But before we begin, let's give a round of applause to my favorite gal Tina for giving her two ZLOTYS or whatever barbaric currency she's using now. It took her a long time to get to this place so we wanna make her feel welcome so that she'll come backstage and then we can do very, very, very sensual things.
Also I'd like to say that LI is not NJ's hat. No. No, we are NYC's bedpan, and we are quite content to take in that lovely city piss, thankyouverymuch!
Now on with the show!
"Is rock dead?" We ask that question not because we don't know the answer, but because we do. And that is definitely YES. The analogy of the doctors asking if a patient is dead is stupid because all doctors have to do is whatever witchcraft things they do to figure out if someone is alive, and then they know. That's why they're doctors and why I'm not. Okay, look, how was I supposed to know that the lungs were an essential organ? C'mon, look at them, they look so stupid!!
No, the better analogy is coming across a car accident and seeing rock 'n roll, splayed out on the pavement a la Elvis if he drove, and saying, "Is this dude dead?" If you have to ask, then the answer is probably yes.
But what do we mean when we say "rock is dead?" Well, there are still rock acts, rock is still on the radio, it still has a very large following and still has concerts and shit. So how can it be dead? Well I got two words for you: Disco. ... Frankenfeuter. But the important word is disco.
Disco is dead. But you can still hear it on KTU and shit. But disco as we know it is dead. Nobody makes any more music for it. I mean sure, if someone really wanted to, they could make a new disco song, just like people still make new country songs and new freestyle songs and new house songs. But good luck getting anyone to listen to that without rolling their eyes. That's what we mean as being well and truly dead.
It's more accurate to say that rock is dying. It's spitting up blood and its life is flashing before its eyes and some hobo is going through its wallet. Well too bad, hobo, I already cleared out its cash and AAA card, have fun with its library card!!
In 20 years, good luck hearing rock on any Top 40 station outside of the "goofy oldy song we play once in a while" context. And good luck having those songs be ANYTHING other than U2 or something. Rock is in dire straits and it doesn't take a record mogul to see that (and they are seeing it).
Let's wind the clock back a bit. In the gay 90s, the "Is rock dead?" question first started getting asked because Kurt Cobain decided to end it all. At the time, grunge was going to revitalize rock music, if it's possible for grunge to revitalize anything, that is. But Cobain didn't play along, and now rock was doomed to fall into the pop rock routine. This was the fatal blow to rock's future because pop rock turned into a black hole from which no decent rock music could hope to escape.
So basically all mainstream rock we hear today is basically a repackaging of mid-90s pop rock, give or take a few gimmicks. Look at the "big" acts of today (not counting old acts coughing up new records): OK Go (one hit wonders), AFI (dead), Paramore (struggling), The Killers (ha), My Chemical Romance (double ha), Evanescence (holy shit). Simply put, no new musical act since 2000 has had any kind of staying power except Coldplay and MAYBE fucking Fall Out Boy.
Who is dominating the market? Linkin Park (amazingly still), Green Day and occasionally Weezer. Ah yes, it's 2000 all over again.
And there's the key indictment: "all over again." Only Linkin Park really sounds different from other rock groups, and they STILL have trouble getting any real wide recognition (because they are just not that good). But basically everyone sounds the same. Everyone. And people are starting to notice.
When Cobain died, the other question on everyone's lips (not mine, though. I was wondering when the fuck were we going to get personal jetpacks, motherfuckers) was "Who will save rock?" Who will save rock? Is that the question you ask of something that is supposedly alive and well? If your musical genre needs a savior, it's done for.
Cobain was supposed to be that savior, but he failed to rise on the third day. So the industry turned to Indiana Jones to find the lost saviour of rock. Remember those awful days? First it was U2, but people realized that U2 was already an established rock group. Then it was Foo Fighters, but they never really caught on beyond the rock genre. Then it was the Smashing Pumpkins, but then they vanished. Then it was Oasis, but they went nowhere. Then it was Limp fucking Bizkit but even that was too much of a joke to maintain. Then it was the White Stripes, who couldn't follow up anything for shit.
After that, people stopped asking that question. They knew the answer. Nobody can save rock music. Something is wrong with the genre at a fundamental level. Maybe the record companies are too incompetent to give the right people to push rock into a new creative direction, but after decades of rock in a noticable decline (the hair band days did a lot more damage to rock than anyone really wants to admit), rock producers are starting to realize that we've hit peak rock and that indeed motherfuckers would rather do something than rock out.
Like peak oil, industry folks will keep digging deeper and deeper for a decreasing amount of rock. I mean sure, you can write a new rock song and shit, but will it really be that interesting? It'll likely have the same chords, the same beat, the same melodic structure. Like country music, it'll be one giant self-referential mess. Worst of all, everyone will have heard it before and go, "Yeah, I liked that song... when it was fucking called 'Love in an Elevator.' Wait no, I hated that song. AND I HATE THIS SHIT."
Most of rock's glory is rooted firmly in the past. U2, the E-Street Band, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, what's left of the Beatles, all old. Most aren't even truly active. McCartney and Joel have grown bored with rock and are writing fucking classical music now. When two of your giants are bored with your music, you have to realize that rock's creative potential seems to have tapped out.
Really, rock hasn't been taken in a new direction since 2000, when Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park pushed rock/rap hybridization to the fore. But that never really took off, and now rock/rap has been pushed to the fringes where it can do precisely 0 to help mainstream rock. This is a serious problem. Rap and hip hop continue to dominate the airwaves not just because of saturation, but because they do new things, and people will listen to something that is new over something that they've heard before.
No matter what direction rock takes, it winds up back in the mid-90s pop rock funk (and not real funk, lame funk). If it's not Oasis trying to channel the Beatles (stupid move, by the way. If people want to hear the Beatles, THEY WILL FUCKING LISTEN TO THE BEATLES), it's the White Stripes trying to ape psychadelic rock (ditto) or today's modern bands trying to incorporate vaguely punk elements into their style (nothing turns off people more than people trying to act edgy for MTV's cameras, I believe).
This is not a question of rock being successful relative to pop or R&B or rap or whatever. This is a question of rock's ability to entertain people in new and exciting ways. Whatever you think of other musical genres, they are still innovating while rock keeps falling back on the same formulas. And people will get tired of it because they love SHINY NEW SHIT.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it's Top 40 music so the majority of it will always be shit. That can't be helped. But rock being shoved to the fringes of everyone's musical conscience can't really be a good thing. Rock is still a distinctive sound no matter how much pop borrows from it, and it should be preserved like the panda. Because rock is so fucking cute and dawwww look at it go down the slide! You are so precious rock! Yes you are! Yes you are!
Unless someone truly comes along to take rock in a new direction, in 20 years' time, there we will be, attending the 15th Oasis reunion concert, kids on our shoulders, you bellowing out "Wonderwall" and me checking my watch, hoping we get home in time to watch the Space Rangers play tonight's Space Stanley Cup Space Playoff game, the only people on earth still listening to rock music unironically. And you'll still be the sexiest thing I ever laid eyes on. Yes you are! Yes you are! BUT I DIGRESS.
Well thank you, affirmative side. So there you have it, the definitive argument over the state of rock 'n roll. I'd ask you what you think but you already weighed in. Unless you have more to say. Do you? DO YOU????? Only YOU can decide who won.
* not really, I decide that.
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