• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Is Rock and Roll Dead???

Status
Not open for further replies.
spideyjack said:
I'm pretty sure Train is the modern equivalent of Journey, Styx and Reo
Click to expand...

If so, I'm thankful never to have heard them. I must say my interest in modern day rock is limited to a few bands (e.g., Black Keys, Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, Spoon, The Strokes) and I find myself more intrigued by the somewhat amorphous genre called Americana and other forms of roots music (Cape Breton Celtic has caught my attention after a recent trip to Nova Scotia).
 
Jack Lord (replying to JohnVF) said:
Now, back on topic. The way you describe today's scene could be a description of Jazz today. There is the Marsallis family, a few of the old guard (Jamal, Brubeck), and a host of lesser known but decent musicians. It is a far cry from the heyday when Miles, Dizzy, Monk, etc were everywhere.

I submit again that Rock is a niche art form.
Click to expand...
I might completely agree with your overall reasoning, but calling rock a "niche art form" is just crazy. Our music and really all of our culture is soaked in it, whether the apex of the genre is long past or not. Nerdcore is a niche, Christian ska is a niche, katajjaq is a niche. Rock is so big we don't even know where the edges are.
 
JohnVF said:
I was just using them as one example, more a metaphor so I wouldn't have to say "all these bands from the '70s" over and over. Its not an attempt to just go after Cream. That I don't care for them is no comment on their worth or popularity to somebody else. I used to like them....first song my high school garage band did was White Room.

As I said...there's not going to be any chance, not one in a thousand, that there will be more bands in 2012 that sound like 1972, than there were in 1972. If that is the type of music you are specifically after, then by all means, find it in those bands from 1972, or 73 or 69 or whatever. I like music from a bunch of time periods and like bands from the '70s as bands from the '70s and don't need to see that in today's music. I spent all last night listening to Lee Hazlewood. There's nothing today that sounds like that. Wait, Tindersticks....Tindersticks sounds like Lee Hazlewood. But some things are just of their own time and place, and trying to recreate them is pointless when you can just go to the source, and then enjoy whatever is new and different as well, as something else.
Click to expand...

That is more or less true, but still strays from the point. I am not speaking of a particular sound- the Moody Blues, Zombies, Cream, Stones, and the Who-- just to name a few examples-- all released great material in 1967 and none of them sounded alike. None of them.

I am speaking more of how prolific rock was then and in later years. You had album after album that was considered spectacular. It was a virtual explosion.

Rock was an art form characterized by exploration, innovation, excitment, and crossing of quantity and quality.

2012 is, by constrast, well...rather dull in comparison. Hey, if you can convince me that this year is as good as 1967, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1985, etc, I am all ears. I would like to believe otherwise, but I am not convinced.
:no:
 
It's as fresh and exciting but not in a way that I think would align with what you most appreciate. But it's true, it was kore of a blank canvas back then.
 
dumptruck said:
I might completely agree with your overall reasoning, but calling rock a "niche art form" is just crazy. Our music and really all of our culture is soaked in it, whether the apex of the genre is long past or not. Nerdcore is a niche, Christian ska is a niche, katajjaq is a niche. Rock is so big we don't even know where the edges are.
Click to expand...

I think not.

Hip Hop and whatever that atrocious pop I hear everywhere seems to dominate. There are rock bands out there, as JohnVF correctly reminds us. However, they do not dominate the the temper of the times, the musical Zeitgeist if you will, like Elvis, the Stones, or even Nirvana once did.

JohnVF also seems to be saying there is good stuff out there if only you look for it. He is probably correct. My rebuttal is simply that once upon a time, you did not have to search for it as it was front and center.
 
JohnVF said:
It's as fresh and exciting but not in a way that I think would align with what you most appreciate. But it's true, it was kore of a blank canvas back then.
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. My tastes are pretty eclectic-- off the wall in some ways.

It might be that rock is a victim of its own success. I mean in a way, it has all be done. How many new combos can there be left? Even Nirvana, to my ears at least, was a merging of Zeppelin and Punk.

There is notable lack of excitment. Back in the day, a DJ would play something from a new album and it would be Ziggy Stardust. Now a DJ, or rather the corporate programmer, will disdain the new album in favor of playing...Ziggy Stardust for the upteenth time.
 
Jack Lord said:
I think not.

Hip Hop and whatever that atrocious pop I hear everywhere seems to dominate. There are rock bands out there, as JohnVF correctly reminds us. However, they do not dominate the the temper of the times, the musical Zeitgeist if you will, like Elvis, the Stones, or even Nirvana once did.

JohnVF also seems to be saying there is good stuff out there if only you look for it. He is probably correct. My rebuttal is simply that once upon a time, you did not have to search for it as it was front and center.
Click to expand...

I am leaning hard on the age of sixty. I would say that by 1970, I needed to search out rock music to find examples that I found original and appealing, and there (obviously) was no internet to make it easy. A very limited percentage of that which was "front and center" pushed my buttons. I found the rest lacking merit, if not repulsive.
 
kneeOhFight said:
I am leaning hard on the age of sixty. I would say that by 1970, I needed to search out rock music to find examples that I found original and appealing, and there (obviously) was no internet to make it easy. A very limited percentage of that which was "front and center" pushed my buttons. I found the rest lacking merit, if not repulsive.
Click to expand...

To each his own, but that puts Who's Next, Sticky Fingers, Ziggy Stardist, Harvest, Eat a Peach, New Morning, Washington County, Layla, and many others into a pretty funny light.
 
Did 60 year old guys in 1969 love Led Zepplin I ? I think not. Case closed.

And i will 2nd the fact that Clapton is overrated.
 
jefrodigital said:
Did 60 year old guys in 1969 love Led Zepplin I ? I think not. Case closed.

And i will 2nd the fact that Clapton is overrated.
Click to expand...

I doubt that there were many, but, I expect there were a few. I'm nearly 60, and when I listen to rock music, it is usually the work of Tool from 2001 onward, with some Mastodon and Opeth sprinkled in here and there.
 
jefrodigital said:
Did 60 year old guys in 1969 love Led Zepplin I ? I think not. Case closed.

And i will 2nd the fact that Clapton is overrated.
Click to expand...

Those same 60 year olds would have been 46 in 1955 when rock was getting off the ground.

Not exactly the typical demographic for rock & roll. Those guys would have likely hated Elvis and Little Richard. They would have thought Zeppelin were the four horseman of the apocalypse bent on subversion and defilement of their granddaughters.
 
I think its just how music has changed. Record labels no longer pay for a bands career. Allowing them to go 20+ albums. giving time to develop into something better. Even the greats has some rough early stuff. The bands that become big today are manufactured.

Is there still good stuff out there, Yes they just aren't the stadium sell outs of the past.
 
"Those same 60 year olds would have been 46 in 1955 when rock was getting off the ground.

Not exactly the typical demographic for rock & roll. Those guys would have likely hated Elvis and Little Richard. They would have thought Zeppelin were the four horseman of the apocalypse bent on subversion and defilement of their granddaughters."

What are you talking about ?
 
"Even the greats has some rough early stuff."

I would argue just the opposite. Many of the "greats" aren't worth listening to after their first two or three albums.
 
Andyman said:
Muse: Never heard of them, which seems to support my point...
Click to expand...

Careful...That comment does more harm to you than good. Muse is probably the biggest Rock outfit in the world at the moment, and they DO fit the mold of the great ones.

Tell me this isn't what this thread is reminiscing about (bear with the long intro... watch the thing... oh and turn that mutha UP!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O23CLZ3PkxA (If you don't have the patience start at 5:35 and watch the crowd explode at 6:25)

Oh and one more because this song puts me in the fightin' mood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYwOhrD0ABU

I saw them live in Toronto in 2010 - they wore me out - god damn they're a good band!
 
Last edited:
What does being spoon fed music on the radio have to do with it being good? I ain't never heard Nina Simone on pop radio, and she could kick all of it's collective ass.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom