Is Rock Really DEAD?!/Opinions are Opinions...

As a regular reader of Classic Rock, it would say rock is most certainly NOT dead. As well as old artists like Ian Anderson and Iron Maiden bringing out new stuff, you've also got contemporary acts like Steven Wilson and brand new stuff like Royal Blood, all releasing critically acclaimed music which is actually enjoyable to listen to.

Rock may not be dead, but we still have time to kill it >:D

"The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved. In a sense, the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention paid to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply highlight what product the music business wants to make money from." -Scaruffi

"Young Man Yells at Old Man Yelling at Cloud"

Scaruffi has some interesting points, but he also makes some really glaring errors (There were no references to drugs in their lyrics? Really, Scaruffi?). We need someone to be Devil's advocate and challenge the existing narrative of rock history, but I'm not sure Scaruffi is the right guy for the job.

"Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times."

There's quite a few jazz critics that would disagree with you, Piero. Who are you to ignore the faction that will tell you Bix Beiderbecke is the greatest jazz musician of all time?

Also, if he's complaining about the Beatles and how nobody cares about rock's past - what does he mean, rock's past? Elvis and Little Richard?

The right guy to challenge rock's narrative (and who has done so already in a few books) is Simon Reynolds (e.g. Rip It Up And Start Again, Bring The Noise and maybe Energy Flash).

As much as I love Reynolds at his best, though, his style is nearly as subjective as Scaruffi's in some respects, particularly with respect to his attitudes on electronic dance music and more extreme genres in general, both for political and personal taste reasons. Seriously, his grudge against Squarepusher circa 1995 was mind-boggling, and his taking Whitehouse at face value in Rip It Up still makes me do a wee head-tilt. Likewise, he is a leading proponent of that historicist school of music journalism which I feel has entered its decadent phase with Pitchfork's name-dropping hysteria and crypto-rockism—although he personally still does it pretty well, and has actually become more even-handed with time about stuff he doesn't care for.

That said, who could really replace him? Find the three least smug writers on Tiny Mix Tapes and get them to write a manifesto?

I'll have to read about the thing with Squarepusher.

As for Whitehouse, I'll have to read Rip It Up again.

When you're referring to 'historicist', do you mean from his political and cultural background/point of view, or just in general? Because, when I think historicist, I think Greil Marcus (or, alternatively, certain mags like Mojo or Uncut).

Yes, he's subjective (and he may sound a bit precious at times). Still, I think he generally presented great 'maps' when it comes to musical aesthetics (post-punk, 90's dance music) and their locations and connections.

edited 23rd Oct '15 7:43:53 AM by Quag15

I mean that he seems very concerned with music as a kind of progressive dialectic rather than something more fluid and unpredictable. Putting music within a context is informative and can help bring out layers of meaning within a work, whether opaque without it or seemingly simple otherwise; but when providing context begins to become confused with criticism in itself, or criticism of a work depends on assumptions about a work's "message" or "political correctness" (in its original use rather than the snarl-word sense) rather than a more holistic interpretation, then it becomes problematic for me.

For example, addressing the Squarepusher thing in Energy Flash: Taking issue with his pretentious attitude as expressed in interviews towards the musical traditions that he draws upon is valid, as is simply disliking his work on aesthetic grounds, but the conclusion that sceneless vagabond musicians like Squarepusher are somehow less artistically valid than, say, more dance-oriented hardcore techno artists whose focus is on mood and functionality rather than stylistic range seems remarkably, hypocritically rockist to me. And he does do that, now and then; and the people who follow that path to diminishing returns are so much worse about it.

I know this is an old topic and I'm not really adding anything to what is being said right now, but I feel like stuff like The Black Keys, Gotye, Cage the Elephant, The Struts, etc. is what Rock should be nowadays. It just feels natural and fluid and people seem to like it a lot, although we haven't had a lot of that particular sound in like, what, a year? Whatever that sub-genre is anyway....

A year's really not much time at all outside of the pop sphere, although after two or three between albums without touring or the occasional single one does begin to worry. But it's not like any of those groups have vanished off the face of the earth; it's just that they're not on the pop charts right this moment. And so what? It's not like any of them are going broke and dropping out of the music industry to become technophobic hermits any time soon. Just keep listening and don't worry.

None of this is to say that wishing a band you like well and revelling in their success is a bad thing. It really isn't. You just have to keep things in perspective here.

So there's been a little war on the DeaderThanDisco.Rock Music page over whether rock as a whole is dead. The prologue has been currently removed as it was just complaining.

I don't understand how one of the biggest genres of popular music as a whole can be considered dead.

It's something about how rock has become diluted with folk, indie, and pop elements these days.

Pretty sure those elements were there from the start. Cross pollination is a thing.

How can you dilate rock with pop? Rock was always pop music.

Rock is an extremely flexible genre.

Up until the late 60''s, yes, I can see your point (in a succession of phases that go from, say, Little Richard or Elvis up until the British Invasion). After that, with the proliferation of Prog Rock, Krautrock, Punk Rock and so forth (not to mention the looser aesthetic grounds of 'Art-rock' or of 'Euro-rock'^note some Euro-rock groups even pursued communitarian and/or Communist ideals, which is as further away from the arenas of popular and alternative music as one can get, period, Rock slowly dissociated itself from the pop arena and its respective 'doctrines'.

Even if some areas were intrinsically connected to the pop arena for a short period of time (e.g. Glam-rock, Punk-rock^note from the Ramones, Blondie and The Jam onwards), it became slowly clear that the crossover between pop and rock began to be more sparse from a certain period of time onwards (especially since part of the river of 60's/70's Rock led to the rise of Heavy Metal and its subsequent subgenres).

edited 9th Feb '16 3:47:34 PM by Quag15

Hell, I'd say "pure" genres don't exist in general. Everything inevitably is made of bits of other styles, sounds, variants and so on. This isn't to say that genres don't exist but that they're particular configurations that like lego constructs, you can modify and mess around with in a million different ways.

Rock music has generally been underground in the US even in the 70s. A big thing about bands like Grand Funk and Blue Oyster Cult is that they didn't get played on most mainstream radio stations and relied almost purely on word of mouth for their success. Hell, Hendrix had no top 10 hits in America, only one top 30 hit (All Along the Watchtower). Led Zeppelin's sole top 10 was Whole Lotta Love, which was fairly early in their career. Progressive rock is mostly underground now, yes, but that's because the genre more or less killed itself off when it got too long and pretentious for people to listen to anymore, and even then you have metal bands like Dream Theater and Queensryche that were not only influenced by them, but are full blown progressive metal.

And even then, the pop charts are bullshit. In the 90s, the way they worked prevented bands like No Doubt and the Goo-Goo Dolls from getting on them even though Don't Speak and Iris were some of the biggest hits of the era. And that's not getting into how most bands were famous because of their album cuts instead of their singles.

And if anyone really thinks rock is dead, they need to listen to The Black Keys or the Foo Fighters or Gary Clarke Jr. Even John Mayer counts as rock! How the hell is it even dead?

The definition of 'dead' within this thread seems to have had more in mind the 'relevance' factor to the music industry, the innovations taking place within music around the world and the increasing popularity of various other genres and aesthetics within the general mainstream and the general alternative maps.

At least, that's how it always looked to me, since I've been following this thread since its beginning.

edited 9th Feb '16 7:47:33 PM by Quag15

Progressive rock is actually a good thing to bring up because it's a perfect example of underground music. Every time a prog rock artist has appeared on the charts, it's because the song in question features a radio friendly genre. Even Pink Floyd's biggest hits were like this ("Money" was blues rock and "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2" was disco). Look at Rush! They're one of the biggest rock bands of all time and their only top 40 hit is "New World Man" which was a new wave song more than anything.

Also, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes.

Ah yes can't forget that one. We call that "selling out."