WILL ROCK BECOME EXTINCT ONCE THE LEGENDS DIE OFF?
Damon Linker of The Week reports:
Rock music isn’t dead, but it’s barely hanging on. This is true in at least two senses.
Though popular music sales in general have plummeted since their peak around the turn of the millennium, certain genres continue to generate commercial excitement: pop, rap, hip-hop, country. But rock — amplified and often distorted electric guitars, bass, drums, melodic if frequently abrasive lead vocals, with songs usually penned exclusively by the members of the band — barely registers on the charts.
There are still important rock musicians making music in a range of styles — Canada’s Big Wreck excels at sophisticated progressive hard rock, for example, while the more subdued American band Dawes artfully expands on the soulful songwriting that thrived in California during the 1970s. But these groups often toil in relative obscurity, selling a few thousand records at a time, performing to modest-sized crowds in clubs and theaters.
But there’s another sense in which rock is very nearly dead: Just about every rock legend you can think of is going to die within the next decade or so…
…Behold the killing fields that lie before us: Bob Dylan (78 years old); Paul McCartney (77); Paul Simon (77) and Art Garfunkel (77); Carole King (77); Brian Wilson (77); Mick Jagger (76) and Keith Richards (75); Joni Mitchell (75); Jimmy Page (75) and Robert Plant (71); Ray Davies (75); Roger Daltrey (75) and Pete Townshend (74); David Gilmour (73); Rod Stewart (74); Eric Clapton (74); Debbie Harry (74); Neil Young (73); Van Morrison (73); Bryan Ferry (73); Elton John (72); Don Henley (72); James Taylor (71); Jackson Browne (70); Billy Joel (70); and Bruce Springsteen (69, but turning 70 next month)…
…From the beginning, rock music has been an expression of defiance, an assertion of youthful vitality and excess and libido against the ravages of time and maturity….
…Rock music was always a popular art made and consumed by ordinary, imperfect people. The artists themselves were often self-taught, absorbing influences from anywhere and everywhere, blending styles in new ways, pushing against their limitations as musicians and singers, taking up and assimilating technological innovations as quickly as they appeared. Many aspired to art — in composition, record production, and performance — but to reach it they had to ascend up and out of the muck from which they started.
Before rock emerged from rhythm and blues in the late 1950s, and again since it began its long withdrawing roar in the late 1990s, the norm for popular music has been songwriting and record production conducted on the model of an assembly line. This is usually called the “Brill Building” approach to making music, named after the building in midtown Manhattan where leading music industry offices and studios were located in the pre-rock era. Professional songwriters toiled away in small cubicles, crafting future hits for singers who made records closely overseen by a team of producers and corporate drones. Today, something remarkably similar happens in pop and hip-hop, with song files zipping around the globe to a small number of highly successful songwriters and producers who add hooks and production flourishes in order to generate a team-built product that can only be described as pristine, if soulless, perfection.
This is music created by committee and consensus, actively seeking the largest possible audience as an end in itself. Rock (especially as practiced by the most creatively ambitious bands of the mid-1960s: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and the Beach Boys) shattered this way of doing things, and for a few decades, a new model of the rock auteur prevailed….rock bands and individual rock stars were given an enormous amount of creative freedom, and the best of them used every bit of it. They wrote their own music and lyrics, crafted their own arrangements, experimented with wildly ambitious production techniques, and oversaw the design of their album covers, the launching of marketing campaigns, and the conjuring of increasingly theatrical and decadent concert tours.
This doesn’t mean there was no corporate oversight or outside influence on rock musicians. Record companies and professional producers and engineers were usually at the helm, making sure to protect their reputations and investments. Yet to an astonishing degree, the artists got their way…
…Like all monumental acts of creativity, the artists were driven by an aspiration to transcend their own finitude, to create something of lasting value, something enduring that would live beyond those who created it…
…It was all a lie, but it was a beautiful one. The rock stars’ days are numbered. They are going to die, as will we all. No one gets out alive. When we mourn the passing of the legends and the tragic greatness of what they’ve left behind for us to enjoy in the time we have left, we will also be mourning for ourselves.
Read more at The Week.
Well, unfortunately, for whatever reason (politics) rock music in America has been put on the back burner. But from what I hear, it’s just as strong, maybe even stronger than ever in alot of other countries. There are young people out there that listen to and love rock music, but today if you do (because of politics and media) it’s not cool or the “hip” thing to do. Rock & Roll can’t be controlled, unlike this so called pop sh-t today, so how do the “powers that be” control young people? There you go. Maybe my theory is way off, but I don’t think so, especially after hearing from my younger relatives about all the unbelievable sh-t that’s been going on in the schools the last 10 years or so.
Actually,
You’re right, it seems it is still big in Japan and South America.
D 🙂
Dana, I want to respond to your comment about rock and metal’s popularity in Japan, because a.) I just got back from there (and have spent a lot of time there over the past 25 years) and b.) there was a story making the rounds recently about Marty Friedman saying metal’s popularity in Japan is exaggerated.
The HMV in Kobe in the 90s was selling 90% western music and the rest Japanese; now it’s the reverse. The metal was a tiny section of that.
You see the same thing going on in the famous Japanese metal magazine Burrn!. They have for the last few years been devoting more coverage to indigenous metal bands. It used to be that fans in that country used to listen either to foreign bands or to homegrown ones, but not both. That’s now changing, and the change means less attention to the bands singing in English.
As depressing as that may be for the western bands depending on the Japanese market, Tower Records in Osaka seems to be meeting a need HMV isn’t. Just like the old days, they had a significantly large section devoted to foreign metal, something they didn’t have for any other genre.
To me the really telling point is that, again, just like the old days, their CD listening station had all the sub-genres well represented. On the day I was there, I could check new releases by Killswitch, Destruction, Ian Gillan/Don Airey, Graham Bonnet, Fair Warning, Floating Worlds, Quantice, Duff MacKagan, and Volbeat.
Until the local bands pushed out the foreigners for coverage, Burrn! was the same way. They really did treat all sub-genres respectfully. I would say that approach keeps the fans engaged so if they tire or grow out of one type, having a different kind of heavy close by keeps their overall metal allegiance.
That’s my thought anyway.
Thank you for that insight.
Rock music is still popular overseas because Country music isn’t. Until people start realizing that Country music is what is killing Rock music (and rock musicians ignoring the need to be marketable), it’ll remain dead in the US
Abrasive vocals any pop moron from Ed Sheerin, to Justine Bieber, is abrasive to me. Younger people today are spoiled little tw-ts that treat music as disposable. Talk about killing fields, listen to Z100. I am forced to listen to it every time my wife drives, they play some nonsense dopa do da do sound drives me insane.
Justine Bieber-LOL!!
Unless you’re a 6 year old girl, I can’t imagine anybody listening to Justin Beaver!
Not a typo Dana
LOL!!!
Mastering your instrument, writing songs that move people beyond 15 minutes after they hear it, and delivering that performance live (for real) is becoming a lost art. I remember listening to entire albums from beginning to end, looking at the bands album cover and really wanting to know more about the band. This is an interesting article. I particularly like the line saying “rock bands and individual rock stars were given an enormous amount of creative freedom, and the best of them used every bit of it. They wrote their own music and lyrics, crafted their own arrangements, experimented with wildly ambitious production techniques, and oversaw the design of their album covers, the launching of marketing campaigns, and the conjuring of increasingly theatrical and decadent concert tours.”
Each album made a statement about where the band was coming from at that time. Even the “non-hits” were good (Aerosmith , Queen and Cheap Trick come to mind here). I also believe the old method of the band getting together in the studio at the same time and recording the songs together had something to do with the final sound and overall feel of the record. I really wonder where “Rock” will be in 20 years.
Amen! I still try to do this at some point soon after I’ve purchased a new album, no matter the era. It’s a ritual of sorts.
Spot on T…I pity the poor fool who does not like your post.
For me, it was the music of Kiss, Elton John and Yes….Cannot tell you how many times I played side one of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Going for the One….amongst others.
Once the legends go…It truly will be a sad day for music.
Wonder who will carry the torch? I see no one…..
Excellent points, T. I think today’s young generation is more interested in technology, rather than learning to play an instrument, in order to make music. Rock music needs guitarists and drummers to inspire the young generation. We don’t have these “heros” anymore. Also, bands don’t deliver music via vinyl anymore. Vinyl allowed for just the perfect amount of space for music delivery, which gave just the right amount of music time to capture the listener. I think today’s music delivery allows for too much music to be delivered to listeners, and with today’s young generation, listeners get bored more quickly. Listening to vinyl used to be an experience, not so much for today’s listener with the way music delivery has changed.
Considering people still go to concerts to hear music written by Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, I’d say the music will be around forever. The magic of seeing the artist (that wrote it) performing it live will be gone.
Excellent point, but I have to ask, where are the rock equivalents of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, today?
Look at the likes of Hendrix, or Freddie Mercury. They’re more popular today than when they were here. Slightly off subject but I want to mention, I keep hearing of this Elvis impersonator that plays nursing homes. So in 40 years, there will probably be Metallica tributes playing retirement communities.
LOL!!! That thought is quite amusing, they could be called Geriatrica. 😉
Rock will last at least another 30 – 40years, cause nutter’s like me and the rest of us on this board will be around to want and need it. I think it will cycle back through in the next 10-15 years. Hope Im lucky enough to see it evolve. Jazz and Classical music still has it’s place in the world, too. Rock’s not going anywhere. That’s me, though, eh. Thanks for the article Dana. ;o}=