Why is Rock Music declining in the U.S?

Before you say bands like Coldplay and Imagine Dragons are dominating the charts, I'm referring to aggressive rock never being heard on the radio and why it seems to be on the decline. Everywhere these days on the radio it's artists like Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and pop rock bands like the ones mentioned above that are slaying on the charts.

I know I'm not the manliest guy out there, but I've always loved all forms of aggressive rock, such as heavy metal, doom metal, industrial rock, etc. While I don't care for Nickelback and other (*)(*)(*)(*) rock bands, even they are struggling to get a hit these days. Does America just not appreciate hard hitting, in your face, rock? Luckily I have my iPod for my tastes, but on the few occasions that I have to turn on the radio to listen to anything, it's boring dance trash.

So why is Rock on the decline in the U.S?

 

Metal is back where it belongs, in the underground scene. I was into Metal before it went big in the mid to late 80's and became commercialized to the point where it was just a cash grab. I mean seriously, Motley Crue doing a ballad... sellouts!!! It has been surprising to see Rock and Hard Rock on the decline as Rock has been around since what... the 50's and Hard Rock since the 60's.

Rock will never die and it is so kool to see some teenage kid wearing an Iron Maiden tee-shirt... the torch has been passed to generation next.

 

1. Rock music is not declining. Look into artists like Arcade Fire, GY!BE, Mono, Interpol, The Strokes, The Libertines, Radiohead, Muse, Tame Impala, etc. Rock music is as great as ever.

2. Music in general is not declining. Look into artists like Flying Lotus, Blu, Daedalus, Samiyam, etc. Music is getting better!

3. What has changed is the mainstream. Rock artists like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin which used to command the charts have been replaced by Nicki Minaj. Sure, you still have a Muse album every now and then, and Arcade Fire hits the top of the charts, but you see nothing like the presence good music had in the 20th century.

No idea why, I'm sure it's partly because of the profitability of junk music (in my opinion), but this alone cannot account for it. What people want in music hasn't really changed. Remember in the 1960s rock music was viewed as mainstream music is now, and Jazz was viewed as "good" music. Perhaps history is repeating itself? Great music is simply a little further from the mainstream because it's become so musically complex. Listen to Cosmogramma.

 

I didn't noticed any decline in US made rock , you suck in doing metal , gothic or electronica but your rock scene is still the best .

 

The reason crappier music is dominating the mainstream is because the mainstream is getting stupider. The average idiot cannot really grasp good music and gravitates toward meaningless garbage (Put your hands in the air. Hey! Ho!) and music so simple that any child without brain damage could play it. And the "music industry" is a business, they cater to the largest number of people (i.e. lowest common denominator). That is why so much of the trash you hear today has no artistic value and is really just commercials for themselves. Take, for instance, Tech Nine. I don't think he has ever made a "song" in which he didn't say the words "Tech Nine", so that the consumer will remember the name of the product. Notice that art is not a part of the equation. So maybe the real answer is that advertising has developed into such a science that record labels know that a certain formula=sales. Good art can never be derived from an advertising formula. So, as others have stated, good heavy rock is out there, but it gets buried under the dung heap of "pop" music. And that is probably a good thing. The last time the mainstream got ahold of metal, they almost killed it; instead of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, we started getting warrent and poison.

 

I don't know what is happening with rock and metal in the USA particularly, but over here, apart from the occasional flurry of commercial version (as with the 'hair metal' of the late 80's), it's never really had any mainstream recognition or radio airplay anyway.

In general, though, I would say that hard rock and heavy metal is healthier now than it has ever been. What has changed is the nature of the music industry. When I was a kid in the early 80's, record companies were completely dominant, and what you got to see and hear and buy was what they wanted you to to a large extent, even with the 'punk ethos' of NWOBHM and early Thrash. To 'discover' new bands wasn't easy, because the outlets for it were limited. Now, though, with the internet, everything has changed - more bands get their stuff 'out there', and many more people discover more new music much more easily.

To take an example, in the 80's there was one big UK rock festival - Monsters of Rock. It had one stage and about 6 bands, no choice presented, and everyone knew most of those bands and their music quite well. Now the equivalent is Download Festival, with nearly 150 bands spread over 4 stages all running at the same time, lots of choices, and, no matter how well versed you are with the current music scene, always lots of new bands to 'discover'. And you can discover them easily - youtube, spotify, myspace, etc. - you can go through the line up in advance as it is announced, listen to a few songs from each and every band, and choose what you want to see (and lots of people do do that). There's so much more music available, and the change in the nature of the festival reflects that. In the 80's you couldn't have filled that many slots at a festival year in year out - there just weren't enough bands who were 'signed' and had their music out there to fill it. It would have been full of pub bands that nobody had heard, heard of, or wanted to see, but these days all 4 stages pull a decent crowd all day, and an educated crown that knows the music the bands are playing and what to see them. On top of that, of course, there are probably a dozen smaller rock/metal festivals going on in the UK every year with 50+ bands playing - the likes of Bloodstock, Hammerfest, Hard Rock Hell, Hevy, etc..

Of course, the down side of that is that particular bands don't dominate the scene in the way that they used to - there are so many choices available, that people aren't all flocking to that small group of 'elite' bands as they used to. That means that, in the future, there will be less 'big headliner' acts of the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden to go around, but that's more than compensated for by the sheer number of choices available.

What hasn't changed is the media aversion to covering anything much from the rock/metal world - they still think of it as some unacceptable 'niche' thing that doesn't interest anybody, even though Download festival gets 100,000 people there, and is the second largest festival in the UK (Glastonbury is the largest, of course, but that's a different thing really from a 'standard music festival' - it didn't happen last year, partly because of the Olympics, so Download was the biggest music festival in the UK - it still didn't get a mention, though!). To watch TV and listen to the radio, you'd thing that festivals like the Isle Of Wight and Leeds/Reading were so much bigger and more popular than Download because they get mainstream live TV/Radio coverage every year, whereas Download doesn't get so much as a mention most of the time on the mainstream channels/programs. That doesn't matter anymore, though, because the people who are interested are able to source their information without needing TV and Radio anymore.

There have been times when I've feared for the future or rock music, and metal in particular (that 'grunge' boom of the likes of Nirvana was probably the worst period - everything else was getting sidelined completely by that, and metal seemed to have 'lost its way' a bit in the face of it). Now I'm not worried at all. The mainstream media won't cover it, but with the internet nobody needs to care. There is more music available than ever before, and as a result of that ability of bands to get stuff noticed there is more experimentation and variety in the music than ever before. It's like the gloves have come off in the last few years - the barriers have been raised, the limits lifted, and people can and are doing whatever they want creatively and musically without the record companies shutting them down because 'it won't sell big'.

The change from 'record sales' to 'downloads and streaming' has had a huge influence on that, obviously - the money is now in merch and live ticket sales, and bands can make a reasonable living from touring and selling tshirts while virtually giving their music away, or self-releasing it in relatively small numbers, which has completely undermined the dominance of the record companies. Rock and metal is healthier now than ever, it's just that the mainsteam media unsurprisingly haven't noticed, and are still trying to write it off as some kind of 'pointless' and 'untrendy' niche thing that doesn't interest anybody, and the record companies aren't necessarily spending their promotional money on it in the same way (because they don't get the same cut in the profits from a 'live music' kind of genre that they will from massive sales and quick turnover of short-lived manufactured pop groups).

 

My son (16) loves rock, took him a little time to come around but hey he did.

Im no Nickleback fanboy but for mine they have one of the best of all time

[video=youtube;BxgeSv88c2w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxgeSv88c2w&list=PLA80886EC5A5E597E&index=4[/video]

 

i thought this would be appropriate for this thread...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR7U1HIhxfA

 

In the Name of Four Prophets, may rock, metal, and progressive metal live forever.

 

I think the only place that rock is "declining" is in the media.

If you look around local scenes, there are countless number of rock or at least rock inclusive music shows and festivals going on. You rarely, if ever, see any huge festivals for pop music or rap or whatever new garbage is being pushed by the media and the record companies.

It's out there still, probably as strong as it ever was, just without the huge spotlight that used to be on it. Big record companies want performers they can market, but more importantly, control so they can be used to cross-market and perpetuate brands. I'm really unsure why the music that is popular today is actually popular or what's it's appeal(beyond imagery) actually is, but one thing is for sure, and that is media and music companies have perfected the art of marketing more than just music, but attitudes and lifestyles. That's what this rap music junk is. It's not just music, it's an attitude, a lifestyle, a social statement. Most rap music is about having everything you want without consequences or consideration for others and attacking those who don't agree. Most importantly, it's about celebrating how much more "awesome" YOU(usually it's about how awesome that particular rapper is, but it's the attitude portrayed that counts) are than others through constantly repeating how awesome you are. It's like some kind of deranged self-help philosophy bull(*)(*)(*)(*). It appeals to the most basic selfish human desires. Not really sure what the appeal for women is, since most rap music paints them as there for sex and that's about it, but whatever. Younger generations have to work harder to find decent things to listen to.

It's sad. Rap as a music style is actually really cool. It's a medium that can be much more effective at getting a message across. It also takes skill just like other forms of music. Unfortunately, most of the rap that is marketed is nothing but variations of "I'm so cool, i'm such a badass, i'll shoot ya, (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)es and hoes (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)es and hoes, money money money, don't mess with me cause I'm a tough guy and I'll do violent things if you don't, yada yada yada". It's really just masturbation. I would really like to see more mainstream rappers who write lyrics that aren't about that stuff. I'm 100% sure they exist, but the only group I've come across in my admittedly limited exposure to it is Jurassic Five.

 

Lupe Fiasco is pretty good, although he's gone more mainstream recently.

 

You hipsters. Always gotta hate on things that are mainstream.

 

By the mid-seventies the classics were written and there haven't been any since. Rock is on the decline. Everywhere. Don't pick on U.S.

 

An artist that goes mainstream typically sacrifices their artistry to appeal to the masses. I don't hate things because they're mainstream, but I hate most mainstream music because it's mostly (*)(*)(*)(*) and has a higher tendency to be (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

^Since the big secret was revealed over Facebook I'll mention it here for anyone else reading this thread. I already know this guy and he didn't realize it who I was. I always call him a hipster when he calls anything mainstream. Don't really care if mainstream is good or bad, just a jerk friend being a jerk.

- - - Updated - - -

^Since the big secret was revealed over Facebook I'll mention it here for anyone else reading this thread. I already know this guy and he didn't realize it who I was. I always call him a hipster when he calls anything mainstream. Don't really care if mainstream is good or bad, just a jerk friend being a jerk.

 

That's not at all true. There have been plenty of 'classic' songs of various types that have come out since then, and are still coming out. Whether a person likes them or not is another question, of course, (as is whether a person notices them, or just sticks with what they know) but there's certainly no shortage of great and 'classic' rock and metal songs still being made, both by bands that have been around for years and by new, young bands.

 

I don't agree. The current hits don't come close and don't have the staying power of Mozart or the Beatles, Rolling Stones Simon & Garfunkel, Kansas etc. There were some decent 80's songs but not near the caliber or quantity.

What hits that rate "Classic" was done in the 90's?? Post it so I can find it on utube.

I used to sell radio for a top 40 station 20 some years ago. The amazing thing---is that I sometimes turn back to that station today and it still sounds the same and mediocre. Perhaps a 12 year old might be enticed for a time or young "cool" people until they aren't cool no more.

We need a back to basics of Rock and Roll and start over. Which is what England did in the 50's and 60's and how its musicians changed the world in time with innovative work.

 

probably because its not as personality or appearance focused as most(?) of what's popular now so its more difficult to market.

 

Good point. Looks are easier to market than talent, which is why female pop stars are dominating the music scene in America.

 

Rock is dead.

But if you think that sucks, then consider the fact that my favorite music has been out of fashion since the late 19th century!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOtuoHL45Y

 

quite a rock star in his day, that Liszt. too pretty to have written all he's been given credit for. I'll never believe it.

 

Everything goes in cycles. Especially in the media. What's cool about the digital age is that the media seems to have less influence over trends. Most of what's popular can just get that way through going viral now. I remember in the mid-90s when the alternative thing was so big and all my favorite heavy bands coincidentally decided to be "experimental" at the same time. Cutting their hair off, changing their logos, and mellowing out their sound. Trying to pass it off as an artistic expression. But you can't bull(*)(*)(*)(*) the fans. Everybody knew what it was. They were feeling pressure to make more accessible albums during a time period when being heavy wasn't cool. And for the most part it totally backfired. Most of their album sales declined, few of them made any new fans, and most of the older fans felt betrayed and abandoned them. That's what was cool about Pantera. They deliberately went in the opposite direction. They gave a giant middle finger to what was popular and put out the aptly titled the Great Southern Trendkill. The most brutal thing they had done to date. As a result, their popularity surged among kids like me that were still hungry for heavy stuff that was disappearing, and they officially solidified themselves as heavyweights in the genre and icons of their generation. Years later, Anthrax's Scott Ian would even admit, "In a way, Pantera kind of saved metal."

So yeah, TL;DR. Basically, ignore pop culture and just use the net. There's always good stuff coming out. Soilwork just put out one of the best albums of their career, the Living Infinite. It's a double album. (*)(*)(*)(*)ing amazing.

[video=youtube;K-iWWJIVj9k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-iWWJIVj9k[/video]

 

Lol! Half the important metal bands in the history of the genre have come from the U.S. Greece has produced, what, one? Rotting Christ? Good band. But still. Not a high volume of production from your country there, is there?

 

Yeah use the internet, follow some good blog + record labels and you'll get more than you need in terms of good music. Of course it takes a bit of sifting to find ones best suited for you.

Ignore the top 40, it's pretty meaningless apart from good tunes people hear in clubs. The case in the UK generally anyway. (it's all (*)(*)(*)(*)e)

 

This is why!

[video=youtube;4AMB1JxmnOk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AMB1JxmnOk[/video]