Is Rock dying or already dead?

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mkopec

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So ive been hearing this around the net and news media for a while now. Rock is dead or dying, or even that its already dead. I was born in the early 70s, grew up in the 80s and 90s when rock was at its pinnacle. Groups like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, just to name a few, with their singers and guitarists being household names. Tony Iomi, Eddie Van Halen, to the more recent 90s stars like Jerry Cantrell. Of course these are just the tip of the iceberg. There were many household names which drove the entire music industry, and drove kids to buy gutars and learn, to be the next generation of rockers. Think about how many electric guitars were sold because of Eddie van Halen in the 80s, how many stars were born because of Jimmy Page in he 70s or Hendrix.

So where is the modern Eddie Van Halen? Where is the Jimmy Page, the Jimi Hendrix? The Bon Jovi? there is rock bands still out there making music, sure, some even quite successful, but they are all unknowns. Who knows the name of of any one of the members of any of the 2K NU Rock, or NU metal bands unless you are REALLY a hard core fanboy?

Seems to me that these days music is being dominated by EDM and Hip Hop, with a full sprinkling of shit pop acts. Most music today is pretty much all made with DAW (Digital Audio workstation) programs which have the means of auto aligning everything to a perfect time, a perfect metronome. So you play a riff on the guitar, slightly out of time, no worries! That DAW will perfectly align it. There is no soul left in music, there is no more tight bands which practiced together for years, perfected their craft, their sound, which record shit on analog tape and while being perfectly int he pocket, not being "computer perfect" so it sounds almost fake. And take my word for it, you can tell the difference, anyone can. Even underground music like the myriad of Death Metal genres are all dominated by the DAW instead of old school practice, practice, and maybe we can too play some intricately technical shit one day. Even some of the drummers are fake. Playing on pads super soft, recording it into DAW software where they are infinitely tweaked, sped up, tweaked and replaced with real drum samples. The guitars are sometimes comprised of 20+ tracks to make one song. How do these bands even play live?

And because of this the electric guitar industry is dying. down some 30% in the past decade. No one is buying electric guitars anymore. Major companies like Gibson are in trouble, granted not just because of guitar sales but other shit decisions they made, but still.

So what do you think? Is rock dead? Never to see a resurgance? Will it come back with some new "scene" somwhere int he world like we had in the 90s and grunge?
 
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chaos

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The modern Jimmy Page is probably Jack White, and he's doing some weirdo experimental shit. I think calling Jerry Cantrell a household name is taking it a bit far.

I have trouble finding good rock music, but it's out there. Maybe not as mainstream as it once was, but it will stick around. I run across bands all the time that have been around for years but just weren't on my radar, so there's plenty of stuff going on.
 

Needless

Toe Sucker
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Read title as "Is the Rock..."

Opened it up, very relieved

me too man, NOT DWAYNE JOHNSON.. oh whew.

on topic, no i wouldn't say rock is dead. However the 'classic' styled rock probably is, with a few exceptions of modern bands like greta van fleet keeping that old school sound.
 
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Alex

Still a Music Elitist
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Rock isn't Top 40 and probably won't be for a long time with the current musicscape, but there is a good amount of really good rock out there. Some with household names like Muse and Matt Bellamy, My Morning Jacket and Jim James, Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme. These are all arena bands. Foo Fighters aren't really my thing, but all those other acts are outstanding and showcase some great musicianship - especially Muse. Matt Bellamy is a fucking rockstar.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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The modern Jimmy Page is probably Jack White, and he's doing some weirdo experimental shit. I think calling Jerry Cantrell a household name is taking it a bit far.

I have trouble finding good rock music, but it's out there. Maybe not as mainstream as it once was, but it will stick around. I run across bands all the time that have been around for years but just weren't on my radar, so there's plenty of stuff going on.

Ok, maybe Jerry Cantrell is taking it a bit far, but there were countless others with household names, like Clapton, Keith Richards, Slash, Nikki Sixx, Randy Rhoads, Alex Lifeson, Billy Corgan....

I mean, do you even know who the guitar or singer of Three Days Grace is? Probably the most famous of the modern new rock.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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As long as Stabbing Westward is making music Rock can never die!!!

Wait...
 
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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Ok, maybe Jerry Cantrell is taking it a bit far, but there were countless others with household names, like Clapton, Keith Richards, Slash, Nikki Sixx, Randy Rhoads, Alex Lifeson, Billy Corgan....

I mean, do you even know who the guitar or singer of Three Days Grace is? Probably the most famous of the modern new rock.

These dudes are from your neck of the woods... This came out last November.

 
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pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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it goes through phases. i actually think rock is on an upswing now, there's lots of good new bands on Z93 or 89X these days.
 

Lanx

Oye Ve
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This thread confirms

more ppl care about this Rock
dwayne-johnson-jokes-about-baywatch-movie-bad-reviews.jpg


Over this Rock

or JRock?
 
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Alex

Still a Music Elitist
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I mean, do you even know who the guitar or singer of Three Days Grace is? Probably the most famous of the modern new rock.

You serious with this? I haven't heard anything about them in like 10 years.
 
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pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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hell, even Lizzie Hale is a pretty common name, and Halestorm is not a big band at all

and you've got Jared Leto on the radio every day with 30 Seconds to Mars

Taylor Momsen from Pretty Wreckless is well known among younger people for her acting roles from before the band started
 

MusicForFish

Ultra Maga Instinct
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All of the good stuff is underground now.
The world rock scene is pretty awesome, but you need to dig for the music.
The scene isn't being given anywhere near the coverage they should.
Prog rock, stoner rock, desert rock, multitudes of bands blending all sorts of different genres together and making some good one hit wonders.
It will be a fuckin epic day when one of these bands makes it big and pulls the genre back into the spotlight.
The current Main Stream / Pop rock is hopefully dying and dead.
Bring in the new breed.
It's time for a revolution folks.
I'll post examples later.
Work, Work.
 
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Lendarios

Trump's Staff
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Incoming rant.



It's a shame that the modern-day music requires less and less technical / physical skills from the performer, and by this I mean the capacity to create music from very basic devices; and instead rely on the electric prerecording of frequencies, or the creation of frequencies without any physical strain.



For example take this, the opening song from Gankutsuou, a beautiful and tearful piano arrangement combined with sad vocals( one of my favorites anime songs)

Piano only




and compare it to this


a same computer-generated arrangement



My point is the level of effort and skill to do the first one is of degrees of magnitudes higher than the second one. It is physically tiring to do the piano arrangement and its not like you can rewind to a saved version when u fuck up, you have to continue trucking.

For the second one you can just continue trying until you get the right pitch/frequency.



It fucking sucks, for example Aviici a good EDM creator admitted that he didn’t know how to play a musical instrument. He had no idea about what makes music , music.

Overall I think that a regular guitar sounds better than an electric guitar, (cultural difference) but I acknowledge and appreciate that an electric guitar player has to spend years, training his fingers, learning musical tempo, different musical notes, and more important they know how to read and write music. That is for me what a musician is; someone who creates music.

Also the ability to write out what the music on paper is a very important part for me. I appreciate more that a traditional musician every time he has to perform, he starts from zero, and recreates to the best of his abilities the music, and it varies, sometimes the live version sucks, sometimes is amazing, It is all part of the process/experience.

I don’t understand why people go to EDM concerts, the guy on stage is not doing anything, most of the things if not everything is prerecorded.



Anyways EDM is not bad, some of it its pleasing, but it’s a completely different animal than music
 
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Alex

Still a Music Elitist
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There's some serious old man get off my lawning going on here.

But I also don't respect EDM. It's garbage.
 
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ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Three Days Grace is? Probably the most famous of the modern new rock.
Wat?
Incoming rant.



It's a shame that the modern-day music requires less and less technical / physical skills from the performer, and by this I mean the capacity to create music from very basic devices; and instead rely on the electric prerecording of frequencies, or the creation of frequencies without any physical strain.



For example take this, the opening song from Gankutsuou, a beautiful and tearful piano arrangement combined with sad vocals( one of my favorites anime songs)

Piano only




and compare it to this


a same computer-generated arrangement



My point is the level of effort and skill to do the first one is of degrees of magnitudes higher than the second one. It is physically tiring to do the piano arrangement and its not like you can rewind to a saved version when u fuck up, you have to continue trucking.

For the second one you can just continue trying until you get the right pitch/frequency.



It fucking sucks, for example Aviici a good EDM creator admitted that he didn’t know how to play a musical instrument. He had no idea about what makes music , music.

Overall I think that a regular guitar sounds better than an electric guitar, (cultural difference) but I acknowledge and appreciate that an electric guitar player has to spend years, training his fingers, learning musical tempo, different musical notes, and more important they know how to read and write music. That is for me what a musician is; someone who creates music.

Also the ability to write out what the music on paper is a very important part for me. I appreciate more that a traditional musician every time he has to perform, he starts from zero, and recreates to the best of his abilities the music, and it varies, sometimes the live version sucks, sometimes is amazing, It is all part of the process/experience.

I don’t understand why people go to EDM concerts, the guy on stage is not doing anything, most of the things if not everything is prerecorded.



Anyways EDM is not bad, some of it its pleasing, but it’s a completely different animal than music
You're aren't separating the creation and performance of music. You can be a monster when it comes to playing an instrument, but not be able to write a good original piece to save your ass.

There's definitely overlap, but they definitely aren't synonymous.
 

pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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There's some serious old man get off my lawning going on here.

But I also don't respect EDM. It's garbage.

I'm 31, I was pretty young when EDM started :p. Used to be kind of involved in the scene but just for the crowd, not the music. Even know some people that work for Electric Forest.