Shock rocker Marilyn Manson may have been rather tame and boring in hindsight. But in retrospect, it turns out that he did make at least one true observation. Rock and roll is in fact dead. And it died right around the time he was singing about its demise.
It’s sad because there was, and still is, good rock music being made. But it’s all niche and the era of rock as an important cultural force is deader than the garage revival of the early 2000s. Sad.
My feeling is that all modern music genres don´t have a lot of staying power. There is maybe a five to ten year period where the genre produces a bunch of innovative music before everything gets formulaic and the bands run out of good ideas. One of my favourite genres is Thrash Metal which burst onto the scence with awesome records like "Kill 'Em All" and "Show No Mercy" around 1983. By 1986 it had reached its high point with classics like "Reign In Blood", "Master Of Puppets" and "Peace Sells". The music remained high quality and very popular until about 1990, when new metal subgenres were starting to supplant Thrash Metal. By 1992 the genre was basically dead.
Sure, there were some thrash "revivals" in the meantime, but there will be no "Reign In Blood" ever again. It´s mostly a mash-up of old ideas. Why listen to that, if you can just listen to the classics?
Rock is dead as a cultural force, and has been steadily replaced over the decades by meaningless pop music, at this point I mostly listen to Japanese rock from prior decades, 70s & 80s rock and classical/romantic era stuff.
Music and literature are often interlinked, so that if there's a revival in one, the other is not far behind.
It’s sad because there was, and still is, good rock music being made. But it’s all niche and the era of rock as an important cultural force is deader than the garage revival of the early 2000s. Sad.
Our choices are increasingly between ever-more-irrelevant Pop Cult propaganda and niche stuff.
I’ll take the niche stuff any day.
Same here!
My feeling is that all modern music genres don´t have a lot of staying power. There is maybe a five to ten year period where the genre produces a bunch of innovative music before everything gets formulaic and the bands run out of good ideas. One of my favourite genres is Thrash Metal which burst onto the scence with awesome records like "Kill 'Em All" and "Show No Mercy" around 1983. By 1986 it had reached its high point with classics like "Reign In Blood", "Master Of Puppets" and "Peace Sells". The music remained high quality and very popular until about 1990, when new metal subgenres were starting to supplant Thrash Metal. By 1992 the genre was basically dead.
Sure, there were some thrash "revivals" in the meantime, but there will be no "Reign In Blood" ever again. It´s mostly a mash-up of old ideas. Why listen to that, if you can just listen to the classics?
Constant pursuit of novelty is a double-edged sword.
Rock is dead as a cultural force, and has been steadily replaced over the decades by meaningless pop music, at this point I mostly listen to Japanese rock from prior decades, 70s & 80s rock and classical/romantic era stuff.
Music and literature are often interlinked, so that if there's a revival in one, the other is not far behind.
So many linkages.
https://brianniemeier.com/?s=Cultural+Ground+Zero
Define dead.
Still buy albums long after they died. Still listen to radio long after it died. Still go to rock shows by artists not yet established.
Perhaps you need to stop your streaming and try something new.
Everything ebbs and flows. Don’t have to overreact.
Granted, you did trick me into reading your blob due to your headline, so I guess it worked.