The Smiley Smile Message Board

I mean we have the classics which is just fine :) but how come rock isn't charting well anymore? :[
It's mostly Rap & Techno Influenced Pop that's hitting the top of the charts..
Do you think modern rock will have a revival or will it get worse?
Another thing I've noticed is i come across many people that wear band tee's(Led Zeppelin,The Doors,Pink Floyd,The Ramones) but don't even listen to any of those bands or even that genre of music. (It's not a fashion statement damn it!) ..it's annoying! Am I the only person this has happen too or noticed?

Rock doesn't chart as much as it used to for exactly the same reasons that be-bop, swing and ragtime also don't. It's been, essentially, a dead artform since after punk. Which isn't to say there's been no good music in the genre since then - of course there has - but it's had nothing new to say.

Very roughly speaking, there have been three major musical movements over the last century - jazz, rock, and hip-hop (in a larger sense, counting all the music that gets classed as 'urban' or 'R&B' these days, in the same way one would count both Miles Davis and Jelly Roll Morton in the definition of jazz). Each of those (all of which originally came from party music played by poor black Americans) has had a roughly thirty- to forty-year cultural domination, followed in the first two cases by a slow decline.

That suggests to me that in the next five to ten years some new style of music will be coming up (if it's not already - I am hardly someone with a finger on the pulse of the young people's music of the day) and displacing hip-hop/'urban' music, and in thirty years or so we'll have a load of middle-aged people grumpily saying "Call that music? It's just noise. You can't hear the words. Why don't you play some Wu-Tang Clan or Public Enemy, something with a tune we can all sing along to?"

You do get new, vital guitar music - I don't wanna use the word 'rock', because that's but one facet of guitar based music which seems to be what you mean - in other elements of the spectrum. For instance, indie music or metal. But if you're talking the mainstream, rock is dead, yeah. As a concept, it's only got itself to blame, really. The major rock bands of the last 15 years have had to deal with frankly more exciting and interesting music from other disciplines and it's simply been left behind - people don't want to start 'rock' bands anymore. The sheer ease with which one can find many new styles of music thanks to the internet helps to inspire people to make, say, house music in Audacity or use Youtube as a outlet if you are a incredibly prolific MC (such as the 100% Silk label, or Lil B) as opposed to pick up a guitar, which also used to be the easiest way to make music. I mean, to make electronic in the 70's you either had to loaded or build the f*ckers yourself, like Kraftwerk. Now you can pirate Ableton and some VST's and do it for free. The game's changed.


*phew, that's a long post&

Absolutely. I'd argue that even the good stuff has little new to say, as opposed to new lights in which to look at old ideas. Which is, of course, a good thing to do in itself.

But the change was inevitable. All the previous musical paradigm shifts (to use an awful phrase, but i can't think of a better) have come from social and technological shifts, just like this one. Jazz grew up, for example, because of the rise of mass-produced brass instruments (and saxophones, which are woodwinds but made of brass) in the late 19th century after Adolphe Sax invented pretty much all the modern brass instruments.

Similarly, rock and roll started after the invention of the electric guitar, when people realised they could play Louis Jordan style jump blues, but with a much smaller band like country musicians like Hank Williams were using, if they amplified the guitars a lot.

And modern electronic music (as opposed to, say, musique concrete) really started once cheap samplers, sequencers and drum machines were invented.

Each of these innovations allowed people to do more with less money, and whatever comes next will also be based on some technological change, at least in part. And there'll be people who cling on to today's technology and make retro-2010s sounding music.

Basically, though, all art forms go through four phases. There's the initial invention - "look, we can play jump blues with an electric guitar!". Then there's the people who come along and expand on the work of the initial pioneers - "what if we add a mellotron and a ten-minute drum solo?". Then there's the people following them who want to get back to basics - in rock music both 70s blues-rock and punk were, in their own ways, part of this reactionary trend. And then there are the people who follow *them*, who feel free to pick and choose from any and all of those eras for influences and mix and match (in rock music, that would be post-punk).

You see the same pattern recurring in all art-forms, over longer and shorter periods of time. You can even see it in the careers of some individuals, if they happen to live in a fast-changing time (the Beatles' career pretty much had all those stages in it, for example).

There will be good - even great - music made by bands with guitars for decades yet, just as there is still good music being made by jazz musicians, by composers writing for symphony orchestras, by people working in the folk tradition, and so on. But it'll never again be culturally relevant in the way it was from about 1956 through about 1986.

"Rock is dead" has been a common refrain for decades. I remember in my high school years hearing the exact same thing, and next thing you knew, you had Nevermind, Metallica, Use Your Illusion I, Use Your Illusion II, and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge all at or near the top of the charts within a short span of months.

That said, if a person thinks rock is dead, it probably is, based on what he considers to be "real rock." If you define rock as guitar-based bands with a heavy beat, well, there are plenty of those bands out there, and some are doing quite well. Somebody must like them.

Sure, hip hop has been the dominant force in music the past few decades, but as has always been true in music, each innovation or recombination of ideas just adds to the palette. The old colors are all still there, too, and every few years, somebody finds a way to reintroduce them to a new audience. (British bands bringing American blues artists back to Americans, '90s indie bands bringing '60s psychedelia to that generation, or current bands bringing a mellow '70s vibe and horrible mustaches back to the kids of today, among the billions of examples.)

It is a constant churning of the same old ideas plus a few new ones. The biggest differences are technology and audiences: the ones who matter most are the young market who set the trends, and then the older ones who have jobs and can afford ridiculously priced tickets to see their reformed favorites and can complain about how rock is dead.

Rock n Roll is like a great whale. It goes under water for a while and you don't see it, but when it breaks the surface, watch out.

Fatty and flammable.

More and more I hear most rock as just amplified folk music. I think about this a lot. At this point in life I really don't care what most lead singers have to say anymore. Just like this post, anyone ever notice how often the word "I" is used in 99% of the songs out there?

Someone who lately posts here pretty regularly once said something along the lines of "music needs more still lifes and fewer self portraits." I liked that idea.

Writing songs is a very personal thing, but at a certain point sharing something personal just becomes narcissistic tedium. The key, presumably, is finding just the right mix of the personal with the universal, preferably with some kind of insight. But most often, it's the personal with the universal with a huge helping of the obvious.

I think the BB's were pretty awesome at handling that...

Another thing since you brought up "key" is the actual key of the songs.....It goes a long way for bands to change keys for different songs, and to modulate tastefully within the songs. Sometimes when I find a band I like they too often hang aroung a certain key that's best for the vocalist but too redundant for an entire album.

I agree, but would broaden the scope somewhat. A certain amount of sonic variety is important, and you can get there through key changes or through interesting and unexpected chord patterns, but also through changing up instrumentation, song forms, lead singers for songs or sections, or any number of other things. Variety / spice / life / etc.

I ask too, what is Rock? I still prefer the phrase Rock n' Roll, but what is it nowadays? Has it been yuppified to the point that it is beyond cliche? When one thinks that they are rebelling by listening to Metal, hip-hop, or whatever are they really just conforming to the mold people would expect? Has it always been this way?

It is good to bring this up because I think about this so much, but I don't want to delve too deep into the realms of Nerd-om.  It was refreshing to listen to L.A. Woman last night for the first time in awhile...now the Doors rocked! 8)

I like what you said about instrumentation and flexibility. As I got into my Mozart trance I have come to feel that he truly was a Rock n' Roll pioneer. Listen to the Kyrie form his great Mass in C minor, if you can stomach the classical stuff...timpani's thunder throughout, the cello's at 45 sec., and the swelling of the tide of anger in the music before it drops out for the soprano, only to return at the end of the song...make sure to turn it up!

I only post this because it has elements of Rock in it, IMO, and we all love Rock n' Roll (I hope).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slJ_uRYm2Mk

For the most part yes butat least 2012 is the year of reunions especially The Beach Boys, Black Sabbath and Van Halen!!!  :rock

I was a music theory and composition major in college, as well as jazz performance and assorted rock-band participant: I'm cool with all good music.

I don't think Mozart was a rock 'n' roll pioneer, but rather a virtuosic talent and innovator in his own time and environment. Sometimes I think we try too hard to make people fit into other categories to add coolness, or credibility, or something else. I'm thinking of Tom Petty talking about B. Wilson's music as being in the same category as Beethoven's, for example. On a theoretical level, that's just not even close to accurate, but it's as if we can't acknowledge the quality of it as it is, in its own form, without placing it beside the kind of music that has a reputation of seriousness. The reverse is also true, I think. Mozart doesn't have to be a rock 'n' roller to be cool. Anger, hate, love, sex, depression--these things all existed long before there was rock 'n' roll, and everything that exists is always in the music.

I forgot to comment on this.
It was "yuppified" before there were yuppies. As long as it has been for sale, I'd guess the answer is yes, it is mostly conformity. Or at least until the concept of rebellious teenager was invented and marketed. 

The fact that the Black Keys are one of the most popular bands in the US right now might suggest rock isn't dead at all. Factor in how many large music festivals feature any and all styles of music under one name/concert and rock isn't dead.

This whole thing with the "keyboard" somehow replacing or making the guitar's position in music less vital has always been a load of crap.

Good music will always exist, no matter what it's created with. Most people who suggest the keyboard and/or synthesizer "took over" for the guitar have never plugged into an amp and played an open a chord at extremely high volume and gotten a sheer rush from doing it. Likewise many guitarists have never sat down at a Hammond B3 cranked through a real Leslie and played a single note for that rush.

Remember that rock was dead when Decca rejected the Beatles, too... :-D

all praise basegod!!!! lil b!  :lol jk..the game has changed so much :[

RocknRoll or Rock or rock pop, whatever, dominated the marketplace for several decades.

It has clearly declined. a lower percentage of people are into it, than before. I don't even
want to get into what the reasons could be. Bad choices by record companies, cheaper
production costs, just a natural shift to something now

But rock is not totally dead no. It wont be totally dead. For decades to come. But it is a fringe
or splintered piece of the market now. Instead of being 70-80 percent of music sales, what is
now ?  10-20 percent ?


When I was a kid, everybodys parents or grandparents wanted to listen to "their music" and those
early 20th century entertainers, the big bands, or Sinatra types, played smaller venues to a select
mostly older audience, and thats whats happening to rock.



Even if you had someone as talented as a new Beatles or Beach Boys, they would be doing it
fifty years later, when I heard Sgt Pepper and Good Vibrations as a six year old or whatever. It
was really historic,   great writing, cutting edge, great singing, great playing, arranging, themes
that appealed to the masses, simplicity that people could tap their foot to or dance to


Somebody would have to be able to do, all those things again, but different and new, so I think
thats why people expect some as yet unknown genre of music to eventually, come along, some
hybrid that has something totally new. We had that with rap or hiphop, but you have to be indoctrinated
into that, its not an appealing music form. Something else will come along, some hybrid that isin't
such a terrible genre as what we've had for 15-20 years since rock began a slow decline.

To borrow a phrase from Noel Gallagher...

Rock & Roll won't die, because Neil Young said so.

To borrow a phrase from Mogwai....


Hardcore will never die, but you will.  :lol

Yeah, was saying rock is 'dead' only if you're thinking about pop. If anything, cheap CDs and records and the sheer power of the web make it so classic rock is much easier to access. As of course, is everything else.

I am kinda not looking forward to a rock revival, if the natural ebb and flow of things is to be believed. For 'the band' (Lets say The Libertines or Arctic Monkeys), there are so many stupid followers and copycats and the scene gets all horrible with things like 'at last real music is back'. f*** that.

i know this is so off subject but at the end of this song what beach boys song are they kind of immitating ?
it sounds so beach boys-ish lol check out 2:09-2:24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT1OKo1rT84

there is plenty of good rock out there, you just have to find it

I think that suggests that it is dead, actually.

Rock is Dead!, Long Live Rock!- The Who

Touche but just because it isnt on the cover of rolling stone or playing on top 40 doesnt mean its dead.

No, but I suppose by "dead", I just mean irrelevant. If rock music were still relevant it would be impossible to avoid knowing about - even if you were a stodgy old man who actively hated it!

to tell the truth, I think I kinda like it that way :)

Rock isn't dead, they just call it "Hip Hop" now.  It's still very alive.  When Jay Z does what he does, it's the same spirit/vibe/etc. that Little Richard had when he did what he did. 


Just as many haters, too. 

Jay-Z will never be "Rock"!

Jay Z is the DEFINITION of Rock.  It's a mindset, not a chord progression. 

NO HE ISN'T!..HE'S THE DEFINITION OF A HUSTLER!

Mainstream rock acts (and the radio stations that play them) are completely crap today. However, the amount of great material being produced in the indie scene is far above anything we've seen in previous decades. The multitude of labels and the easy access to equipment/internet promotion have led rock music (and all of its sub-genres) to really be in its artistic prime at the moment. Just looking at all of the albums getting votes in year-end countdowns like the Pazz and Jop poll or a site like Pitchfork really shows just how much great music is out there nowadays.

It's just such a shame that the major labels and rock radio are catering to the RAWK! crowd which is giving us bands on the level of Nickelback - completely unimaginative and devoid of any real talent.

So, no, rock isn't dead. It's just not what the kids are buying.

You're absolutely right. There's a reason that Grandmaster Flash is in the Rock Hall of Fame and so are Same Cooke, The Supremes and ABBA. Rock encompasses the groundbreaking music that really, truly means something. Most hip-hop definitely would not qualify because some third rate rapper muttering some nonsense over lame beats about doing chicks, making cash and being better than other people is hardly the idea of what rock is and is about as bland and uninspired as modern country music. But someone like Jay-Z or Kanye West that is totally redefining perceptions of what music can be, breaking ground with all sorts of new sounds (and in Jay-Z's case, having mind blowing wordplay. Check out his book just to see how genius some of his lyrics are.) and actually saying something meaningful.

Just as country birthed us Johnny Cash and jazz gave us Miles Davis, so too is Jay-Z a future rock and roll Hall of Famer and part of the upper echelon of what this movement is all about.

meaningful? he has a few tracks that are meaningful but most of his career was about hustling..he has great metaphors and an awesome wordplay but he rapped more about flashy sh*t then anything else.
but these songs are definitely the songs that stoodout in his catalog...check em out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-ViBZKfF5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ53S5ZJKnc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOdcw-eCIMw

Drug dealing was what he did for ages when he was younger though and when he first started rapping. So it does mean a lot considering what he went through. Agreed that his wordplay is fantastic, but it's mostly his great songwriting and knack for poppier material and great beats (he does have the record for most top ten hits from a rapper) that really put him up into the stratosphere. Also, he's arguably the most gifted rhymer in the history of hip-hop with a flow that just amazes no matter the song.

as far as flow goes i can only name 1 other rapper that can top him lyrically (Eminem) i'm not a fan of his at all but the way he puts his words together is almost unbelievable ..now jay-z has a better selection of beats and more of a trendsetter i admit that...he's definitely in my top 10 but i stopped listening to rap seriously a long time ago. as for his last album "watch the throne" it was mediocre. did you hear those amazing songs before?(the ones i posted)

I hadn't to be honest. Those are some killer tracks.

Rap is not rock.

Rock is a constantly evolving form, though. Why shouldn't it incorporate rap?

IDK, we live in interesting times. Genres overlap all the time, and this sort of division might not be helpful.

I'd definitely consider 99 problems a rock song.

PS: to all the Jay Z fans here....this is a phenomenal remix of Jay Z's 99 Problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2M0m5Fg0IY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2M0m5Fg0IY)

rick rubin definitely gave that song a rock feel. but i like his songs that arent mainstream the only ones that was mainstream that i can listen to like the others are (excuse me miss,change clothes) thats about it

I only own The Black Album, and I have never listened to it all the way through. I'm not much of a JayZ fan.

I own nearly every Eminem album though - some of the best music I own. But I would consider very little, if any, of it "rock" - not that you insinuated that of course.

Anyone who is dedicated to keeping the definition of rock fixed--whatever that specific definition is--is destined to answer yes, rock is dead. The innovative creations or combinations that make up styles / trends are predestined to become old news, the music of your parents and grandparents, or an ingredient in future trends. And if they don't, then they become museum pieces. Nothing is going to remain fresh and rebellious and exciting for decades without changing. So if you define it as it was and are unwilling to change your definition, it is dead (or will soon will be, depending on what particular parameters you've decided on). I don't blame you if that's how you want to do it, it's just a matter of fate.

Truth.

Is heavy metal rock? Is psychedelic music rock? Is rockabilly rock? Is RnB rock? Is prog rock?

What makes it rock? If it's instrumentation, then you can play country and call it rock, or blues and call it rock, etc. If it's a beat, you can have sampled beats and rap over them, or play tuba and mandolin instead of bass and guitar over it. If it's an attitude, then teenage angst and lust are rock, regardless of the details.

If [1956][1966][1976][whatever tickles your fancy] is rock, then it is dead.

I do seem to say this rather a lot, but Luther is right!

Rock is not dead, it's just referred to as "indie" music these days.

Indie properly just means status of the recording contract: a non-major label. There is indie hip hop, indie folk, etc.

(It's kind of a misnomer anyway, most of the time, considering that a lot of "indie" labels are owned or distributed by majors anyway.)

During the last few years the term "indie" has been co-opted by the major labels in the same way "alternative" was in the 90s. It's been bastardized to mean a style/genre instead of a status, and I'm just going to roll with the changes and use the term in its modern-day bastardized form.

I've been saying for years that Rock died in the mid-90's.  Groups of "noisy", untalented (or at least less talented) musicians with something to say have always been A part of the rock-n-roll landscape, from punk bands, going back to some of the less refined garage bands of the 50's and 60's but it was always treated as a niche market because the industry more or less followed the ideology that cream rose to the top.  Everything changed in the 90's when the same thing (noisier, less talented musicians with something to say) was marketed as something new: Grunge.  At that time, on the same day, all the "mainstream" Rock bands were lead out to pasture, regardless of how long they'd been around or how they sounded.  Reo Speedwagon, Jethro Tull, Blue Oyster Cult, etc, etc. were now "Classic Rock".  Tommy Shaw used to do a bit a Styx concerts about it.  ("I wasn't doing anything different but one night I went to bed a "rocker" and woke up a "classic rocker.") 

The problem was like most lesser talents with something to say, they didn't have much more to offer once they said what they wanted to.  And you can't really blame the artists.  Joe Stummer never wanted to be a "pop star".  Guys like him knew they're place in the grand tapestry of rock-n-roll.  Putting guys who had just one or two albums in them front and center, as heirs-to-the-thrones was suicide for the entertainment industry.  All those guys sweat and slept together in the same vans, working their asses off for ten years and when they got signed, they took their "TEN" best songs together and blew people away with their debut albums.  A couple years later, they took the best of which songs were left and that was their sophomore submission.  But when the time came to write a third album, their heads were so far removed from their origins (having lived the rock-n-roll lifestyle and being told they were rock-n-roll messiahs for several years), they just couldn't deliver and the suits moved on to milk the next thing (in the case of that first post-grunge wave: garbage pop and the resurgence of boy bands), and it's only gotten worse since.

Of course you have to understand that the guys running the rock labels had to do SOMEthing because Rock was pretty much ALREADY dead at the time.  Just like the Pop music of the 40's and before has continued to exist, Rock was still "there" but it's days of being an important force in the entertainment industry had been over for some time.  Rap "music" had already replaced it as "the voice of young America" but most of the remaining Rock fans were too stubborn to admit it.

Using myself as an example, my Grandfather listened to Big Band and Pop music's next big thing was to focus on the vocalists.  By the time the arrangements were smaller and more restrained than those used by the Big Bands who'd used vocalists previously, my dad was in with both feet and continued to follow that trend with later vocalists, even after that style was replaced by the "rock-n-roll combo."  The combo evolves through the 60's and 70's and now the generations who followed THAT music has kids of their own.  In some cases, the kids still listen to newer rock but more often than we'd like to admit, the kid doesn't find Shinedown (or whoever!) appealing because it (being "rock-n-roll" with an arrangement of guitar, bass, drums, and maybe a keyboard) sounds "just like that Led Zeppelin stuff my dad listens to."  The last thing a lot of kids (specifically those more interested in the message than the music) want is for their parents to be able to relate to them or their interests.  So they get into stuff that sounds NOTHING like their parents' music: NWA, 2-Pac, etc.

And it's all made worse that the labels do nothing to nurture the next generation of Rock.  Nowadays most bands can't get more than a three album deal.  Imagine if EMI dropped the Beatles after A Hard Days Night because they'd figured the group had peaked.  And while the sales make that scenario sound ridiculous, my favorite example to site is The Who.  I'm a huge Who fan but will admit that most of their early stuff sounds like bad Kinks music.  In the late 60's Townshen told himself he couldn't compeat with Clapton's playing or Hendrix's spectacle, and made the conscious decision to concentrate on his songwriting, giving the world Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia, etc.  Nowadays, he never would have made it to that point. 

Rock has been dead for some time and here we are.  A bunch of old guys listening to "Sinatra", telling ourselves that "Elvis" is just a passing fad  ;D

Bad kinks music? what do you mean?
"My Generation"(the song) is inspired by The Kinks but it surpassed "You Really Got Me" for sure. Then they tapped into psychedelia(sell out) for one album, they created what we all praise(rock opera)..I'm glad Pete focused on his writing because what he did was open a new route and created a new genre(rock opera) which bands to tapped into..(which the kinks started doing through the 70's way after The Who) so they were inspired by the who as well.

A few points:
"We" don't "all praise" albums like Tommy - I for one think it's overblown bombastic nonsense which ruined the Who as a band forever.
As to your contention that Townshend invented 'rock opera' and that the Kinks 'started doing [it] through the 70s way after The Who':
Tommy by The Who was released in May 1969
Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire, by the Kinks, was released in October 1969. The songs for it were written in January 1969, so the writer of the TV special that went along with it would be able to write round them. Therefore it can't have been inspired by Tommy.

Both albums, however, could have been inspired either by The Pretty Things' SF Sorrow (released December 1968, and a full-length 'rock opera') or The Small Faces' Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, the whole second side of which was a continuous narrative (and was better both as a narrative and as music than Tommy).

If you're going to talk about things you haven't a clue about, please at least bother to do the most cursory googling before you start to type, to make sure you're not completely and utterly wrong...

.....does it matter if 'rock' dies? I mean, the Styx guy has a point that if he gave a sh*t about music he wouldn't be so sore about - he became irrelevant in pop. If he wasn't just in it for the money, it wouldn't be a problem. This is in terms of the mainstream, but personally I don't care if 'rock' is dead. I don't care for 'rock'. I care for pop. it used to be the beatles, then it turned into Prince, then it turned into Tupac and Nirvana, and then it turned into Gaga. It's pop music. It's a constantly evolving form.

Of course, if I do fancy listening to modern music made with guitars, I can and it exists. I just don't mind that it's not in the charts. Rock music is problematic for me anyway. Self important men wanking off over their guitars bore me. I demand songcraft.

wow..:/..you should listen to that album as you are closing your eyes ..it's a movie inside your mind
arthur is a concept album i was referring to the 70's rock opera albums by the kinks that were obviously inspired by the who...

Just a quick reiteration:  As I said, I'm a big fan of The Who, including their early stuff but in my opinion, aside from a few standout tracks that even then had what later became part of the Who's own distinct sound ("My Generation, " I Can't Explain", etc.), most of their pre-Tommy output sounded very much like music the Kinks were doing, and (again, in my opinion) doing better.   And while I prefer Who's Next and Quadrophenia over Tommy (mainly because it has kinda been done to death by now), Tommy was certainly the point where the band finally gelled and "grew their beard", if you will.  

Unfortunantly, it looks like Rock is dead or dying.

Now Hip-Hop, Pop, Dubstep, EDM, and all that crap is more popular, sadly.

The last classic Rock Band was Nirvana, and that was back in the early-90's. Since then, Rock has become quite mediocre, which is likely one of the reasons why it's going downhill.

I'd give anything to see a Rock revival, and see it revitalized!

Look elsewhere, rock isn't dead... ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQHZ7nvBSLY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv6xJvaRJJE

One of my all-time favourite Who songs!

 :rock :rock :rock :rock :rock :thewilsons

There's still good rock music out there. I don't know what qualifies Nirvana as "classic rock", but that's coming from someone who's been listening to them since age 9 and could probably re-record their entire catalog from memory. I don't think a band has to sell 39 million records and be good at the same time to be considered a timeless band, nor do I think they have to adhere strictly to only playing certain styles or certain instruments.

Ahem...Best Coast, Smith Westerns, Wavves, The Black Keys, Yuck, Joanna Gruesome, Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, The Raveonettes, Beach House, Imelda May, Arcade Fire, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., The Drums, fun., Foster the People...

I mainly meant it's just not really popular anymore, especially with my generation. I'm one of 3 or 4 people in my whole grade for example who even likes Rock music. Rock has turned from the most popular genre, to a minor genre like Jazz

The best modern rock band I know of are The Sheepdogs, a Canadian band. They're pretty good, a nice mix between the old and the new.

http://youtu.be/uSMN1ugJAos?t=35s

The LA Times did an article about is rock dead.. 1-26-14.. They declared it is dead.. Writer said Rock is not relevant anymore and put it out of its misery..! Rap + POP + R+B  better .. He said RAP has all the anger that rock used to have + all the people that play it are old.. Im not quoting here but essentially that's what he said.. I guess ill go hock my guitar ;) Good nite..

Whether rock is "dead" requires an understanding or definition of a few different subtopics:

• What is rock anyway? (How do you define it)
• Are good examples of that music still being made?
• Is that music still popular?

And the comparison a few posts ago to jazz is a great one, in my opinion. Very apt. The answers are extremely similar for those two genres. The first question, as was (and presumably is) the case in jazz, is one that pretty much can serve as quicksand for debaters indefinitely so as to make the rest of it moot. The edges of any genre blur, and that is certainly true of rock. When does it become something else? (There have always been elements of country, folk, blues, and R&B in rock; there are now elements of hip-hop, other kinds of pop, and almost anything else in it. When is it no longer "it"?)

Second, common to rock and jazz, there may well still be examples of groups doing what it was during its heyday, and doing it well. But third and also in common with jazz, it just isn't as popular.

I wouldn't attribute that to any thing but the obvious: time passes, the new thing becomes an old thing. Less vital, less rebellious, more "old people's music." So if you want to say rock is dead, I would say that in spirit, that is somewhat true. It has been born, grown, lived, and died a natural death in a metaphorical sense. Its time has simply passed. Elements of it will remain for the indefinite future, but as a new and dominant art form, it is unreasonable to expect and hard to observe any sort of dominance anymore--and that has long-since been the case.

No other form of music has remained culturally dominant for more than a few decades. Why should this one be different?