What Killed Rock & Roll?

[grandad]

2 years old but may be pertinent.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/events/year-in-music-2016/7616418/rock-relevant-2016

[YouMa]

Take That murdered rock and roll. The spice girls sexualised children.

Edited September 26, 2018 by YouMa

[Barking Spiders]

Never heard of Idles till last night and i actually stayed awake for the first time during a Later broadcast. Not my usual cuppa but they were a refreshing antidote to the po-faced earnestness of most Later performers. Come to think of it they could teach most rock bands a lesson in how not to take yourselves too foopin' seriously. (hi there Radiohead!). I can see more of a future for rock in their hands than in those of retro merchants like Greta Van Fleet, in no small part due to the fact they have much better facial hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2018 by Barking Spiders
typo changes

[operative451]

34 minutes ago, YouMa said:

..... The spice girls sexualised children.

Nah, you're thinking of 70s top of the pops...

[Bassmonkey]

53 minutes ago, Billy Apple said:

Rubbish. It's all shouting, you can't hear the words and there's no melody

Ha ha. Each to his own I say! Viva rock n roll 

[The59Sound]

Rock isn't dead.

Old people are just getting older. 

[BreadBin]

Rock music may have died for some people, I feel more like it's part of them that has died.

I hear good new music all the time, maybe because I am open to new possibilities rather than closed off and cynical. 

[skankdelvar]

2 hours ago, Billy Apple said:

Rubbish. It's all shouting, you can't hear the words and there's no melody

Idles explained in one sentence: Sham 69 hire a Motorik drummer and have a go at Morris dancing.

Edited September 26, 2018 by skankdelvar

[operative451]

It occurred to me while lolloping in the bath that probably the definition of rock and roll is 'the older generation don't like it, and tell you're doing it wrong'. In which case, this thread suggests its alive and thriving...

[skankdelvar]

Rock's problem is not that old people (in industry terms that means those aged over 35) like it or don't like it. It's big problem is that young people are turning away from it whether as a performance thing or a consumption thing

Electric guitar sales are down by 33% in a decade with the biggest fall being among young people so that's the input end of the operation f*cked. At the output end a Ticketmaster study showed that 65% of US concert ticket sales were accounted for by people aged 35+. Oldies, in other words. Where did those screaming teens go? They got old.

Meanwhile in the world of recorded music sales Rap overtook rock as the #1 genre in the USA in 2017. 8 of the 10 most popular acts in 2017 by consolidated US sales were Rap / RnB artists. The two 'other' acts were Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Might this be because Rappers and RnB artists are frankly fabulous while Rockers are either boring and slightly talentless dead-eyed boys or old men with more hair coming out of their ears than they have on top of their heads? I mean, Drake on his own sold more than the top 3 rock acts put together (Metallica, The Beatles and Imagine Dragons).

Even within the Rock genre the rock artists who performed the best in 2017 in the USA were either legacy acts or bands you've never heard of but had a one-off hit. Of the five best selling rock albums, one was the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 soundtrack ffs. Imagine Dragons (who?) had the top two songs in “Believer” and “Thunder”. The top two rock acts were Metallica and the Beatles. Let me say that again in case you missed it. The top two rock acts were Metallica and the Beatles. 

And even Lil Uzi Vert sold more than the Beatles and he was #10 top artist by US sales. It's just f*cking hopeless. 

You've got old men like Green Day and Metallica and The Stones and Fleetwood Mac ever more desperately hawking their schlock to audiences trying to recapture their youth while everywhere else young bands are beginning to realise they can't get a gig let alone a deal. And why? Because the bottom's falling out of the Rock market and the money-men realise that the market's falling out of their bottoms. They're not going to spend crillions on artist development just to push some 'difficult' acne-ridden twerps with guitars out there when there's ready market for Rappers who are happy to work with a team and would rather be thinking about their fashion line than writing a 'meaningful' song. 

The sooner we start to treat Rock like Jazz - as a specialist interest form with a dual offering of unlistenable experimentation and reassuring familiarity - the happier we'll all be. There's no law that says Rock must live forever or that it's always going to be moving forward. Sooner or later, everything dies and Rock's time has come. 

They say, it's gonna die: oh! Honey please let's face it;
They just don't know what's-a goin' to replace it.

Cliff Richard is 77.

 

Edited September 27, 2018 by skankdelvar
edited for typos, sense, gramma, spelng

[peteb]

Hard to disagree with what Skank says above. FWIW, I don't think that rock will actually die out, nor will it turn into such a minority interest like jazz. There still plenty of youngsters who love rock (not the case with jazz), but not anywhere enough of them to make it the force it once was. And they are wearing G'n'R tee-shirts rather than Rival Sons! 

I also agree with Beato that kids will still enjoy live rock music when they experience it, but the difficulty is to get them to come in the first place when they have so many choices of what to spend their leisure dollars / time on. 

Edited September 27, 2018 by peteb

[Barking Spiders]

Skank's right on the money there. And I kind of agree with those blokes in the vid. Since Grunge, there've been few new major globetrotting rock bands shifting multi platinum albums.  Creed? No, their sales were mostly to  flat earth Creationists living in the Bible belt of the US. What about Nickelback I hear you shout, except they're personae non gratae in polite society so they don't count. Foo Fighters? You can maybe make an argument for them, but would they have got anywhere were it not for the Nirvana connection?.

Rock festivals are struggling to attract big contemporary  headliners so have to resort to wheeling out time served old lags like Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne , Kiss and Iron Maiden. Avenged 7fold are about as big as any contemporary headlining act can get these days and they're hardly a name that trips of the tongues of 16 year old schoolgirls in their 'I Love Sean Mendes' T Shirts'. None of A7's albums have gone platinum in either the US or UK.

And Planet Rock? the UK's biggest specialist rock station has around 1 million listeners, 71% of which are male and 68% in the 25 -54 age range, mostly 45+ judging from listeners contributions. This is a fifth of the 5 million listeners Classic FM gets. Maybe the time will soon come when guitar based rock CDs are put in the Special Interest section in HMV

Edited September 27, 2018 by Barking Spiders

[PaulWarning]

Rock and Roll isn't dead, yet, it's just got old, when bands like the Idles have got boring old farts like us saying they're a breath of fresh air not that many youngster are going to like them and they're the ones that have the time and spare cash to spend, remember why Rock and Roll took off? because all of a sudden teenagers got money in their pockets and their parents hated it.

I don't agonise about it just enjoy reliving my youth listening to old music

[Barking Spiders]

35 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

Rock and Roll isn't dead, yet, it's just got old, when bands like the Idles have got boring old farts like us saying they're a breath of fresh air not that many youngster are going to like them and they're the ones that have the time and spare cash to spend, remember why Rock and Roll took off? because all of a sudden teenagers got money in their pockets and their parents hated it.

I don't agonise about it just enjoy reliving my youth listening to old music

The noises Idles make isn't groundbreaking but at least they seem to be enjoying themselves and treating it all as a bit of a laff. Maybe they might give rock a much needed boot up the 'arris 

[nash]

20 hours ago, Billy Apple said:

Rubbish. It's all shouting, you can't hear the words and there's no melody

That’s what every said about the last generation’s rock and the one before etc. 

If you like it that’s fine and no one really cares if you don’t. Freedom of choice and artistic freedom. 

[drTStingray]

19 hours ago, The59Sound said:

Rock isn't dead.

Old people are just getting older. 

As are their instruments!! 

No old vintage jobs in modern metal!! 

Edited September 27, 2018 by drTStingray

[Barking Spiders]

18 hours ago, BreadBin said:

Rock music may have died for some people, I feel more like it's part of them that has died.

I hear good new music all the time, maybe because I am open to new possibilities rather than closed off and cynical. 

From a commercial POV it is 'dead' in that other than 'best ofs/greatest hits' most rock albums don't sell that well in the US or UK. Check this out for the top 40 selling albums in Blighty last year

 http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-top-40-biggest-albums-of-2017-on-the-official-chart__21316/

Rock as a genre has also never been mainstream in Europe, leastwise not in countries I've lived in for a few years - Italy, Germany Croatia, Czech Republic and France. There are  a few that have strong followings there, e.g. Metallica and U2, but  overall guitar based rock has always been niche.

 

Edited September 27, 2018 by Barking Spiders

[peteb]

16 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

From a commercial POV it is 'dead' in that other than 'best ofs/greatest hits'. Nowadays most rock albums don't sell that well in the US or UK. Check this out for the top 40 selling albums in Blighty last year http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-top-40-biggest-albums-of-2017-on-the-official-chart__21316/

Rock as a genre has also never been mainstream in Europe, leastwise not in countries I've lived in for a few years - Italy, Germany Croatia, Czech Republic and France. There are some bands that have strong followings there, e.g. Metallica and U2, but as a genre, guitar based rock has always been a niche taste.

Speaking for myself, rock 'died' a long time ago though no way do I feel part of me has died. I feel very much alive without it

I was always under the impression that live music (or at least guitar based rock) was more of a thing in Europe than here these days. At least, the pro bands that I know generate most of their income touring on the mainland. There appears to be a better club scene over there than in the UK. 

Certainly there seems to be a pretty good blues scene in Northern Europe and in Spain from my experience. 

[skankdelvar]

36 minutes ago, peteb said:

I was always under the impression that live music (or at least guitar based rock) was more of a thing in Europe than here these days.

In the old days one certainly got the impression that Rock was reasonably big in Germany and the Netherlands. Flying Vees and mullet-sporting gents in tight leather trousers, you know what I mean. The Scandies have their own slightly odd thing going in the Metal department while Finland seems to have a quaint penchant for Dr Feelgood and pub rock.

The French, not so much apart from Little Bob Story and ... er ...

[Barking Spiders]

16 minutes ago, peteb said:

I was always under the impression that live music (or at least guitar based rock) was more of a thing in Europe than here these days. At least, the pro bands that I know generate most of their income touring on the mainland. There appears to be a better club scene over there than in the UK. 

Certainly there seems to be a pretty good blues scene in Northern Europe and in Spain from my experience. 

In Germany, where my father's family come from,  domestic soft rock acts are the ones that sell the most other than Die Toten Hosen, who are more rock as non Germans would recognise. Other than them it's the usual old timers from the international world of pop n mainstream rock that dominate sales stats e.g. AC/DC, U2, Abba, Queen, Beatles, Floyd etc but the big current acts are, like everywhere else, pretty much the usual suspects; Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, David Guetta and Adele. Rammstein are the most successful harder rock band by a country mile and they've been popular pretty much all over Europe. There are strong rock scenes in most European countries but as with the US and UK, the heyday of when rock was massive is long gone.

[Lozz196]

I have to admit that on the punk scene in the majority the audience are the same sort of age as, or older than me - I`m 52. Every now & then there will be younglings at a gig, but even for the newer bands (such as Dirt Box Disco, Booze & Glory, Wonk Unit to name a few) it`s still predominantly middle-aged people that go to see them. There are a few young punk bands on the scene and it`s really refreshing to see, but it`s not that often you see people under 30 in the bands.

[drTStingray]

A thought - there are now so many sub genres in popular music these days, and baffling ways of counting the sales of downloads, that I suspect rock (or even and roll) simply hasn't existed in reality since hmmmm - at least the 70s.

That all us middle aged or even older folk are discussing this suggests the definition we're focussing on is actually somewhere way in that distant past - I'm sure many of today's teens view it as Grandparents music and apart from passing interest, it has absolutely no relevance to them whatsoever!! 

[Barking Spiders]

Just now, drTStingray said:

A thought - there are now so many sub genres in popular music these days, and baffling ways of counting the sales of downloads, that I suspect rock (or even and roll) simply hasn't existed in reality since hmmmm - at least the 70s.

That all us middle aged or even older folk are discussing this suggests the definition we're focussing on is actually somewhere way in that distant past - I'm sure many of today's teens view it as Grandparents music and apart from passing interest, it has absolutely no relevance to them whatsoever!! 

Aye that's the view of the kidlings in my home. For a while up to the age of say 10 they'd enjoy some rock from the mrs's albums e.g. a bit of System of A Down, a smidge of Evanescence etc. Now all the 14 year old girl will bother with is pop pap being pumped out by Heart FM or worse. She indeed does dismiss the music we listen to as old fogey stuff and that includes my taste in 90s to current electronica. It's not just rock that's had it . With cr@ppy EDM hitting the charts, this has all but made but old skool styles like House, trance, trip hop and drum n' bass pretty redundant outside the underground. There are no names that sell albums or pack out gigs like the bigger acts that formed in the early 90s could.

[BreadBin]

Rock music should never particularly trouble the top 40 charts, it's not supposed to be mainstream! 

[tauzero]

I thought it was FRFR speakers and IEMs that killed rock and roll.

Although in the words of St Ian of Hunter, "The golden age of rock and roll will never die as long as kids still feel the need to laugh and cry", although social media may be replacing that.