They still have Dixieland jazz quartets in shopping malls, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s 1924.
How do you date “indie” to the late 90s? Or “anti-rockers” for that matter?
Interesting to see someone mention Nickelback–when I saw this thread title I recalled an article I read a few years ago, which I can’t find now, about the decline of rock. One of the examples it used was how when “How You Remind Me” (say what you will about Nickelback, but that was a rock song) reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, it had been quite a while since a rock song had done so.
Maroon 5 stopped being a rock band about 10 years ago. Seriously, do they even use guitar, drums, and bass anymore?
And somebody better assign body guards to Eddie and Dave. Because if something happens to either of them, I’m out.
:smack:
Jesus Christ. (Pose)
They still rock out.
Whoops!
A few months ago I was listening to top 40 radio stations for a couple of days. Not by choice but I was hoping to find a few current gems among the typical pop garbage. Turns out I’ve been wasting time ignoring modern music when I could have been loathing it.
I went online to look at the charts and it confirmed how bad things are.
About the most rocking thing I heard was a Katy Perry song. Even Coldplay seems to be out dated now. I don’t know when that happened but it’s bleak out there. Bruno Mars found his way in there once in a while but it was mostly the songs of his I don’t like as much. I did hear “Up Town Funk” twice, which was the highlight of the experience.
I know enough people that are into Metal, but how modern metal got to be so brutal and stupid is best saved for another discussion.
I didn’t. Those musicians and fans who co-opted the term (which formerly meant merely that you weren’t on a major label, which meant indie music at one time was highly diverse) to mean “guy sings off key over a lo-fi and minimalist acoustic arrangement” did. They generally didn’t rock out in the usual sense of the term, either. Neutral Milk Hotel (late 90’s) was the standard bearer.
The end of the rock era took place over a period of time and for different reasons. As others have noted, the process is more of a social phenomenon than development (exhaustion) of the art form. I think the advent of digital technology is a prominent characteristic (not necessarily the cause) of the end of rock.
I admit I’ve heard of Pearl Jam but don’t think I’ve ever listened to them. Never heard of Soundgarden at all, and that’s no joke.
At least someone got it. 
Oh sweet Jesus.
I barely know a M5 song unless my daughter points it out to slag it.
Pointless trivia: the guitar player for M5, James Valentine, just came out with a signature guitar. My first thought, of course was: who the fuck is James Valentine?! I didn’t know the other M5 guys besides the pretty frontman even had names. You know what? It’s a great guitar, apprently, earning its 15 minutes of guitar messageboard hype. It’s a Tele variant, and made by a great company: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/JamesValNatS?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpc-n2_-D1wIVQUGGCh1TgQZMEAQYASABEgK2k_D_BwE
Carry on.
I didn’t need to see that.
I realized I had immediately checked their dealer listings. It’s a sickness.
Yes it is. Fortunately I have a guitar that already covers that territory. I was able to close that link and move on. After a few minutes, that is.
“Rock’s not dead! Look at all these bands that have been around for upwards of twenty years!”
That’s not life, that’s life support.
The real test for determining if rock has any relevance today is whether there are still kids in their teens and twenties forming bands and people in the same age range willing to listen to them. If this number is no longer significant and most youth react to rock music the same way people in our generation reacted to Lawrence Welk, the condition of rock is terminal. You can look at the shape jazz is in now because that’s where rock’s going to be in another 20-30 years.
Great summing-up. I have a 7-year-old son who (through me) likes the Beatles, some Kinks, and has been exposed to the Stones, Zeppelin, etc. — but he’s also starting to learn about current music from peers. I’ll report back to this thread in a few years — he might serve as a “canary in the coal mine” for the death of rock, or else its persistence.
I should add that I’ve made a point of making my 7-year-old aware that not ALL rock musicians are old fogies or dead – we listened to some Tame Impala the other day, for example. But he’s vary aware that most of the rock we listen to together is from decades past – 60s, 70s, 90s, and 80s, in descending order of frequency.
Walk into a department store or any business that plays music over loudspeakers. It’s always R&B/dance pop crap. Young people today like rap and R&B. It’s very sad.