
Is It Here to Stay? Rock’n’roll Considered - tintinnabula
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/is-it-here-to-stay/
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dascripter
I was a little surprised to see Yes on the list of bands you would only go
back and listen to for nostalgia's sake. I always found most of their music to
be deep, mature and very rewarding of repeat listening, but I suppose I am
coming at it from a direction of musical complexity and interest and not a
lyrical one. Just another reason why music is so great; two people can look at
the same thing and see two completely different things.

~~~
acagle
I agree. I felt the same about Meddle. I think the whole article kind of read
like a nostalgia piece

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blacksmith_tb
For me the question is can Rock continue to claim to be intrinsically
rebellious and new, as opposed to say, Blues. The Rock of the 50s and 60s
ossified into Arena Rock in the 70s, which provoked Punk, which was gradually
co-opted, until there was a resurgence of sorts in the 90s. At this point,
however, I am skeptical there can be any radically original combination of
elements in the genre. Which is fine, obviously people continue to make
satisfying Blues records, but they also aren't claiming to be doing something
bold and new... EDM (in all its many subgenres) does seem to still be
developing, as do Jazz and Western Art music (aka Classical), but none of them
make quite the same claims about rebellion, either.

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duaneb
Has rock ever been rebellious, really? It always seems to turn into another
genre when it's clear cut rebellion.

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tnecniv
I don't really know what you mean by rock. I would classify punk, metal, and
all their angry friends as rock subgenres.

Putting those aside for a minute, the earliest forms of rock were quite
rebellious. Rumble by Link Wray, the 1954 instrumental hit that pioneered the
distortion and power chord combo, ended up getting banned in many markets
because it was thought to incite delinquency. Today, the tune is bland at
best.

At this point, I think it's quite hard to rebel culturally. So many different
genres have pushed their definition of rebellion so far at this point that it
has become exceptionally hard to push the envelope of what is culturally
acceptable.

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ArkyBeagle
"Rumble" still sounds dangerous to my ear. It's that bass line. boom, boom,
boom <rest> . Yeah.

The whole idea of rebellion has become a ... set of inane lifestyle choices.
It was, frankly, pretty stupid back in the day, too. But I remember Bob Hope
talking about how Kiss' mothers told them to "kiss and make up" on TV.

Ace Frehley - guitar teacher to America.

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mturmon
Reading this #slatepitch, one is reminded of Sturgeon's Law
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law))
-- Sure, 90% of (rock 'n roll) is crud, but then 90% of _everything_ is crud.

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Animats
I never expected we'd have 30 years of house music/EDM.

(It's a big tent. Here are snippets of the current top 50.[1])

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqM-5U9lBk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqM-5U9lBk)

~~~
JoeDaDude
Likewise, it never ceases to amaze me that EDM/dubstep/trance/house/techno
continues to find ever larger audiences. This genre(s) has little in the way
of songwriters, (mostly, just famous DJs), virtuoso players, charts, or named
bands. Yet, I see festivals like TomorrowLand and Electric Daisy Carnival draw
crowds challenging Woodstock attendance.

~~~
tnecniv
Many are there just for the party scene. Whenever I hear my peers describe
their experience at one of those events, I never hear them say how excited
they were to see an artist. Instead I get some tale of an epic bender.

I'm sure plenty of people go to these for the music, just like I'm sure plenty
went to Woodstock mainly for a big party (before it rained and they found out
the acid was bad).

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pessimizer
Rock is already gone, as the Baby Boomers turn 70. The real question for me is
whether pop music itself will last much longer. It's only about 30 years older
than the subgenre. At this point, it's all pastiche. There's nothing new
anymore, just stuff that is slavishly imitating other stuff that its target
audience are too young to remember.

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ArkyBeagle
'twas ever thus. Even John Phillip Souza ( the pop music of his time - it came
by RAIL CAR!) ripped off everybody but especially Wagner.

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tnecniv
I really dislike articles like this. People come out of the woodwork to
criticize or defend rock music to the nth degree, when the truth is, it
doesn't really matter. The 20th century was a huge anomaly in the history of
music. Standards were created, established, and destroyed multiple times due
to evolving technology and cultures came together in a unique way for the
first time that cannot be replicated (since we gradually converging on a
monotone culture thanks to post-war globalism).

(Aside: rock was never as popular as people think. Look at the chart toppers
from any given year. You'll be surprised how much you don't recognize and how
much was rock)

I really like rock music and I hate pretty much anything that gets radio play
today. I'm cool with that though because through the internet, I've discovered
dozens of bands and albums that are making albums that I love right now. I see
more shows than any of my friends. My friends all like different kinds of
music, and they've found their own niches, and they're all happy with that,
too.

As a consumer, now is the best time to be listening to music, regardless of
genre.

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TheGRS
I liked the original thesis of this article, which sounded like it was going
to talk about why we would never have another Rock'n'Roll genre, but instead
the article spent a lot of time talking about why Rock was never great to
begin with. I'm not sure I'm convinced as I still love a lot of that music and
I am what you would call an early Millennial (to reference another comment on
here). Rock is/was great and its idiotic to dismiss it because of the lyrical
content.

But anyway, I do agree that there will never be another Rock genre in terms of
popularity. Music is just way too segmented. Even the power of popularity that
will get the masses to listen to a hit only has a fleeting power in the face
of choice. Sure I could enjoy this Taylor Swift song since its on the radio
every day, but I could also easily turn on Alabama Shakes on Spotify and enjoy
that.

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IANAD
> there will never be another Rock genre in terms of popularity

That is purely based on your recent experience, and I believe it to be short-
sighted.

As an example, Classical Period music was popular roughly between 1730 and
1820. That's 90 years- in comparison, Rock is only about 61 years old.

Rock will no doubt continue to influence future musicians even when it is no
longer the predominant form of popular music. But, assuming history repeats
itself, which it tends to do, Rock probably won't be the last popular form of
music spanning several decades.

And I believe what will replace Rock will be some form of electronic pop.

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wtbob
Man, I hate sites which only display the first paragraph of the article when
JavaScript is disabled. Why do that? It makes it look as though every article
is just a passing note.

… and when I re-opened the tab to make some comments on the article itself
(which I quite liked) after reading the comments here, it told me I'd reach my
limit. Well, never mind. It's a good article; shame it's so hard to read.

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yusee
Kanye West is the world's greatest active rock star.

~~~
douche
If Kanye West is a rock star, then I'm the space pope.

Although perhaps the term has just been diluted to meaninglessness.

~~~
collias
Next time a company says they're looking for "rock stars", I'll be sure to
tell them that I'm the Kanye West of <insert skillset>

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pastProlog
It talks about effects on the culture, but things mentioned like the Beatles
appearing on Ed Sullivan happened over half a century ago. You may as well
talk about how World War I affected the culture.

Kids don't listen to rock and listen to hiphop nowadays? In my mostly white
grammar school (and then junior high school) in the early 1980s, LL Cool J,
Newcleus, and UTFO had much more cultural relevance than any rock band. By
1986, when Run DMC covered "Walk This Way", they were considered the new
sound, Aerosmith was a rock band popular with people then in their 20s.

Rock has not been at the center of the culture for over 30 years. This guy
seems out of touch. Even in the mid-1980s, the rockers that I knew listened to
60s-70s rock more than 80s rock. It was already dead. The old core rock
demographic was more into heavy metal than rock. The rise of heavy metal,
outlaw country, techno and hip hop finished rock off by the 1980s as any kind
of cultural center.

I don't get this navel gazing about the 1960s from a half century ago. The
1990s is what affected this youth generation's culture in which the Internet,
Snapchat, memes, FPS games and so forth is a heavy influence on the entire
youth culture. Back in the early 1990s, very few young people were on the
Internet (few old people were on the Internet too).

~~~
aidenn0
Rock had a comeback in the early 90s, with the alternative movement. Rock acts
popular from when I was in grades 7-12 included Nirvana, Perl Jam, Stone
Temple Pilots, Greenday, The Offspring, Third Eye Blind, Kenny Wayne Shepherd,
Lenny Kravitz, Barenaked Ladies... Plenty of top 10 hits in the 90s there.

The late 90s also included some hits by Nu-Metal groups; you can decide for
yourself if that counts as rock or not.

I do know what you're saying. For those from the suburbs at least, the easiest
way to tell a late gen-X from early millenial is whether they are nostalgic
about early hip-hop or Pop (Gen X) or alt-rock (Early millenial). I call it
the "3rd Bass/Nirvana inflection point"

~~~
pgodzin
Late 80s and 90s also had huge acts like Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Oasis (less so in the US), Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters.

~~~
douche
It's hard to find an era that doesn't have huge acts. Led Zeppelin, Black
Sabbath, Kiss, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Deep Purple and more stretch
through the 70s into the 80s, leading into AC/DC, Van Halen, Def Leppard,
Motley Crue.

It's more of a niche now than then, (and maybe I'm ignorant of developments
outside of the harder rock zone) but there a still big rock bands now; The
Black Keys, Godsmack, Tool, Avenged Sevenfold, Chevelle, Disturbed. They may
not be Beyonce or T Swift, but they can sell out arenas.

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
I highly doubt that any of the bands you mention in the 2nd paragraph will
sell out an arena by themselves. Even in their heyday godsmack,a7x, disturbed
would maybe fill a large club. But then once the "real metal" picked back up
10 years ago or so these bands lost their appeal to the old school
slayer/pantera audience just because there were other "options" available.
Same goes for the younger deathcore/metalcore crowd (with a7x managing to stay
afloat in that pool but nowhere close to where they used to be popularity
wise).

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serge2k
The black keys are pretty mainstream compared to the others.

