i'm experiencing a bit of a rock revival in my own life thanks to my niece, who is 15, loves rock music (and all kinds of music - her favorite rapper is Tupac and she LOOOOOOOVES Michael Jackson), and is currently teaching herself electric guitar.

i drive her to school every morning (i'm her guardian) and we listen to music. i'm trying to put her on to classic rock music across genres (metal/punk/hardcore/new wave/etc.) and she puts me on to stuff she likes (this morning she picked Deftones - Around The Fur which was something I hadn't listened to before).

today, she was lamenting that there's no music like that anymore that's popular. i agreed and said that i think rock music might be dead. she said she's sure people still do it but now it's hard to find, and i agreed. i was telling her i think it's dead because art sometimes follows advances in tech, and at one point the electric guitar was the highest form of tech in music. but after metal and punk, there was really no NEW ways to play the guitar and synthesizers/samplers became smaller, faster, better so why make the basis of music one instrument when you have all of these "instruments" in a little box at your disposal - that become basically infinite in sound when you add on board effects/filters/etc.

so, am i right? is rock music dead?

There's plenty of it out there. It's just not everywhere, you have to seek it out

i ask because i like to think i keep up w/ new music EVERY week, and i was telling her that as i go thru the new releases i rarely hear anything that sounds like what she likes.

that's not to say there's not rock music of any type, period.

J. Roddy Walston and the Business are fantastic. As are the Alabama Shakes. Oh, and Bully!

As for an outlet to find them, I usually just listen to public radio (XPN specifically). KEEP has a Song of the Day download podcast which also unearths some great stuff.

she just bought Metallica's Master of Puppets and ...And Justice For All. Her favorite band is System Of A Down. We listened to early Deftones today.

so...along those lines.

i recently discovered a French metal band named Gojira that she liked.

>she just bought Metallica's Master of Puppets and ...And
>Justice For All. Her favorite band is System Of A Down. We
>listened to early Deftones today.
>
>so...along those lines.
>
>i recently discovered a French metal band named Gojira that
>she liked.


Check out the album 'White Pony' by Deftones. It's really good.

And if she likes metal I like Cvlt Nation, which is more underground

Including a dude next to me at a urinal once. That was weird.

Anyhow, that's at least one place rock music isn't dead. Lots of women making it there too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFlem3oyN7g

^^^from my favorite album this year



"1) God doesn't exist

2) And anyhow he's stupid"
—Philip K. Dick

http://austinato.bandcamp.com

http://www.discogs.com/lists/Favorites-of-2015/222933

be back with way to many words in a few minutes

>i was telling her i
>think it's dead because art sometimes follows advances in
>tech, and at one point the electric guitar was the highest
>form of tech in music. but after metal and punk, there was
>really no NEW ways to play the guitar and
>synthesizers/samplers became smaller, faster, better so why
>make the basis of music one instrument when you have all of
>these "instruments" in a little box at your disposal - that
>become basically infinite in sound when you add on board
>effects/filters/etc.
>
>so, am i right? is rock music dead?



^^^^Interesting theory....

I think economics have come into play here. Name the 20 biggest current acts you can think of. Now how many of them are groups/bands? . ROck has historically been a band-based genre.

I think a lot of charismatic, attractive singer/songwriters who would have become band leaders in years past go the solo route. Record sales are at all-time lows. Royalties are at all-time lows. Now who's trying to split that money four, five or six ways?

Then there's technology. It's much cheaper to put on a do-it-all bedroom producer or production team than a traditional band,

it makes sense though.

It comes with a shit ton of software. Oh, and it comes with its own audio interface.

The MPC Ren is $699, the MPC Studio costs $399, and both come with a ton of software.

Maschine MK2 is 599, also with a significant software suite. Mikro is $349.

Then there's Ableton Push and a host of lesser controllers and the prevalence of piracy.

Huge hard drives are dirt cheap and sound libraries are massive. See where this is going?

By contrast, I paid $700 for a used 2000 XL back in 2002 without the 8 outs, no effect or filter expansions, and no program discs.

I of course spent a ton of money on used cassette tapes for samples as I had no turntable. Then I paid $500 and traded my PS 2 and a ton of games for a Roland Xp 80.

So here I was about $1800 into my setup, spending every dollar I have just to get going and I don't even have a mixer, EQ, Compressor, or DAT, not to mention monitors, and I'm recording straight in mono straight to a regular tape deck and using $20 Radio Shack headphones. I ate Ramen for fucking months just to get that much.

$1800 today gets you so much hardware, software, effects, and VST instruments it's absurd by comparison. Assuming you have your computer already squared away, you could cop Maschine Mikro, Cubase Artist, and, say, a MOXF6 and you still have a little cash for decent headphones or monitors. Whatever.

Or you could pay about $12 for a file downloading account and pirate all the software you want and just cop a basic midi controller and sound card.

Bottom line, it's so inexpensive to get in on the electronic side and there are so many quality options available that do pretty much everything that it's an extremely attractive option for a lot of people, certainly enough to take a significant bite out of potential rockers and steer them toward pop, hip hop, and EDM.

having this huge band where everyone has to get paid, you have to deal w/ all this equipment for everyone, etc.

i was trying to say to her that the ease, size and cost of electronic music would probably drive people towards it vs. playing heavy guitar music.

They already figured out a work around..

Some "bands" like Paramore ONLY the lead singer is signed.. Band is paid as session musicians basically. They probably don't even play on the records just live

when i was HS in the mid-2000's, white folks were on that emo/screamo/post-hardcore shit HARD. don't know if there's an equivalent for the white kids these days as far as rock is concerned

but rap stars are the new rock stars, rock got a lil too soft for it's own good when rap was peaking, rap took advantage of new sounds, rap spoke for the marginalized and pissed off, etc.

think "indie" (2002-2009ish) was the last breath as far as rock having legit relevancy.

BUT, yeah...it's the white kids who kind of drive the popularity and economics, or at least that's what the numbers say.

i never thought about the music becoming less agressive when compared to rap, either.

that's sort of what i was telling her about the Deftones. i had never heard that album and i liked it, and i was asking her "what happened to these Deftones - this is pretty good. all i knew of the Deftones was mid-2000s kind of crappy alternative music."

peep game though

In Huey Morgan's book, he said Kurt Cobain's suicide was the end of the R&R era & I kinda agree.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2v0cugm.jpg

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.
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hip-hop don't need rock no more. it will continue to vibe with EDM. we'll see a return of g-funk or hiphop-house before we see Future rapping with Deerhunter

but i think "hip-house" is already making a small comeback.

It's not about need.


>hip-hop don't need rock no more. it will continue to vibe
>with EDM. we'll see a return of g-funk or hiphop-house before
>we see Future rapping with Deerhunter


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.
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that has been creeping back into popular culture from clothing to food and drinking to the music people play in public places.

Folk music is making a comeback, of all things, and if that's the case, Rock in its more consumer-friendly guise must have become a default of sorts.

It's true both rock and rap have lost sway to various forms of electronic, which in many cases substitute as a kind of faceless, wordless hip hop, or a more modern rock.

But rock is still deep. You have rock getting back to its most grassroots, anthemic roots with The Black Keys and before them The White Stripes. You have rock crooners like Ed Sheeran that certainly make more (blue eyed) soulful ballad rock. You have electronic rock hybrids like Tame Impala. You have all the subgenres of rock with their own subcultures like hardcore, doom / sludge / funeral / stoner / drone metal, etc. Rock currently is less monolithic than in prior decades, because one style has not come to the forefront like grunge did, or hair-metal did, and that might seem to take away its force as a genre, but I don't think it lacks for depth or sheer volume now versus in the past.

It's less about how it's harder to wrestle 'new' sounds out of a guitar then the fact that the tools to make electronic music are flat out easier*. It's not as if lots of EDM/Hip-Hop/Pop are using drastically different drum sounds or synths...but EVERYONE has those tools (laptop, shit even a tablet/phone) as opposed to getting a traditional instrument and gear which can get pretty expensive quick.

There's also the issue that mainstream rock bands made themselves uncool going into this century; rock radio was on mediocre bands like Creed/Nickleback. Heavy metal, the supposed bastion of guitar based rock music, was full of 3rd tier Korn and Limp Bizkit biteoffs. The emo/pop punk revival in the mainstream helped a bit but those bands were so steeped in pop songwriting that it definitely didn’t feel like rock music. Really the only big hard hitting rock band in the classic sense of the word that seemed to gain stature and prestige during the 00’s was the White Stripes and they were half novelty**

That said, you can argue rock music exists and is arguably thriving; just not in the form we think of. There is a precursor to this. Years ago Bob Dylan going from acoustic to electric guitar signified the change of guard from folk music into rock music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dylan_controversy

And I would argue Radiohead, one of the biggest rock bands of the world as of the late 90s effectively ditching their guitars to go full Warp Records IDM for Kid A to critical AND commercial acclaim is a similar signifier. Guitars are there, but they are in supportive roles. And to be honest, many of the synths being used are basically guitar parts in sound and in songwriting use. You’ve got bands like Death Grips who basically updated Rage Against The Machine’s playbook around electronic production, and I remember reading a review for an electronic duo called Fuck Buttons “the best rock album of the year” lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FggHwHnoz8U

Traditional guitar based rock is still around though; as the traditional music biz becomes ‘flatter’ it seems that the working acts that survive tend to be the ones who are able to tour and put on a good show, and that is still the realm of live drums, bass and guitar.



*Funny enough technology has made it easier to use guitars too. In the past you used to have to have 500 pound amps and a plethroa of pedals and gear to form your sound...now many mid tier to huge rock acts simply get shoe box sized amp simulators and plug it directly into the venue's PA system.


**While so-so blues rock bands like the Black Keys are making bank off that lane that White Stripes made, imho their real contribution to rock music was bringing 60’s garage rock bands back into style which seems to be where the most interesting hard hitting guitar work seems to be happening...the niche that used to be punk rock in the 80's and 90's is basically that genre now.

i'm gonna play them for her and see what she thinks.

also, word to everything else you wrote.

but you did it way better lol

But they were a very much a traditional rock band. I think they got saddled with the "emo" tag out of the gate and a lot of heads either ignored them or didn't get too deep but they've got an excellent catalog that sort of gets brushed aside because they cater less to an artsy/hipster crowd than, say, the Black Keys or White Stripes, but IMO they were sort of that spiritual successor to Smashing Pumpkins.

>But they were a very much a traditional rock band. I think
>they got saddled with the "emo" tag out of the gate and a lot
>of heads either ignored them or didn't get too deep but
>they've got an excellent catalog that sort of gets brushed
>aside because they cater less to an artsy/hipster crowd than,
>say, the Black Keys or White Stripes, but IMO they were sort
>of that spiritual successor to Smashing Pumpkins.

If they came out five years earlier or five years later they would have gotten the recognition they deserved; unfortunately they kinda get lumped with the crappy emo bands that popped up in their wake

It was their follow up to The Black Parade, but they scrapped it before starting fresh with Danger Days.

Anyhow they released it like two years ago over the course of 5 weeks in two track increments. Anyhow if you haven't heard, half of it has a little Black Flag to it, a little garage, while the other half gets all REO Speedwagon/Cutting Crew/Journey... and all of it was pretty convincing.

I go through their entire catalog a few times a year and it dawned on me that they can easily pull off at least 4 different eras/flavors of rock music. I suppose this will come across as a little "Stan" of me, but looking back it's pretty impressive for a group to be able to encompass so many elements, eras, and styles of rock music, clearly reference so many other groups and songs, and yet retain their own voice and avoid coming across like some retro wave rider.

Perhaps I'm overcompensating for the general lack of recognition they received but from where I stand they were genuinely special even if they were never transcendent. If you're fan but didn't catch Conventional Weapons, it's worthwhile.

> If
>you're fan but didn't catch Conventional Weapons, it's
>worthwhile.

good rock music with influences by Springsteen, Brian Wilson and the like.

Most rock roads lead back to Dan Auerbach or Jack White currently..

Alabama Shakes
Dan Auerbach + whatever he's on
Jack White and his Third man records stuff
Benjamin Booker

And then Innovative Leisure stuff on west coast

Hanni El Khatib
Allah las
Tame Impala

.

fading frontier is my shit, tho it doesn't "rock" as much as their last album

snakeskin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG6jk5Q90DA

take care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfO8GO8rXIQ