Is rock really dead ?

Stratocosta

“Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix were great at writing them. Now the guitar riff has disappeared from popular music." Dweezil Zappa laments the absence of riffs in modern music and what it means for future guitar players | GuitarPlayer

darthed1981

Open_G said:

Stratocosta said:

So theres hope, but maybe what is missing is great riffs !

Not sure the last time I heard what I thought was a great riff… Maybe something by muse, that very simple one by arctic monkeys that’s very difficult to sing over, but we’re not exactly talking right up to date here. 

maybe all the great riffs have been written. 

Where would you guys have heard them though?

70s style rock is a pretty nichy-niche... I suspect there are literally hundreds of bands doing it, and no doubt some have some epic riffs going on.

Will they feel like Whole Lotta Love... well no... but more because you aren't teenagers any more than anything else.

timmypix

Stratocosta said:

So theres hope, but maybe what is missing is great riffs !

From mainstream pop music, perhaps. But so is rock music as a whole.

Great riffs are not missing from rock music. We've come full circle (in a fretboard thread? Never!) - just because you're not seeking it out now it's no longer mainstream doesn't mean it's not there.

PolarityMan

SimonC said:

monquixote said:

It depends what you mean 

In terms of new rock bands having significant commercial success then it's very close to dead. There have been a few people that have done analysis and suggested that since about 2011 rock hasn't been a significant musical force in terms of charts etc. 

If it will do so again in future who knows , country is having a massive surge at the moment and maybe it will be rock's turn next. 

Are there any good rock bands around, yes loads, but you aren't going to see them on the charts, hear them on the radio, or see them headlining glastonbury.

Let's be honest, a lot of modern Country music is actually classic rock isn't it?

technically country is hillbilly-rock

PolarityMan

timmypix said:

Stratocosta said:

So theres hope, but maybe what is missing is great riffs !

Great riffs are not missing from rock music. 

I do think that much of the low hanging fruit has kinda been plundered already though. Metal has a kind of arms race thing going on as a result with respect to riff complexity.

monquixote

Reverend said:

I think the problem is people who are out of touch with music compalin there is none. The amount of people for example  that got excited about greta van fleet because they'd missed the hundreds of bands doing 70s rock in the  00s

It's a completely different question. 

There is and will always be lots of rock bands in the way there will always be dixie land jazz bands. The question is if there will be a return to a point where there are new bands like: U2, Coldplay, Killers, Kings of Leon, REM, Arctic Monkeys where there are rock bands (I know some of you won't call them rock bands) who are amongst the biggest acts in the world, feature heavily in the charts and fill stadiums.

It's quite possible other than the odd anomaly the answer is no.

UnclePsychosis

As someone who has never really been into "music thats in the charts and/or played on popular radio" I find the wailing and gnashing of teeth about genres being dead because they're not popular anymore really quite entertaining.

TBH, in many ways its a preferable scenario. Means you can go and see bands in smaller venues, up close and personal, for reasonable prices, rather than being shafted on tickets to see them in some stupid arena.

monquixote

UnclePsychosis said:

As someone who has never really been into "music thats in the charts and/or played on popular radio" I find the wailing and gnashing of teeth about genres being dead because they're not popular anymore really quite entertaining.

TBH, in many ways its a preferable scenario. Means you can go and see bands in smaller venues, up close and personal, for reasonable prices, rather than being shafted on tickets to see them in some stupid arena.

There is no wailing or gnashing of teeth. 

It's simply a topic of conversation. 

All of the bands that can fill a stadium are slowly aging and retiring or dying off (Stones, Kiss, Tom Petty, Ozzy ) and those that still exist are getting progressively older and less able to do it and not being replaced. This means that in 10-20 years you won't be able to go to somewhere like Wembley and see a big stadium rock production. Somewhere like Reading, or Glastonbury won't be able to field a rock band as a headliner except as a "heritage" act or someone who is past it and played 20 times so it will have to be Hip Hop or Dance / Pop. You can already see they keep putting Coldplay on over and over again.

The question is if this is a blip and a new batch of bands will come along, or if that's it and there won't really be 

I'm not especially bothered either way I'm very happy to watch a Beyonce or Dua Lipa headline set, but then I like pop as much as metal.

Reverend

monquixote said:

Reverend said:

I think the problem is people who are out of touch with music compalin there is none. The amount of people for example  that got excited about greta van fleet because they'd missed the hundreds of bands doing 70s rock in the  00s

It's a completely different question. 

There is and will always be lots of rock bands in the way there will always be dixie land jazz bands. The question is if there will be a return to a point where there are new bands like: U2, Coldplay, Killers, Kings of Leon, REM, Arctic Monkeys where there are rock bands (I know some of you won't call them rock bands) who are amongst the biggest acts in the world, feature heavily in the charts and fill stadiums.

It's quite possible other than the odd anomaly the answer is no.

I saw the killers once. th3ey were very much the death of rock for me. 

timmypix

monquixote said:

UnclePsychosis said:

As someone who has never really been into "music thats in the charts and/or played on popular radio" I find the wailing and gnashing of teeth about genres being dead because they're not popular anymore really quite entertaining.

TBH, in many ways its a preferable scenario. Means you can go and see bands in smaller venues, up close and personal, for reasonable prices, rather than being shafted on tickets to see them in some stupid arena.

There is no wailing or gnashing of teeth. 

It's simply a topic of conversation. 

All of the bands that can fill a stadium are slowly aging and retiring or dying off (Stones, Kiss, Tom Petty, Ozzy ) and those that still exist are getting progressively older and less able to do it and not being replaced. This means that in 10-20 years you won't be able to go to somewhere like Wembley and see a big stadium rock production. Somewhere like Reading, or Glastonbury won't be able to field a rock band as a headliner except as a "heritage" act or someone who is past it and played 20 times so it will have to be Hip Hop or Dance / Pop. You can already see they keep putting Coldplay on over and over again.

The question is if this is a blip and a new batch of bands will come along, or if that's it and there won't really be 

I'm not especially bothered either way I'm very happy to watch a Beyonce or Dua Lipa headline set, but then I like pop as much as metal.

I don't think a band has to be mainstream to sell out stadiums.

For example, Trivium and Bullet for my Valentine just completed a joint headline stadium tour of the UK and sold out every venue. Within metal circles, they're relatively mainstream, but they've never been mainstream - average Joe on the street won't have heard of them. Granted, they were really leaning on the nostalgia of their breakthrough albums being 20 years old, and I doubt either band could have done it alone, but the point stands - non-"mainstream" bands can do it. I saw Porcupine Tree at Wembley Arena a couple of years back and they've never had chart success, and again, sold out the venue.

Rock and metal bands will continue selling out stadiums when they've been going long enough and built up the fanbase for it. I don't see why that would change in 10-20 years - there will always be bands steadily building their fanbases to that point over that period of time. I'd wager the bands who'll be selling out stadiums in 20 years are currently playing clubs and none of us has heard of them. In fact, I'd guess most of us haven't heard of half the bands selling out stadiums today.

ewal

UnclePsychosis said:

As someone who has never really been into "music thats in the charts and/or played on popular radio" I find the wailing and gnashing of teeth about genres being dead because they're not popular anymore really quite entertaining.

TBH, in many ways its a preferable scenario. Means you can go and see bands in smaller venues, up close and personal, for reasonable prices, rather than being shafted on tickets to see them in some stupid arena.

Largely agree. The only downside is for the bands themselves - it's arguably harder than ever to make any money to a level that it's possible to give up the day job. Thousands of bands doing it, very few making a living.

Kilpy

People that like rock music from the seventies* are always complaining that modern music isn't rock music from the seventies, and even when a band does play something like rock music from the seventies we complain that it's just copying rock music from the seventies!


*Me! 

PolarityMan

Imagine dragons are 60m monthly listeners and selling  out arena tours and they are definitely rock and thats if not totally modern at least 2 generations after most of the bands listed here like killers etc.

Stratocosta

hollywoodrox said:

Scandinavia & Finland etc rule . Here’s the latest Crazy Lixx track 
  Plenty of glam still alive 
  https://youtu.be/N2ek6RhktVQ?si=jGMl6kA3dR_ihhNH

to eighties , very banal , theres no guitar rif