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

Why does anyone remotely give a damn about what the NME prints anymore? I swear that they haven't been relevant in thirty years.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

True (I'm sick of their obsession for the Arctic Monkeys guy, for example), but I felt that article was relevant to the discussion here (at least a little bit).

edited 27th May '16 6:56:03 AM by Quag15

I know, right? They're constantly writing about him and it's getting seriously annoying.

Actually, that's a nice segway into music journalism as a whole- Alt Press is just an ad for the Warped Tour these days, Rolling Stone is getting more and more into politics, and NME always has an obsession of the day. While online still has good sources, is it possible that rock just isn't getting the quality exposure it used to?

“My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music." -Vladimir Nabokov

Since I don't keep up with NME, who exactly is the Arctic Monkeys guy?

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"

Alex Turner.

“My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music." -Vladimir Nabokov

Looked his name up, and the third and forth options (both from NME) were titled "Alex Turner: His 35 Greatest Lyrics So Far" and "These Fans Just Want To Give Alex Turner A Hug."

How slow of a news day is it?

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"

Not to mention that they really aren't helping his genre by neglecting the other bands in it.

“My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music." -Vladimir Nabokov

Rolling Stone has always been heavily into politics, and their political coverage has, perhaps since the beginning, been consistently better than their music coverage, which chases trends like nobody's business in a way that only Pitchfork can really approach. And speaking of P4k, what is it with their weird fetish for technology angst? They shoehorn it into nearly every review that they write on top of their usual torrent of dropped names and it's beginning to get more a bit silly, if not alarming.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I've been thinking back to this discussion, and I've come to think maybe asking if "rock is dead" is the wrong question.

So I then looked at some "rock is dead" articles, and I then stumbled upon a closely related subject instead: The use of guitar in rock.

Quite a bit of people argued that while rock hasn't declined in any way, just going in new directions to stay popular, guitar being the core of rock has been relegated to the underground. What I believe this means is that guitar in rock as pioneered by the "old greats" like the Beatles and Rolling stones has gotten smaller, while the guitar is instead taking more subdued roles or, again, changing to stay popular (taking influence from funk, disco, folk, and country as opposed to the rhythmic-melodic energy of the "old greats").

There are quite a bit of theories on why this is the case:

• Artists are no longer willing to put in the time needed to actually learn the guitar.
• The artists that do put in the time willing to learn traditional rock guitar just aren't very innovative and/or sound too much like "old music", making it sound unattractive to younger listeners.
• Synths and other digital instruments are much cheaper and easier to learn and use: just pop your notes into a sequencer and make money.

IMO, I just think this is another Popularity Polynomial. Eventually, young people will be tired of GEDM (Generic EDM) clamoring for good ol' rock guitar. And I may not have the time to check on guitar-driven rock bands in the underground right now, but I'm sure they're thriving where they are.

Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Sources:

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

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Uh, you ever tried working those kinds of instruments? Because I can tell you with absolute sincerity that it's much easier to gain guitar proficiency than it is to gain proficiency at synthesizers (which require piano knowledge) and sequencing (which requires knowledge of arranging and music theory and programming).

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

This picture◊, which is also the trope image of Electronic Music, is what I immediately think of when people claim that electronic music is easier to play than any other kind of music. Even as someone whose sole instrument is an electric guitar, I don't think anyone is worthy to judge electronic music that way unless he or she has actually played electronic music before.

NVM the original post.

I think EDM is seen as "easier" because computers are more easy to maintain (no tuning and restringing required) and have access to compared to guitars these days.

edited 27th Oct '16 2:41:13 PM by WaxingName

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The popular rock music these days is definitely Lighter and Softer then the '90s Grunge era, but it's not much softer then the 2000s Pop Punk and Post Grunge sound.

Things come in waves. Rock music was softer in the '60s, harder in the '70s, softer in the '80s, harder in the '90s, and softer since the 2000s.

edited 27th Oct '16 3:46:53 PM by WhatArtThee

Just another day in the life of Jimmy Nutrin

Agreed.

Although I do think there are some good points to be made about "traditional" guitar rock being in decline (NOT DEAD, DECLINE) at the moment. Rock has shifted towards being more synth-driven and/or mixing with other genres as opposed to advancing within its own sphere.

Please help out our The History Of Video Games page.

kinda started shifting to that as far back as the late '70s

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Pretty sure the 60's and 70's cemented the place of synths and keyboards as time-tested tools in the rock armoury.

Lest we bring up the soundtrack of the Tommy movie.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

The difference is money, not skill. A DAW with a mess of patches and a laptop mic is infinitely cheaper than a bunch of instruments, performance space and studio time/equipment. This doesn't just bolster straight electronic music, though: Music that revels in ow-fidelity and the limitations and liberation of home recording has exploded over the last ten years, although the roots of the revolution go back a good forty. Holly Herndon has said that the laptop is the most personal instrument, and I would tend to agree, although I would put it neck-and-neck with the human body and voice.

(Full disclosure: I compose a lot of music using MIDI, but while I am by no means a stellar keyboardist, the amount of experience and deftness that one must accrue to produce excellent rather than merely passable electronic music is not small, nor is the amount of effort one must put into the final product. It is closer to classical composition than anything else, at the end of the day.)

edited 12th Nov '16 3:59:54 PM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I've heard a theory that the next big thing in rock will be 70s style rock (ie, Greta Van Fleet).

And also Sheer Mag, to a lesser extent.

Progressive rock has been an upswing since the 90's and there's a fair share of psychedelic and hard rock out roday styled after 70's greats. The revival has been here for a while now.