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Why did western rock music die completely?
- Thread starter TheSadRanger
- Start date
TheSadRanger
Banned
Korn and Nu metal played it's part, due to ((them)) putting them in the lime light making all white music look like trailer trash.
GET TRIGGERED.
GET TRIGGERED.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Rival Son's would be pretty big in a different timeline...
Keihart
Member
So is this a thread to post your favorite modern rock song to prove OP it's screaming at the clouds? ok, i'll do my part.
rock is such an umbrella term tho...
Although, who even needs music to be played on the radio now? with how widespread internet and youtube are, you can discover all styles of music now without some label pushing it necessarily.
rock is such an umbrella term tho...
Although, who even needs music to be played on the radio now? with how widespread internet and youtube are, you can discover all styles of music now without some label pushing it necessarily.
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The Hamburglar
Banned
Bring back emo
lock2k
Banned
This thread seems to ignore and forget that many bands that never ever had radio play have huge followings (mainly on the metal and punk side) and some of them constantly play arenas in Europe, Australia and other parts of the world. Rock was mainstream for a long period of time but it has always lived well in the underground because its fans are loyal and not flavor of the week crap followers. To think that something is dead because it isnt on the radio is one the most idiot thoughts ever. I love radio but its just not needed. Thousands of artists are born in the webs everyday and have huge followings and nowadays there are a lot of different artists like The Hu who sing metal in mongolian and have millions of views. If that is dead it's surely a good kind of dead. I never had the amount of options I have today to listen to in terms of rock and metal artists. Plenty of cool stuff going on (this debate is similar to the gaming debate when people say there are no good bands anymore but they just look at the triple A space and ignore the many indie games which would be appealing to them)
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DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
#Phonepunk#
Banned
Lol no I don’t think so. The popularity of some thing doesn’t determine if it is alive or dead. If Andrew WK makes a record and the media doesn’t report on it that doesn’t mean the record doesn’t exist or is “dead” or whatever.
I’m not willing to grant the music industry that much control. The people making the actual music are the ones who determine They have abused and leeches off musicians for decades. They don’t determine anything. If they decide Post Malone is the best musician today then they can think that but I don’t have to and to pretend it’s objectively true just because a lot of media talking heads think so is silly.
This is like saying musicians don’t determine the scene it’s music critics. Or that movie critics determine whether movies are dead or alive. Media narratives are fake. The music is real.
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DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I listen to old school rock and roll and rock... 50s - 90s. Grunge was the epitome of rock you could actually MOVE to. Then I lost my hearing ... But now with my implant I can listen to anything... And Rock isn't dead... It's just not ubiquitous. That's why the internet is so great... I can listen to all genres... Even classical.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I disagree with you there. The underground hip hop scene is alive and well and where some of the best hip hop is!
bloodydrake
Cool Smoke Luke
interesting topic , Rick Beato talks about this alot.
This was a great discussion around this by him and couple other guys...very good discussion
This was a great discussion around this by him and couple other guys...very good discussion
Oh I am sure there are tons of great musicians in nashville, and they all get signed by nashville record companies and played on country stations.
Whoop de fucking doo. Welcome to a lifetime of playing soft ballad crap about dying on roses and being wrapped in satin or whatever.
Being a talented musician means dick to a record executive because there are tons of talented musicians and singers out there.
Can you produce music that is easily accessible, marketable, and doesn't require heavy investment. Steely Dan produced some of the best music of the 70's, but they were perfectionists, that costs a record studio tons of money.
On the contrary, Kanye West is one of the most successful producers in years, has raked in millions, maybe close to a billion by now, and half of his early work was stealing samples from Steely Dan. No 9th sessions, no live bands, just pro tools and a laptop.
Why the fuck would any executive make a band?
teezzy
Banned
Judging the merits of art by its popularity is a fool's errand.
cryptoadam
Banned
Ya but it also can't compare to the 80's, 90's early 2000's.
We maybe need a "rap is dead" thread. Rap is more popular then ever, but its probably worse then ever. No one now a days touches the greats.
Slings and Arrows
Banned
GLAM rock was like this, rock and then metal (80's onwards), called GLAM rock Gay Los Angeles Metal, because of how they dressed.
This thread is fucking metal and the OP is my new favourite poster. Smash the room up, rip the curtain down, smoke a bong, get fucked up and lets fuck some groupies.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
That would be a good thread! And you're right! Rap nowadays is NOT as good as hip hop in the 80s, 90s (I don't listen to much early 2000s... I wasn't hearing back then) ...I like SOME rap nowadays... Like Jidenna and Janelle Monae (she raps in her songs) and SOME others. I cringe when I hear the N-word... I hate it. But yeah... LL Cool J, Kool Moe Dee, Fresh Prince, Bone Thugs (I couldn't understand what they were rapping but they harmonized beautifully!), Whodini, etc.
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#Phonepunk#
Banned
lol you have no idea what you are talking about. Nashville isn't just about country music or "soft ballad crap" whatever the fuck you think hahah. so many amazing musicians live there. this sentence is the most ignorant thing i've seen in a while lol.
Jack White, for one, based his Third Man records out of Nashville. they have one of the few record pressing plants in the country. Third Man store in Nashville is super dope too, i've been.
if you want to see some rock n roll i recommend The Exit/Inn http://www.exitin.com
highrider
Banned
No I’m talking about mainstream, radio rock from the 80s and 90s. LA rock artists ruled popular radio so like it or not it’s rock.
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#Phonepunk#
Banned
i do think digital music killed it in a lot of ways. the 1980s were really the start of all this, replacing live music with entirely synth soundtracks. replacing bands with sequenced synths and drummers with drum machines. replacing orchestras with synths for movie soundtracks. when you look at all of that, that is a lot of musicians either put out of work, or a lot of performance opportunities permanently lost. digital music also lets you cheat while recording, doing a punch-in overdub, where you just correct the one flaw, rather than doing a new take all over again. when you do a new take, there is a chance to correct it, but also do something even better for the entire song. just punching in and doing a digital fix kind of ignores that option. one more way in which digital recording takes away live performance for the technological convenience.
however, i believe it is still going. why? i play in rock bands. i write and record rock songs. i even cut some records this year. i also know many people who do the same, and make their own music. if someone thinks rock is dead because they won't play it on ABC or feature it in a Netflix show, that is none of my concern.
imo people should stop letting the mainstream dictate their culture.
however, i believe it is still going. why? i play in rock bands. i write and record rock songs. i even cut some records this year. i also know many people who do the same, and make their own music. if someone thinks rock is dead because they won't play it on ABC or feature it in a Netflix show, that is none of my concern.
imo people should stop letting the mainstream dictate their culture.
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Slings and Arrows
Banned
Not all rock was like that. Are we talking pop rock or rocky/metal?
highrider
Banned
The rock that sold a lot of records. Metallica is kind of an outlier as they were a metal band but sold a lot of records. And I wouldn’t include Nirvana or grunge, prog rock although some of them sold a lot of records. But in terms of who was being played on the radio, selling records, filling stadiums it was Bon Jovi, G&R, Poison, and the kind of pop rock Duran Duran/Depeche Mode/Cure
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M
Macapala
Unconfirmed Member
lock2k
Banned
Nashville is like a heaven of great musicians. Whenever I post a video playing guitar a lot of musicians from Nashville who can play circles around me come and like my videos I feel really flattered. They have some really talented musicians there. From every possible style. I'm definitely a fan of Nashville.
H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
So I have a few thoughts on this, and one post in this thread did prompt me to think a little more on the topic and I'll get to that at the end, but first my main thoughts on the topic. Tbh my post is likely to be a bit UK-centric but some of it will transpose to the US.
My first considerations are social. Kids don't get together to play guitars in a garage anymore. The spaces to practice aren't available for cheap, and in the UK few houses are big enough. Kids can't practice in a garage if nobody has one and people are more inclined to complain about noise than in my youth. I remember when I was 20 I had a flat (apartment to you Americans) and a drum kit, guitars, amps, trumpet, mics, etc and used to have bands over and do recording work with them. Amazingly I got away with it. My neighbours were incredibly tolerant, but that was 2000 and I don't think that would fly anymore.
But back to the point, kids aren't getting together to play instruments anymore. This is partly due to them wanting to be social media stars, partly that they're not as social physically anymore focusing on phones, partly that instruments are expensive and kids aren't going out and earning pocket money in the ways they used to, a whole range of things.
Now the next consideration is that expense aspect. It feels like guitar shops are now catering to dads having mid-life crises rather than trying to sell guitars to young nutters who want to make noise. All the expensive gear is great but it's not exactly pocket money. On the other hand, you can rap over some backing track with very little gear. Why invest all that money?
Next up - where the fucking hell do you play? I was fortunate in my 20s to play some wonderful venues and have some great (and some utterly shit booed off the stage) gigs. I learned so much from each gig, but those opportunities don't exist anymore. Not one place I played in the 00s still exists, and nothing came up to replace them. Bands learn their trade doing these gigs, but if you take that away there's no pipeline for new bands to start up, no places for them to gather and watch each other, form scenes as they try to compete with each other, borrow ideas, etc.
We have a music industry gutted by Spotify, Youtube et al. For all their faults, the labels had to maintain a pipeline and they did, they'd have A&R people scouting venues all over, but with most of the money now coming from long-tail streaming income from the bigger artists, there's no incentive to focus on new young artists. Add to that a band has to split that tiny spotify income 4/5 ways, and in 2020 they can't make money touring, and it's all fucked.
I also think that instrumentalists and singers have been devalued by a couple of things. First we have Youtube, where it turns out that there are loads of people who can play guitar lick x which is incredibly hard to play. Great. The problem is that almost all of them are soulless. But it doesn't matter - it devalues the currency of instrumental virtuosoism. Then you have X-Factor and the likes. It turns out loads of people can sing. Again, it's technically strong but fucking soulless. You'll never get a Bob Dylan on those kind of shows. So musicians now hold no currency, and where they exist they're noodling solo for TV or Youtube, fretwanking and caterwauling for the camera with no art.
Finally we have the problem of gatekeepers. 4 white kids with instruments aren't going to interest the BBC so they won't get on Radio 1 easily. The critics are mostly of a similar bent, fawning over the diversity of band x while taking no interest in any quality output from white kid band y. The problem then with no local scene is that bands focus on those avenues and become this wishy-washy crap we see today.
Now the bonus point - thanks to
eot
for making a salient point with this video.
The quantisation thing is something I'd not particularly considered but he's right. Rock music's selling point vs electronic music is that it has a feel, a groove, created by humans. Take that away and you effectively tie rock's hands behind its back, unable to use its strongest weapon to fight against electronica (now I absolutely love some electronica, don't get me wrong, but I also love a bit of rock too).
And that's how guitar music died.
My first considerations are social. Kids don't get together to play guitars in a garage anymore. The spaces to practice aren't available for cheap, and in the UK few houses are big enough. Kids can't practice in a garage if nobody has one and people are more inclined to complain about noise than in my youth. I remember when I was 20 I had a flat (apartment to you Americans) and a drum kit, guitars, amps, trumpet, mics, etc and used to have bands over and do recording work with them. Amazingly I got away with it. My neighbours were incredibly tolerant, but that was 2000 and I don't think that would fly anymore.
But back to the point, kids aren't getting together to play instruments anymore. This is partly due to them wanting to be social media stars, partly that they're not as social physically anymore focusing on phones, partly that instruments are expensive and kids aren't going out and earning pocket money in the ways they used to, a whole range of things.
Now the next consideration is that expense aspect. It feels like guitar shops are now catering to dads having mid-life crises rather than trying to sell guitars to young nutters who want to make noise. All the expensive gear is great but it's not exactly pocket money. On the other hand, you can rap over some backing track with very little gear. Why invest all that money?
Next up - where the fucking hell do you play? I was fortunate in my 20s to play some wonderful venues and have some great (and some utterly shit booed off the stage) gigs. I learned so much from each gig, but those opportunities don't exist anymore. Not one place I played in the 00s still exists, and nothing came up to replace them. Bands learn their trade doing these gigs, but if you take that away there's no pipeline for new bands to start up, no places for them to gather and watch each other, form scenes as they try to compete with each other, borrow ideas, etc.
We have a music industry gutted by Spotify, Youtube et al. For all their faults, the labels had to maintain a pipeline and they did, they'd have A&R people scouting venues all over, but with most of the money now coming from long-tail streaming income from the bigger artists, there's no incentive to focus on new young artists. Add to that a band has to split that tiny spotify income 4/5 ways, and in 2020 they can't make money touring, and it's all fucked.
I also think that instrumentalists and singers have been devalued by a couple of things. First we have Youtube, where it turns out that there are loads of people who can play guitar lick x which is incredibly hard to play. Great. The problem is that almost all of them are soulless. But it doesn't matter - it devalues the currency of instrumental virtuosoism. Then you have X-Factor and the likes. It turns out loads of people can sing. Again, it's technically strong but fucking soulless. You'll never get a Bob Dylan on those kind of shows. So musicians now hold no currency, and where they exist they're noodling solo for TV or Youtube, fretwanking and caterwauling for the camera with no art.
Finally we have the problem of gatekeepers. 4 white kids with instruments aren't going to interest the BBC so they won't get on Radio 1 easily. The critics are mostly of a similar bent, fawning over the diversity of band x while taking no interest in any quality output from white kid band y. The problem then with no local scene is that bands focus on those avenues and become this wishy-washy crap we see today.
Now the bonus point - thanks to
eot
for making a salient point with this video.The quantisation thing is something I'd not particularly considered but he's right. Rock music's selling point vs electronic music is that it has a feel, a groove, created by humans. Take that away and you effectively tie rock's hands behind its back, unable to use its strongest weapon to fight against electronica (now I absolutely love some electronica, don't get me wrong, but I also love a bit of rock too).
And that's how guitar music died.
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Kev Kev
Member
he started it, lol
lock2k
Banned
I think you have a lot of valid points but, at the same time, there are several white kids bands that have millions of views with new songs on YouTube: A Day To Remember, Falling in Reverse, Asking Alexandria, Bring me the Horizon, Motionless in White, From Ashes to New, I Prevail, Ghost, and many others. I know a lot of people will say "oh, that's a load of horseshit, or "it ain't real rock" or stuff like that. I grew up listening to rock in the 80's and 90's and I'm very open to a lot of new stuff (let's say I'm addicted to distorted guitars). There's also a huge djent movement of young kids playing guitars better than any guitar hero could 30 years ago in their bedrooms. Guitar, as an instrument, developed more in the last 15 years than it ever did in history with ERGs, different scales, the Line-6 Variax (Twelve Foot Ninja does an incredible job with this simulator guitar).So I have a few thoughts on this, and one post in this thread did prompt me to think a little more on the topic and I'll get to that at the end, but first my main thoughts on the topic. Tbh my post is likely to be a bit UK-centric but some of it will transpose to the US.
My first considerations are social. Kids don't get together to play guitars in a garage anymore. The spaces to practice aren't available for cheap, and in the UK few houses are big enough. Kids can't practice in a garage if nobody has one and people are more inclined to complain about noise than in my youth. I remember when I was 20 I had a flat (apartment to you Americans) and a drum kit, guitars, amps, trumpet, mics, etc and used to have bands over and do recording work with them. Amazingly I got away with it. My neighbours were incredibly tolerant, but that was 2000 and I don't think that would fly anymore.
But back to the point, kids aren't getting together to play instruments anymore. This is partly due to them wanting to be social media stars, partly that they're not as social physically anymore focusing on phones, partly that instruments are expensive and kids aren't going out and earning pocket money in the ways they used to, a whole range of things.
Now the next consideration is that expense aspect. It feels like guitar shops are now catering to dads having mid-life crises rather than trying to sell guitars to young nutters who want to make noise. All the expensive gear is great but it's not exactly pocket money. On the other hand, you can rap over some backing track with very little gear. Why invest all that money?
Next up - where the fucking hell do you play? I was fortunate in my 20s to play some wonderful venues and have some great (and some utterly shit booed off the stage) gigs. I learned so much from each gig, but those opportunities don't exist anymore. Not one place I played in the 00s still exists, and nothing came up to replace them. Bands learn their trade doing these gigs, but if you take that away there's no pipeline for new bands to start up, no places for them to gather and watch each other, form scenes as they try to compete with each other, borrow ideas, etc.
We have a music industry gutted by Spotify, Youtube et al. For all their faults, the labels had to maintain a pipeline and they did, they'd have A&R people scouting venues all over, but with most of the money now coming from long-tail streaming income from the bigger artists, there's no incentive to focus on new young artists. Add to that a band has to split that tiny spotify income 4/5 ways, and in 2020 they can't make money touring, and it's all fucked.
I also think that instrumentalists and singers have been devalued by a couple of things. First we have Youtube, where it turns out that there are loads of people who can play guitar lick x which is incredibly hard to play. Great. The problem is that almost all of them are soulless. But it doesn't matter - it devalues the currency of instrumental virtuosoism. Then you have X-Factor and the likes. It turns out loads of people can sing. Again, it's technically strong but fucking soulless. You'll never get a Bob Dylan on those kind of shows. So musicians now hold no currency, and where they exist they're noodling solo for TV or Youtube, fretwanking and caterwauling for the camera with no art.
Finally we have the problem of gatekeepers. 4 white kids with instruments aren't going to interest the BBC so they won't get on Radio 1 easily. The critics are mostly of a similar bent, fawning over the diversity of band x while taking no interest in any quality output from white kid band y. The problem then with no local scene is that bands focus on those avenues and become this wishy-washy crap we see today.
Now the bonus point - thanks to
The quantisation thing is something I'd not particularly considered but he's right. Rock music's selling point vs electronic music is that it has a feel, a groove, created by humans. Take that away and you effectively tie rock's hands behind its back, unable to use its strongest weapon to fight against electronica (now I absolutely love some electronica, don't get me wrong, but I also love a bit of rock too).
And that's how guitar music died.
We had garage bands in the 90's, I had a lot of them in my house, we would do festivals. I miss that warmth as well. That culture is also gone here in Brazil and here the young kids listen to styles that kids from 30 years ago would beat the crap out of the current ones if they had time machines (funk, which is only funk by name, in reality it is a load of horseshit based on miami bass and sertanejo, our version of country, which is the most despicable shit ever). I'll never understand why it go so big, but it did, so here things are even worse for rock.
Yet, we have the most successful commercial rock radio on the planet with millions of listeners (89: A Radio Rock). I don't think rock will ever be as mainstream as it once was but it has enough following to survive indefinitely. And also, most metal was always underground and it is always happening somewhere in some form (and it has huge festivals and followings). It has many fans, it's like a silent majority kind of thing (even though it isn't the majority,there are a crapload of metal fans worldwide and they get together for festivals often). I would guess there are a lot of closeted rock and metal fans out there
Surely they don't impress with billions of views, but these are new, current rock bands that have milions of views on YouTube. Some of them are on rock radio (which is not relevant) and they are invisible to the mainstream but they surely aren't dead.
That said, I love Rick Beato and I think he has a major point with quantizing. Fuck quantizing. I miss records being done without metronomes. The feel was much better.
lock2k
Banned
Another thing I was thinking... not even pop is as ubiquitous as it once was.
I may sound like Abe Simpson here, but hear me out. In the end of the 90's, my mom, was was considerably older than I am now, she knew about Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and it goes on and on.
3 months ago I was talking to my brother. He has two daughters (12 and 6) and he told me they are all about Now United.
I was like "WTF is this?" I mean, 20 years ago Pop was everywhere on TV and we were all watching the same TV, and the same channels (roughly) - the point is, you couldn't escape the pop phenomena of the time even if you didn't watch TV. It was everywhere.
I went for a long time without ever hearing about Now United, but they have millions of views and are a huge success among tweens and kids. Media is now so pulverized that I managed to never hear about it. Yesterday I even saw a girl at the park with a Now United mask,
This story is even funnier because I have a daughter too (she is 6) and she couldn't care less about pop music (in fact she hates it) - and a huge part of the influence of hearing rock all the time since she was born. lol
I may sound like Abe Simpson here, but hear me out. In the end of the 90's, my mom, was was considerably older than I am now, she knew about Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and it goes on and on.
3 months ago I was talking to my brother. He has two daughters (12 and 6) and he told me they are all about Now United.
I was like "WTF is this?" I mean, 20 years ago Pop was everywhere on TV and we were all watching the same TV, and the same channels (roughly) - the point is, you couldn't escape the pop phenomena of the time even if you didn't watch TV. It was everywhere.
I went for a long time without ever hearing about Now United, but they have millions of views and are a huge success among tweens and kids. Media is now so pulverized that I managed to never hear about it. Yesterday I even saw a girl at the park with a Now United mask,
This story is even funnier because I have a daughter too (she is 6) and she couldn't care less about pop music (in fact she hates it) - and a huge part of the influence of hearing rock all the time since she was born. lol
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lock2k
Banned
Yeah, exactly, we have thousands of niches right now. Before that everyone, for better or for worse, was tuned to MTV and radios and that created a sort of musical taste uniformity (with some outcasts).
GeorgPrime
Banned
I guess its just not "WOKE" enough with all their songs about Sex, Drugs & RocknRoll. Iam stll listening to the new stuff from Buckcherry and other groups but its just not mainstream anymore.
ANd then you get stuff like this:
ANd before i take thos wannabe rap feat. buckcherry shit i prefer it to stay quiet and listen to stuff like this
ANd then you get stuff like this:
ANd before i take thos wannabe rap feat. buckcherry shit i prefer it to stay quiet and listen to stuff like this
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Pol Pot
Banned
Word.
Streaming has(or is in the process of)killing the idea of an album imo. The album, to me, has always been a large part of rock, punk, metal... Whatever...
None of the bands I was in or around ever booked studio time to record a "single"...
College radio DJs pretty much decided what the single was.
As far as rock being dead... It's not. It's just not at the forefront of the mainstream. No musician I've ever been associated with ever gave a fuck about that.
Dark Star
Member
You have to dig pretty deep, but there are TONS of amazing "rock" musicians/bands from all kinds of backgrounds/races gaining popularity in 2020.
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lock2k
Banned
HE1NZ
Banned
Personally I think it was already dead back in the 90s. Classic rock musicians were all inspired by blues and country, the roots of rock and roll. Then in the 90s all those grunge stuff and hipster bands cut the roots and called it alternative rock. That's where it all went downhill.
Nymphae
Banned
I think punk improved in that era personally. Maybe it's a generational thing, I cannot fucking stand old school punk rock.
Pol Pot
Banned
Hulk_Smash
Banned
Glad you brought this up. The death of MTV, the album experience (because of going digital), and streaming have all contributed to the idea that rock is dead. And the new metrics to determine success (streaming numbers, download numbers, YouTube numbers) are harder to analyze and accept as real success.
Yet, all of the newer rock bands I’ve gotten into were all found on YouTube, not radio or TV. Dorothy, The Pretty Reckless, Black Stone Cherry, Walk off the Earth, Gary Clarke Jr are all artists I discovered streaming.
Rock Radio stations are sad though. They COULD play the new stuff but they don’t. They don’t even play new stuff from legacy bands. It’s insane to me. It’s like they are trying not to attract new listeners.
Nymphae
Banned
It's kind of sad that the assumption is if it isn't in the mainstream it's not worthwhile. Almost the opposite of reality as far as I'm concerned.
Super Mario
Banned
Just like everything else in our media. To push more minorities and women. Rock music was too much of a white guy thing. It's a shame really. Classic rock never goes away. The newest R&B song is old news in a few months.