff we didn't consider rock. Rock was dead.
Then the Bon Jovis, and other hair metal bands revived it, but in a different form. I didn't like it at all, and I stopped listening to the radio. I got into folk, jazz, back into classical, and sometimes threw on some odd sixties stuff. I would hang out with older people, and they would get me into strange, obscure bands, such as Big Star and Love and King Crimson and all kinds of stuff. I was buying Arlo Guthrie, and Joni Mitchell, and super mellow jazz bands that I have since forgotten.
Rock was dead to me. In the late eighties, Aerosmith came back, and I saw them, with Guns and Roses, along with a 16 year old kid that told me Aerosmith was "done," and GNR was going to be the next long-running huge band.
I liked some of the rock of that era, but not much. I was still going back, and finding R&B and Soul, and all kinds of stuff from the sixties and seventies I had missed the first time around. I was writing my own music, and doing my originals thing, and the furthest thing from my mind was listening to the likes of Bob Seger, or Foghat, or even Jimi.
In the 2000's, my wife wanted to do a cover band, and it would be a hair metal cover band, with a little bit of classic rock thrown in, and I was going to run sound, and maybe do a guest vocal once in awhile, but they didn't have a vocalist, and I said I'd fill in until they found one. They had me singing Neil Young, REO Speedwagon, and other stuff, and my wife asked if I could play bass on some of the songs she sang, so she could be freed up to sing.
The only problem was, I was a lousy bass player. But it was for my wife, so I practiced really hard. The hair metal guitarist quit; we auditioned some guys; a kid of 19 who liked classic rock, such as Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Beatles, etc showed up, and the next thing you know, I was rediscovering the great classic songs of my youth, but in a whole new light.
Rock had never died, at least not for me. When a 19 year old is grooving on "Communication Breakdown," that's all I need to know. That kid is going to turn 26 in a couple of months, and I've been rocking with him this whole time.
GENRES die, but rock and roll lives on. If you saw Sha Na Na performing at Woodstock, you would know that. A bunch of kids tripping their brains out on acid heard the most upbeat version of "Let's Go to the Hop" that had ever been performed that day. Later, they heard Hendrix's version of "the Star Spangled Banner."
Jimi is long dead, but one of our own TB members often plays with Bowser from Sha Na Na. He's making a living playing ROCK AND ROLL.
Swing music went from the top music of the forties, to the fringes in the fifties, and other than small revivals, it is not a hit.
In early 2013, People Hell and Angels, by Jimi Hendrix, debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200.
That's over forty years after the man DIED.
As a younger person on this forum, I'd say these are an okay representation of modern rock.
However, I am unsure if this only of my group, or in my area, but I have noticed a more synthy alternative trend catching on.
However, I am unsure if this only of my group, or in my area, but I have noticed a more synthy alternative trend catching on.
