The death of mainstream rock

[KevShmev]

I was talking about this with a friend last week, about how rock seems to be dying as a mainstream genre.

Think about it.

In the 70s, there were more classic albums and songs that you could shake a stick at in the rock genre.  Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Who, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Elton John, Kansas, David Bowie, Yes, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Doobie Brothers, Eagles, The Doors, Supertramp, Boston, Styx, Steely Dan, The Moody Blues, Rush, Black Sabbath, Paul McCartney/Wings, John Lennon, George Harrison, CSN(Y), Heart, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jethro Tull, Grateful Dead, ZZ Top, Bad Company, Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult, etc. The list goes on and on.

The 80s wasn't quite as prolific, but still had a very high number of classic albums and songs in the rock genre. 

Then, the 90s hit and the drop-off was significant.  Sure, you still had albums like Nevermind, The Black Album, Achtung Baby, Ten and a few others that you could view as albums with multiple songs that the average person on the street would know if they heard it (even if they couldn't name the band or song by title), but it didn't touch the numbers of the 70s or even 80s.

And now here we are in the 21st century and what is there in the mainstream as far as rock is concerned?  What albums are there with multiple songs everyone would know if it came on the radio?  I am asking for real.  Shoot, as popular as Radiohead is, good luck getting most to recognize any song by them except Creep. Even their most highly regarded mainstream album, OK Computer, didn't really have any hits that were huge on the scale of the big rock hits of the 70s and 80s.  People know Stairway to Heaven, Free Bird, Hotel California, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Don't Stop Believin' and Under Pressure. They don't know Paranoid Android.

Discuss.

[King Postwhore]

It's our age.  What's popular is not what we like.  Full band music(Guitar, bass & drums) are a thing of the past in popular music.  It doesn't mean that there are not great bands out there.  It's not what's capturing the youth these days.

I also thing with the death of radio and the advent of the internet, we seek out music from the internet and not the radio. 

[TheCountOfNYC]

There’s still plenty of popular rock songs nowadays, but it’s just not the most popular genre of music anymore. And to be fair, standard hip-hop as seen a significant drop-off in airplay since the 90’s and early 2000’s. Pop music is what dominates the airwaves in America now with country music competing in some parts of the country. However you still get rock songs that become hits in their own right. Second Chance by Shinedown, The Pretender by Foo Fighters, Misery Business by Paramore, and Disturbed’s cover of The Sound of Silence have all been crossover hits over the past 10 years or so. Rock just isn’t what the big radio stations want to play so we have to look a little harder to find it. And this is just in the US. In other countries, rock music is as big as ever.

[Ben_Jamin]

In a way, the evolution of technology plays into it. You've got synthesizers being introduced, which of course people will use. Then you got the introduction of Hip-Hop music, the Rap style, and Electronic Dance Music (which uses a lot of modern technology).

Music before was made from what was available. Music wasn't even recordable/mass produced until about a century ago ( I'm sure ancient times had been able to record music in some way, form). Now, you have people making music and mass producing it right in their own homes.

I think because EDM is newish, and the younger generations relate to it by being something that arose during their age, is why it's the popular form of music now.

The older generations will always have a hard time accepting new things, new ideas, new ways of thinking. People tend to have a hard time adjusting to change, accepting the new, or at least giving it a chance to see if it does work...but thats another topic on its own.

Back to the topic. Due to the internet, you can now find anything music related. You can hear music from the other side of the world. Traditional cultural music, and casual street music. All being played with instruments that culture had created. Even animal music you can find.

Also, don't forget about the FCC regulating what gets played on their radio broadcasts, which has been shortened from 20 years ago. You don't hear Nine Inch Nails Closer anymore, or Pearl Jams Jeremy on mainstream radio really.

[ChuckSteak]

Hmm this idea of a genre dying was very popular in jazz too. And it is very alive today. Things evolve and change and no decade will be the same.

But music as an experimental form has been dying since the sixties. The focus became more how the artist looks like, appearance, attitude, etc. Music has become secondary and the image the artist conveys the primary goal. Surely there is still people innovating and experimenting, but it has become very underground and you have to search and investigate deeply to find artists that are not affected by all that.... money, image, mtv, formula, bullshit, etc. Yea.. it is hard to find originality in music.

Like any business people want to profit and make money and in the 80s it was the start of the money-making machine. Good is what sells and makes money. The content and the music is secondary. Everywhere you go they only play popular things. Beats like "tuntz tuntz tuntz", party music, fast-food music, pop, shallow, empty love songs. "Bad-mothafucka-gangster-cool songs".

You know.. what are the chances of someone making truly original music and becoming successful? How many musicians today have to give up their dreams because they can't survive playing what they like? They just become workers like everyone else.. or they play whatever sells or makes money. Even in the 60s and 70s.. there were countless awesome hard-rock and prog bands that only released a single album and then disappeared completely because they didn't get recognized. 40 years later the albums are considered lost gems.

But here is me rambling.. fuck it anyway.

[Zantera]

Isn't it just a generational thing? I don't think a lot of teens/in their early 20s today would know even Stairway to Heaven or Hotel California unless they have parents who listen to those bands or they have a fixation for older music. Just seems like a "problem" that's very much a "this is what I've grown up with and this is how I see it" situation.

[Stadler]

I don't even pretend to have the answer, but I do know it's different.   Steve Perry sang "Raised on Radio", and even as a metal guy, that was me.  If I didn't have a cassette with me, I jammed the radio - and I can still tell you the stations (95.1 - WRKI - from Brookfield, 99.1 WPLR from New Haven, and 600 WICC from Bridgeport).    I haven't listened to an FM station in earnest in YEARS.  Look at the interest in roulettes here; for me, I heard more new music in the ONE roulette I did than I have in the last two years of having Sirius satellite radio.  I remember on 107.3 WAAF out of Boston, a guy named John Osterlund would play this band "Our Lady Peace".   I never would have heard of them but for that.  You don't have that now. I listen to Sirius and the DJ - I actually know her, and she's cool, but... - plays Tom Sawyer by Rush, then says - this is over a year ago, keep in mind - that "it's sad that Neil Peart left Rush.  The other guys are screwed, because they just lost their main songwriter!"   Wha?   

I also think we're too much into it.  It's too "present" for us to really judge. When I was a kid - this is '78, '79, early 80's - I suffered from pretty regular insomnia, and I would listen to WICC on my AM transistor (AM is clear as a bell at night for various reasons - science!) and hear Leo Sayer, and Gary Wright, and Gerry Rafferty... I have a playlist on my iPod for all these songs - must be 50 or 60, and very few - Billy Joel - are what you'd call "relevant" today (and I'm stretching it with Billy, but at least you can go - NOW - to see him live) and while some of the songs are classic ("Baker Street") there are a lot of one-hit wonders and sort of flash-in-the-pans.   My kid went to a school dance about two years ago, and as a joke I played her "Stairway To Heaven" and (again, jokingly) tried to give her pointers on what to do during the final dance when it gets faster and faster... I though it was funny.  She goes "Dad, advice I really don't think I'm going to be able to use."   Anyway, I pick her up after the dance and ask her how it went and she shot me a look.  They played Stairway as the final song to the dance.  Go figure.   

There will be bands that transcend, and endure, but honestly..., are we putting odds on whether we're talking about "Greta Van Fleek" in 25 years?  Is Bruno Mars the next Elton John, or the next Gary Glitter?   Are A7X then next Aerosmith, or the next Ratt?