Is rock music still alive? Or is it hidden in its shell?

Chile
June 1, 2012 11:47pm CST
In recent years we've seen a sharp decline of popularity of Rock music, especially in commercial terms. In addition, we've seen how younger generations have quickly turned into Pop/Hip Hop/Electro, thus leaving Rock as a secondary genre. I don't want to blame youngsters for that, because it's a senseless effort to come out and write something like "the newer generations are totally lost because they just listen to rubbish artists"; on the very contrary, I think it's time for rock fans and musicians, as I am, to face our own part of our fault in this situation. And I think the biggest reason is the fact that Rock, in most of the cases, lost the contact with the wild side of life, with the everyday stuff, just to hide into its own world. Ok, you might think "but rock acts still attract large crowds to their live gigs", and then you can list many of the classic bands. However, that's not the point. The thing is the fact that there's no overwhelming refreshing bands that can take on the world, unlike previous decades. We don't see any Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Ramones, Guns 'n Roses, Nirvana, just to name a few. And I think I know the reason. All of those bands were children of their respective time. Each of one caught the feeling and the fever from the times they were around; thus people felt identified with them, and the rest is history. At the moment, as of 2012, I haven't heard yet any Rock band from this century dealing with out times' matters and issues in the way the forementioned bands did. It seems they aren't only hidden inside a cave, a shell or a bunker, but also hidden in their own personal world. They attract an audience, of course, but it's strictly a niche audience. And it seems it's OK for such bands, who also seem to be afraid of attracting a more crossover audience, unlike the classic bands, who were actually the like of different audiences. We already have a period, 2011 and the first half of 2012, full of protests around the globe, such as the Arab Spring, the 15-M movement in Spain, Occupy Wall Street and the students protests in countries like Chile and Canada (Quebec), maybe an ideal situation for the rise of generational icons in popular music, a role that Rock used to play very well in the past. However, there are no Rock act dealing with such topics in the best way the classics did: directly. Another reason -actually part of the main one, is songwriting. It seems that the harder the first listen, the best...and the leser catchy the tune, the more "artistic". The explanation for this is that a catchy tune may sound "way too commercial". I strongly disagree with it. Most of the biggest Rock classic songs are very catchy songs; they had good lyrics, but they were also very catchy, and that's how those tunes turned into generational and everlasting anthems. I haven't heard such anthem in this early 21st century generation of Rock musicians. The combination of all those elements leads to the most important fact: no kid, youngster, or whatever you call them, feels generationally identified with current Rock acts, a key element to keep a music genre alive. And it's not a very useful thing to show them the classics in order to make kinds feel strongly identified with in generational terms. Ok, one thing is to show them the classic bands and expecting they like a bunch of songs from them, but a very different thing is to expect a teenager claiming something like "Led Zeppelin is the voice of my generation". That's impossible. Every generation has its icons, and when older generations impose their icons to the newer ones, against these last's will, then they just start killing a music style or an entire genre. And that's what's happening to Rock nowadays. I'll post a new discussion with my two cents about how this genre can overcome this moment. Now it's time to see what do you think about this issue.
1 person likes this
1 response
@teamfreak16 (43419)
• Denver, Colorado
24 Mar 16
The only band dealing with issues off the top of my head was Rage Against the Machine. That's an interesting topic.