Is Rock n' Roll Dead?

[Superfly]

I know it seems like a really depressing question but from what I've seen at my school people give you a funny look when you mention rock n' roll. Everyone either listens to rap, punk or boy bands and no longer do they appreciate good guitar work. I'm starting to wonder if I will ever hear a song like "Stairway to Heaven" again, something that will endure.I wanted to ask if anyone feels this way and what they think of it.

Superfly

[LuigiCabrini]

It's been the case for the last 40 years that if you mention jazz to anybody in high school they'll look at you funny, but jazz is not dead.
You are dealing with an enclosed society of high schoolers who like you say listen largely to boy bands, punk and rap; this is not a good sample to make judgements about the overall direction of music. If because they dont like rock that means rock is dead, than classical and jazz, as well as every type of ethnic music, is dead too. Listen to what you want, and be assured that as long as there are people like you, it will survive, who cares about how popular it is.

[jbroder]

we thought rock was dead when punk came out. but later punk became alternative, which is...uh...rock, mostly.

things go around in cycles, it seems. I think we will see the return of guitar rock in the next five years.

Of course, I have been predicting the return of Jordache jeans for a few years now.

[jake sommers]

yo JB, jordache ain't making a comeback, so throw em all away.

[Superfly]

Thanks for the encouragement. You're right when you say that as long as there is people like us it will survive.
Unlike Jordache jeans I have a strong feeling it will return although my post stated otherwise. It's only a matter of time until we return to the roots of Rock.

Superfly

[Zeppelin]

Just like you i'd like to believe rock will come back,
i'm not talking about rock'n'roll here... i'm talking about the rock ,as it used to be through the 60's and 70's...
i hope one day bands will remind me people like deep purple ,acdc , status quo and more ,and not metallica...
but i hope it won't be a mainstream... i mean i hate all those people in my age (highschool) that walking around with metallica t-shirts and saying how much they hate mtv cause it's "mainstream" and it's "too commercial" ... i hope they wont do the same with led zeppelin and deep purple t-shirst , if you know what i mean :)

[Superfly]

I know what you mean. I'm getting tired with all the same stuff. Songs aren't like they were when Hendrix and Zeppelin were around. Songs today don't have the enduring qualities that existed back in the day. They're here today and gone tomorrow. Look at groups like Blink182 and people like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. Who's gonna remeber them 20 years from know, they make me sick.

Superfly

[Zeppelin]

yeah that's really sad... i mean they had pop music 30 years ago, but then if you liked rock people didnt thought of u as a cat eater , as they do now...
but ... i dont believe people that like pop will ever like rock , but all those punkists and metalists here are giving up their music and starting to listen to old rock... so maybe one day it will return

[Guitarguy420]

Dont take this personally but I find people in school to be very closed minded. The majority of people listen to what is "popular" at the time. You'll notice people start forming thier own opinions after schools done and over.(At least I noticed it anyway.) As for stairway, anything is possible

[guitar_chick]

I'm a freshman at my high school and I know what you mean. Everything out there today is Korn... Limp Bizkit... BSB... Well, I"m tired of it. I'm gonna bring the real Rock 'n' Roll back! Haha... I'm not sure if thats possible, but I'm gonna try. Guitar playing today just aint like it used to be. Just watch... I'll be nother Jimi Hendrix.

[Guitarguy420]

good luck I hope it happens

[John O'Carroll]

Go get 'em guitar_chick. If you do get that good, you could use the stage name "Kimi Hendrix". I'm gratified to see that some of you younger people (I'm 45) can see past today's mostly fad music and getting in touch with the roots of rock.

[howie50]

As an oldie I love 60's and 70's rock but rock is not dying and it never will. It's good that young bands don't want to sound like Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple, there are a few young fogeys out there who just want to be revivalists, that's fine for them, if they all started to play retro rock where would we be, we need the innovators to come through to prevent music from becoming boring and repetitive. There are some great young talents out there, keep an open mind, don't get stuck in a musical rut.

[Zeppelin]

i dont agree with you , howie...
i think that almost no-one playing rock'n'roll music now...
most of the people that counted as a rock players just play low sorts of metall, and most of the people that listen to this music are wannabes.... all these people my age that hanging around in slayer and metallica t-shirt and laugh till the cry when i say i like ac/dc... i dont believe anyone of them will play reall rock anyway...

[James]

Howie, I agree that we need new talent and innovaters to keep music exciting, but I don't agree with you when you say there is a lot of young talent out there, or at least that it is being played. I'm talking now about MTV. Bands like Limp Bizkit and N'SYNC and Britney Spears, while playing quite contrasting styles of music, have one underlying thing in common: it's not about music, it's about image. wtf is britney spears so popular? Is she THAT talented of a singer or dancer? There are girls in my school who have better voices... or is it because she's young and gorgeous and gives lonely men something to dream about? (Someone who is way more talented and doesn't get anywhere near as much showtime is Alanis Morresette (anyone seen her live? her band rocks, the guitarist really knows how to play too)). Same goes for N'SYNC. As for Limp Bizkit, I give them some credit for at least still using instruments (it seems a lot of groups these days forgoe instruments entirely and simply use drum machines and synthesizers), but it's the same deal with them. Most people who listen to Limp don't get into the music, it's a status symbol. So that when they're cruising down the road with their bass turned up full blast listening to Limp, they can say to themselves, "I'm a real badass".

But I do agree that there is talent out there, and that just because they're not making epic rock songs or shredding at the speed of light that their music is any less worthy. For one, I really liked Rage Against the Machine (sad to see 'em go). They combined funk and rap and metal in an awesome way, and lyric wise, had real substance to them. Creed is a good band, sure they haven't written an equal to Stairway to Heaven, and sure they're on MTV every once in a while, but that doesn't mean that they can't be counted as a rock band. There's a ton of good music out there, and yes, every once in a while (extremely rarely) that music shows up on MTV. However, I don't count on seeing Al Di Meola, Kenny Wayne Sheppard or Vai on MTV anytime soon.

[LuigiCabrini]

I think that people are too pessimistic about the future of music. Sure, the albums selling the most are largely composed of crap. But does anybody cry about the death of literature when Steven King and Danielle Steele are outselling the classics by exponential ammounts? Pop culture is pop culture, and it always has been, and it always will be. I'd sooner talk about Britney Spears and the Spice Girls and BSB with respect to a global economy and the McDonaldization of the world than I would talk about them as musicians.
Intent is the key, and people who are making music for music's sake are by and large not going to make a lot of money because that's not what sells. Sometimes they do, there are exceptions to every rule, but when music is a commodity in the same way that a big mac is, expect it to be mass produced like one. People talk about how it used to be different. Classic rock fans look back to the 60s and 70s thinking that most people liked "real" music back then. You know what? The Partridge Family, Leif Garret, and the Monkees were thriving in that time, so don't tell me people didn't eat up mass produced pop crap with a spoon back then.
Ok, here's the happy part. There will always be people who love music for music's sake, and who continue to make music, regardless of what trend happens to be raking in the most money for HMV at the current time. So instead of worrying about the future of music, just listen to and play what you like. I'm a jazz fan/player, and I'm not worried about the death of jazz, even though each new Kenny G album outsells Mike Brecker and Pat Metheny's albums by millions. There will always be Kenny G's, but there will also always be John Coltranes, you just have to know where to look.

[Zeppelin]

Yeah luigi they did have bands like monkees in the 70's
and the disco golden era was somewhere there... but the main difference is that in the 70's a rock band on a world level was a rock band..... today we have blink 182....
i mean maybe it's just me but when i hear music i like i often think "wow how does he do this?!" but when i hear modern rock bands all i can think of is "i can write this s*** too".... i dont want to be pesemistic but come on....
rock music is just getting worst and it's not because of the pop music, but because almost no one listen to rock this day.... i mean reall rock... not sorts of funk or death meatall...

[LuigiCabrini]

What's wrong with funk? But really, of course that style of rock isn't popular anymore, find me a style of music that has continued to reach the top of the charts for over a decade and I'll be pretty surprised. Remember, even the bands you like, let's say Zeppelin, were subject to the whims of recording companies. What I mean is that if they weren't selling huge ammounts of records, they wouldn't have been able to continue to exist. As for modern rock sucking, sure it does, but that's the stuff on MTV and radio, why in the world would you make your judgements about the music that's out there today based on those media? In terms of rock, I would point you towards lesser known bands like Phish and String Cheese Incident and Aquarium Rescue Unit. Never heard of them, well you won't find them on MTV. Also, whether the music you like is popular should make absolutely NO DIFFERENCE to you. I don't complain about how nobody in my high school likes Miles Davis cause I don't expect them to, and I know that his music will live on whether or not teeny boppers buy it. Seriously I don't quite understand what you're complaining about. Even when bands like zeppelin were popular, most of their fans were just putting on whole lotta love at parties and letting it be background music IN THE SAME WAY that people use Blink182 today. While you may think there was a period when people knew what was going on, listened to good music, and appreciated it, looking at the large majority of the people in the country/world that has never been true. When people listened to zeppelin in the 70s, if you asked them why most of them would've given you the same half assed responses that you hear today for bands like Blink. Uh, it's got a good beat. Robert Plant is hot. I like that one song they have, you know, the long one, it's cool. Would you reather that everybody superficially liked zeppelin than everybody superficially likes blink?
Are you woried that the style will die out? Don't be, I'm not sure that any real style of music ever has. They just fade out of the limelight, which in some ways is good.

[Zeppelin]

Well actually i don't want music that i like to be popular with kids my age....because basicly what i was doing on the last 3 years is arguing with people that laughed on my musical tastes ... and i dont want that one day when i'll go to my musicial school to hear that everyone plays smoke on the water ,and not nothing else matters...but basiclly i tried to listen to metall and all the grinday-bands
and all i can say is "go back to the 70's" believe me i dont like all the 70's bands but nowdays u dont have bands like deep purple , led zeppelin , queen , status quo, rolling stones, hendrix ,ac/dc and there are many more...
in my opinion it was the golden decade of the music, and even if people just listened to zeppelin as a background music , to me it's still better to listen to this , than to listen to almost any modern band

[James]

Zeppelin I see your concerns, but luigi is absolutely right about all that. The general majority during the 70s were just as superficially interested into the music as the majority is today. I think it's always been the case that only real musicians can look at a song like Stairway to Heaven and absolutely love it. There will always be people who just listen to the passing fads, the mainstream, but for us musicians good music is universal, that's why we can love a peice regardless of when it was written.

Um... there was something else I was gonna say... my brain's too fried now.. I'm out.

[howie50]

To Zeppelin, I agree that there are lots of bands doing that kind of metal thing to cover a lack of musicianship. If you check out the british rock scene there are young bands out there such as Reef who are playing fairly traditional rock in a fresh new way although they do remind me very much of early Led Zeppelin so you should like them(if your nom-de-plume is anything to go by). Glad to see you like AC/DC I'm going to see them tomorrow in Sheffield, I'll let you know how good they were.

[howie50]

To James, I pretty much agree with what you say, Britney Spears and Limp Bizkit are riding the crest of a trend, they also have large record companies behind them to push their products. Real talent though will always come through I'm talking of the Bob Dylans, John Lennons etc, such artists are still selling today whereas Britney and Limp will be gone tomorrow. I could'nt say if Britney or Limp have much musical merit I personally don't like their output but it would seem that millions do. Are they wrong ? No those artists just have great publicity machines.

[Zeppelin]

Well i must agree with you that there are young bands that try to play traditional rock... i myself have band like this :)... i know i tend to see the world in dark colors, but i think that the only people that think that i have a good taste in music are my dad and my guitar teacher...
it's really sad that i can't talk almost with anyone, except for my 2-3 closest friends about "oldies" cause they laugh at me right away...
P.S if anyone of you knows a good song with slide used, please let me know, cause i started to learn slide- guitar and i need something to play :)

[howie50]

I also very much agree with Luigi, different styles come and go every few years but basically every style of popular music owes a great debt to the blues, Rock,Soul,R&B,Reggae,Hip Hop,Rap,Thrash Metal, Speed Metal,Punk,Grunge,Jazz, you name it, we can trace it all the way back to the blues, from Robert Johnson through Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, from Chuck Berry down to Jimmy Page, Marvin Gaye we're still playing around with a basic musical format. Thank you WC Handy for giving us all this.

[Raskolnikov]

Hey, I'm back!
Anyway, my thoughts are:
1), when I hear Creed, I hear alot of STP and Pearl Jam, (too much Pearl Jam for comfort on "with arms wide open"... but I'll leave that alone right now). Speaking of great live bands, Blues Traveler rips live, they're all a bunch of monsters. So the point is that rock has maintained a presance through the 90's even if it's been labeled as Grunge or whatever by the masses and the record compaines. If you don't beleive me, then check out STP's Tiny Music... Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop, this has to be my favorite album (certainly amongst the top few).

2), Change is good- if you really want the classics to remain special, we need to do other things musicly. That doesn't mean that we can't (and shouldn't) reach back and bring in the classic influences, but if we try and replicate that forever it will make the music stale and tired. Now what kind of tribute is that? Also think, for every Led Zepplin, there were how many bands that are completely forgotten now?

3), Skim what's popular, wade through the underground. So many great bands are out there that get almost no public attention. You really need to investigate and keep an open mind. If I went purely by my past intrests, I wouldn't listen to most of the music I love so dearly today. How does one jump from listening to his folk's Eagles tapes to STP, Morphine, Primus, Fishbone, Alice in Chains, Ben Harper, the Refreshments, the Urge, (and I can keep going)?
Basicly, I've learned that if I listen for honesty and originality, I can find great music everywhere.

Finally, if you want to check out some great slide work, I would get SRV's "The Sky is Crying" and give a listen to "Boot Hill." Easily the rudest song I've heard in my life. Also, check out Ben Harper's stuff, amongst all of the acts I've seen live (including Primus 4 times and Oysterhead (I was at the Burlington, VT show they first jammed at)) Ben Harper put on the best show of them all.

So this is my humble (if longwinded) opinion on the subject. If I've confused you, take comfort: I confused me too.
-Rask

[circle jerk]

"we thought rock was dead when punk came out. but later punk became alternative, which is...uh...rock, mostly."

I don't really follow that. The 70's were a great year for rock weren't they? Punk is Rock'N'Roll without question. Rock to its bare essentials. Three chords and simple melody.

If you listen to older punk (proto-punk bands) like New York Dolls, MC5, Velvet Underground, Iggy and the Stooges the line is really blurred even further. Some of the earliest punk was just sped-up blues.

Punk (well the music) was about reviving the early days of rock and did. It made it raw again.

I'm sure there are bands out there writing songs like Stairway to Heaven. I really don't know that much about rock in the classic sense cause to be honest I really don't listen to much of it and I wasn't around for most of it being born in the tail end of '85 and all.

I mean I sort of dig the Animals and the Hermits and the Who. i'm a lot more about punk and ska. The Jam, Stiff Little Fingers, The Clash, X, The Dwarves, The Hives, The Ramones, The Descendents, The Icarus Line, The Angry Samoans, The Specials, The Avengers..

Anyway.. is rock dead? Nah.

*kisses*

-Circle Jerk

[Edited by circle jerk on 12-30-2000 at 11:17 PM]

[Joseph]

It seems like where ever we go theres always someone questioning whether or not rock music still exists, well its still there its just that it lack the sincerity that made it so good for so many years. It remains to be seen whether or not more band will reach the surface who write music for themselves instead of trying to fit some big picture which has been created over the past few years. There are still several great rock bands that exist today, trhey just arent tearing up the charts, I guess when It all comes down to it most people will only purchase a rock record if its (packaged properly)...But its not all about selling records, its about making history, remember that. A good rock band are those who will be remembered years laters, not for the way they shocked america and took control, (they will be remembered primarily because of the music)...

no Rock isn't dead, its just sleeping...

-Joseph :)

[Raskolnikov]

To me it's allways been about the music, not history. Hell, I don't even like trying to call my music one thing or another (though reality forces me to do otherwise). Yes their are honest bands out there, yes, a few make it big, and yes, most don't. We all hate comercial music for we know what it is and what we'de rather here. So basicly it comes down to this: Their's nothing we can do but make the music we love, keep open ears and minds, and if we never get another paying gig, we atleast have our integrity.
Amen.

[James]

Amen.

[Joseph]

[i]Originally posted by Raskolnikov Theres nothing we can do but make the music we love, keep open ears and minds, and if we never get another paying gig, we atleast have our integrity.
Amen. [/B]


Well, every now and then I'm sure we all tend to run our fingers up and down the billboard charts, and to our amazement dissingenuous records continue to climb the charts. It doesnt take a brain surgeon to figure out why, because its all about being in the moment, buying a record withoyut thinking twice, without fully evaluating what their music has to offer. I'm not saying that we should analyze every song we hear to the point of no return, but a least a modicum of thinking should be required. The best acts ive seen all year have been in run down music clubs, bands that play they're hearts out because they love music, not because they want to jump on the get rick quick bandwagon, (its more than that). But when in doubt, Money prevails over all, over good judgement and mental longevity.


Integrity you say, the majority of musicians today have lost the meaning of it, and then again we all have a different definition of it. Basically, when it comes to music, it ashould be all about what pushes us to the next level of creativity, (basically what started our musical flair to begin with). But somewhere along the line we tend toi lose track of whats important. To a certain extent its understanfdable, and than again its considered to be the easy way out.

-Joseph :)

[Allie]

I play rock. By Rock I mean The Animals, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. I love this music and I'm in my 20's so maybe there's hope for us.

[Daan]

If rock 'n roll is dead, i'll bring it back to life myself! :D
Alot of rock 'n rollers added a reply here.
So has anyone of you got good rock 'n roll tabs ? like creedance clearwater revival?
(hey, i cant bring back rock 'n roll myself, i need some help with that! :) )
sorry to ask that here... :o
anyway, keep rockin and rollin! :cool:

[donny44]

Concluding conversations with many wise and experienced people in music, and a few conclusions of my own, have lead me to believe rock is soon returning. There historically seems to be a pattern in the types of music a mass audience (such as the world) really enjoys. And if history serves us well we are on the verge of that particular style coming back quickly.

The search for another set of standout guitarists to accompany the likes of lonely Jack White, Slash and Josh Homme will soon seem much easier. A band called "wakefield drive" out of Vancouver, BC has an amazing lead guitarist/vocalist; especially when considering they're a 3 piece. A live show to back it up beyond belief. This may seem like a plug, but trust me, watch for these guys.