Why is Rock Music declining in the U.S?

Exactly, you never see real rock recognized at the Grammys. But there are no more Zeplyns, Pantera, Megadeths, Van Halens, Black Sabbath's, Ozzies's, etc. out there now that can compare with them! There is nothing truly inventive or original from rock groups. If there are, the current media is burying them. I love ROCK, because it is rebellious, never want to lose that. Stonesour and Avenged Sevenfold are good.. Muse is good but they are not heavy rock.

 

Totally agree. I hate how The Great Southern Trendkill gets ignored. Most fans either pick Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power, or Far Beyond Driven as their favorite album, while Trendkill was my favorite. Reinventing the Steel wasn't bad, but it was a step down in heavyness. Infighting in the band didn't help, either.

Also, I know they're mainstream, but have you heard of Five Finger Death Punch? They went from being virtually unknown five years ago to being a major force in the metal scene today. They're kind of cliche, but in the span of three albums, they've improved greatly, and the snippets I've heard from their upcoming fourth album sound amazing. You should check them out.

Here's my favorite track from them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuQGx1H1Qh8

 

In history not now .
You may want to check out how much farther Europeans have took metal in all it's forms , show me any band outside Europe that comes close to Korpiklaani , Arkona or Eluveitie ... and i will not even go to Viking , GothicM or NBM .
I don't like Rotting Christ , i am a Septic Flesh fan

 

Good rock bands are still around but the music industry in general is in decline as a result of the growth of digital music and Taylor Swift is one of few recording artists who sold over one million copies in the first week in the last decade and record sales are considerably down from those days when rock bands like Bon Jovi sold over 5 million records. Moreover, major radio stations are shunning rock music because of the use of bad language in lyrics and rock bands rarely have top ten hits in singles charts, which further exacerbates the decline of the genre.

[video=youtube;chXJFjrl-Q4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXJFjrl-Q4[/video]

 

Probably for the same reason the Big Band sound...

... declined from the previous generation...

... music progresses from one style to the next...

... reflecting the various tastes of the record buying public.

 

I dig RC. I think their name is stupid, but Triarchy of the Lost Lovers and A Dead Poem are both great albums.

Korpiklaani is cheeseball metal. Fun but dumb. You're not seriously holding them up as a standard to aspire to, are you? Lamb of God destroys them.

Europe hasn't advanced metal anywhere in a good ten years now. Nor has anywhere else for that matter really. I thought the industrial black metal crossover hybrid that bands like Kovenant and Samael were dabbling in was pretty interesting. I expected that to take off more than it did. But I think that was the last genre advancement I heard that really grabbed me.

To be fair, most everything coming out of everywhere is all recycled these days. I don't really remember the last "new" metal band I discovered that I was impressed with. It's been awhile.

Trendkill is one of those albums that's gotten better with age. I like it better now than I did in 1996. The title track has got to be the most brutal song in the entire Pantera catalogue. It just kicks you in the face out of nowhere. I used to wake up to that at full volume every morning in high school. Needless to say, I never slept in.

I think Trendkill is easily as good as Vulgar Display or Far Beyond. CFH is overrated as hell. It's easily their worst album (not counting the out of print stuff, of course. Ever heard Power Metal?).

Steel had some solid tracks on it, but I think you hit the nail on the head about the in-band fighting that was going on at the time. That album could have been a lot better had Phil not been where he was at that point in his life. It's a shame. That band had so many more good years and so much more good music left in them. And I remember when they broke up in '03, I didn't buy for a minute that it was permanent. I knew it would only be a matter of time before they got back together. And then the unthinkable happened that night in Columbus. Horrible.

Not bad.

The other stuff of theirs I've heard wasn't bad either from what I remember. Not terribly original but not bad. I've got a lot of friends that seem to like these guys a lot. I think the only issue I might take is with the guy's clean vocals. They sound a little too...... radio (Godsmack, Three Days Grace, etc.) for my taste. His growl is decent, though.

 

Rock is declining because it's much easier for someone like Soulja Boy to just hum some lyrics over a drum machine and synthesizer on their mom's computer, than it is to actually learn an instrument and start a band.

 

That nails the answer. I love to watch Mumford and Sons, where each one of them play an instrument, and they write their own songs.

 

I see where you coming from and i feel a little stupid not to predict that you would have a problem understanding what i said.
So here is the issue : Korpiklaani was a Polka band , Polka is a local music genus but then they mixed it with metal and became big , Arcona are clearly Russian metal and i think all their songs are in Russian , Eluveitie are Swish and many of their songs are in Gaulish language while there themes are openly Celtic.

If we leave out that people are tired listening to English and concentrate in music European metal scene remains fresh because bands from different countries are injecting their local music into the genus , a band from Poland sounds Polish and a band from Bosnia sounds Bosnian .

In the states you have two great bands (tho not metal ones) from NYC that owe their greatness to their mixing of European musical themes , i am talking about Gogol Bordelo and Flogging Molly .

 

Ah, okay then. I'll check out the other two when I get a chance. I wasn't aware of Korpiklaani's background. Like I said, they're fun. They're just kind of dumb party music. There's not really any substance to them. But I get the feeling they'd probably tell you that, themselves. I don't think they take themselves too seriously.

Even then, a lot of it just sounds "European" to me after awhile. I recognize the different cultural influences of the different countries, but there is still a notable stiffness to a lot of the music and the attitude that just seems to be intrinsic to Europe as a whole. American culture is just a lot more loose. If you'll notice, most of the European bands that have been more successful worldwide have been the ones that have become more Americanized and adopted more of an American swagger. In Flames, Soilwork, Dimmu, COF, etc. Then again, Opeth is pretty huge, and they've got that European stiffness I'm talking about.

Wow, I was not expecting you to say Flogging Molly. Those guys are pretty decent. They're big here too. Dropkick Murphys have the same sound, and they're actually a little bit better. And I might even say slightly more authentic as well since they're actually from Massachusetts with all the Irish culture instead of California like Flogging Molly.

I wouldn't really call either of them the apex of the American music scene, though. They're good if you're into world music, which it sounds like you are, but as far as current artists in general I prefer stuff like Coheed and Cambria over that. Most of my favorite bands are old, on hiatus, or broken up, though. I'm still waiting for a full scale At the Drive-In reunion tour. And I think Faith No More is just dicking me around at this point. Playing sporadic shows all over the globe except their home country and busying themselves with their other projects. And who knows what AFI is doing these days or if they'll ever even make another record. Davey's heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore, and he and Jade seem like they'd rather just do Blaqk Audio at this point.

 

Okay, it's the video of "Meet Me Halfway" by Black Eyed Peas, it's extremely cartoonish. Okay, it's like "Wizard of Oz", the scene where the yellowbrick road is the crossroads, and the strawman is in the field singing in the field how wonderful it would be if he only had a brain. Sexy, sexy, elephant sporting occult stars. Tow the Chevy from the levy, folks, the music will never die. Wow. Politics is amazing.

 

There is a different 'feel' to music coming from different places, but apart from that being a matter of personal taste, I think that's essential to keep things fresh. Everyone indulges in cross-fertilisation to some extent, and having these different kinds of sources means there's more to draw from, and a greater variety of music to enjoy.

I understand the point about 'stiffness', but there's another way of looking at it - 'contemplativeness'. I don't mean this negatively, of course, but alot bands from the US tend to be all about the 'in your face' kind of stuff, whereas those with more European influences tend to be more introspective and considered about the music they make, if you see what I mean. It's not universally true, of course, but generally speaking if you want straight up 'party' rock the US is the place to get it, but if you want something with a bit more 'depth' then Europe is the place to go (the UK is lucky in sitting 'between the two', so we tend to have a mix). Nothing wrong with either way of doing rock and metal, and personally I'll listen to both, depending on my mood, but there is a difference, and I suspect it is a more general cultural thing (Americans do tend to be much more immediate 'hell yeah - go for it' kind of folk than Europeans in general, and that kind of boundless enthusiasm for life is reflected in the music).

Saw the Dropkicks at Download last year - great band.

 

I think some of the most interesting developments over recent years have been in the 'progressive metal' and 'djent' kind of stuff. Obviously Meshuggah have been around for years, but as more and more bands have been experimenting with what they can do with those kinds of sound and the more 'technical' approach, there's alot of interesting stuff been coming out - bands like Between the Buried and Me, Periphery, TesseracT, Chimp Spanner, Born of Osiris, Animals as Leaders, etc..

[video=youtube;NmfzWpp0hMc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmfzWpp0hMc[/video]

 

I think those bands are out there. Whats not out there are all the independent radio stations willing to play new untested music. Most stations are now corporate stations with approved play lists. Back in the WKRP days you could hear everything on the radio, now it's all the same thing, over and over again. I'm not sure who controls internet content, but I bet it's the same story.

Mostly, Americans just no longer have the option of hearing new hard hitting in your face rock.

 

I like BTBAM. They've got enough variety to keep me entertained. A friend of mine is really big on Animals as Leaders. I need to get better familiar with them. The stuff I've heard seems to have potential.

I'm a little picky with stuff that's excessively technical, though. I think it can be easily overdone if the band's not careful. Like Meshuggah is extremely hit and miss to me and has always been overrated as a band. I liked Destroy Erase Improve. Some of the Rare Trax stuff was cool. Obzen was pretty interesting. But then they've got other stuff like Chaosphere and Nothing that's just boring, uninspired, one-dimensional crap that just sounds like a bunch of car doors slamming in random rhythmic patterns. On a cerebral level I can appreciate what's going on, but I don't listen to music to count time signature changes. It's got to make me feel something. Math metal with no soul is just self-indulgent wankery as far as I'm concerned. Even Dream Theater is guilty of this from time to time. And I love them, and they've got tons of melody.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. And I can agree with that. Originally, I just attributed most of that stiffness to the cold weather native to where some of those bands were from and figured it was an environmental factor. Such as why Norwegian bands are all so damn serious all the time. They don't even smile when they're offstage. They're sitting there scowling at the merch table. Meanwhile Florida death metal bands are smiling and cracking jokes and drinking beer. I just figured if you're used to being cold all the time, there's probably not much to smile about. But I'm sure there probably is an element of introspection vs. swagger at play. Because now that I think about it, American bands like Queensryche and even heavier bands like Iced Earth still have some of that same stiffness quality.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think culturally American metal is just a little more alpha in general than European metal. Like you said, the sound is more "in your face." It's more overtly confrontational. The frontmen are typically more macho and tend to have more sex appeal. Guys like Phil Anselmo and Randy Blythe and Robb Flynn all kind of have that "don't (*)(*)(*)(*) with me" bad boy vibe that women go crazy for. I don't see too many women lining up after a show to suck Mikael Akerfeldt's or Johan Hegg's dick, if you know what I mean.

I'm like you, though. I like both types for different reasons. And they both suit different moods. I've always appreciated really well-crafted artistic songs with intelligent lyrics. Or even just something more atmospheric while still being heavy. Some days it's a Killswitch Engage day and some days it's an Arcturus day. And then some days it's just Tiamat or Anathema. It all just depends.

Sweet! \m/\m/

 

I agree with you. It can get into the realms of just doing things because they are clever, not because it actually achieves anything on a musical/emotional level, and that can be annoying. Meshuggah seem to have gone more and more in that direction - once it gets to the point that they've fiddled with the beats electronically because a drummer can't physically hit those rhythms, it's going too far, IMO.

I agree, but I think it reflects a wider cultural difference in the way that 'masculinity' is gauged. Bands like Five Finger Death Punch are so completely 'in your face' and 'macho', and so deadly serious about it, that it really begins to look a little bit ridiculous to European eyes - almost like they are 'overcompensating' for their own insecurities in having to show how 'alpha' they really are, if you know what I mean. Similarly, to US eyes some of the Europeans probably seem a bit 'less manly' because they aren't such 'bad boys' in the same way, but it's just that they aren't culturally attuned to the open macho displays in quite the same way - it's seen as a bit unnecessary for a 'real man' to feel the need to 'prove it' in quite such an overt manner. It doesn't effect their 'sex appeal' prospects particularly, though, because the women in the different cultures share the same cultural ideas as the men anyway!

There's nothing 'wrong' with either way of doing 'masculinity' at all, of course, but it's the kind of slight cultural difference of emphasis that easily leads to misunderstandings in both directions, because people are judging others according to their own cultural standards. In a sense it's not so much that American metal is 'more alpha' than European metal particularly, it's just that there is a slight difference of cultural opinion about exactly how 'alpha' manifests itself, and that is reflected in the music.

 

Most of their songs are about booze so of course they are not serious , they some few songs in Suomi that i guess are "patriotic".

This is an interesting topic of debate , since i am into Gothic/Experimental stuff i am listening to bands like Within Temptation & The Gathering and both of them are Dutch . For those who do not know they sound 100% American but then there are other Dutch bands like them that sound the same so the question is not how Americanized Dutch bands are but how Dutch American culture is .

So find new ones , what i do is open encyclopedia metallum and think "let's see how they do metal in Vietnam" or "what is new in thrash scene?" . Music is always there if you are willing to search for it.

Interestingly bands from Canada, Mexico , the Andes and in general America outside the US are very close to Europe . Usually Asian bands are closer to US sound .

 

Interesting side note about Within Temptation. The single they released, gosh, I guess almost a decade ago now that is probably the most well known one on this side of the Atlantic, "What Have You Done?" contained guest vocals from Life of Agony's Keith Caputo. LOA was a classic Brooklyn crossover melodic hardcore metal band in the early 90s. But Keith, himself, has now come out as transgender and goes by Mina Caputo. Holy crap, Batman! Talk about messing up my machismo angle, right?

I guess I really need to break How to Measure a Planet back out and listen to that again before commenting on this any further. I used to listen to the Gathering back a long time ago, but it's quite been awhile.

Perhaps I will. I've just heard so much stuff at this point in my life, dude. I've seen over 500 bands, and I own over 2,000 CDs (that's actual hard copies, not downloads...... I used to work at a record store). I think I've become the music equivalent of a porn star. When you used to do something you love for a living, you eventually get burned out on it. And it's really hard to recapture that excitement again. Imagine trying to get Jenna Jameson off. That's kind of what it's like impressing me with new music at this point. Sad, I know, right?

I'm open to whatever at this point. I'm too old now to give a (*)(*)(*)(*) about labels. I just listen for whatever grabs my ear. If it sounds good, I like it. Like, I dug the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of Sonic Syndicate even though they were the most ridiculous looking, overpolished thing I'd ever seen. Looked like somebody dragged Soilwork through Hot Topic. The music was good, though. I like Oomph! from Germany, too.

You got any good recommendations for newer stuff I might not be familiar with?

 

I'm glad you mentioned Oomph! I only have their album that was recorded in English. I think it's their greatest hits album, and it's great.

And as for transgender singers, I think the lead singer of the punk band Against Me came out last year as well. I've always heard that the voice of Male to Female transsexuals isn't altered much by hormones since the voice box was masculinized during puberty, but surely it must affect their singing somewhat.

 

Wow, I didn't realize they recorded anything in English. Nice! I just discovered them about a year ago when Rammstein rolled through town, and I was looking for bands in that similar vein. I found them on Youtube, and I thought they were cool. A little less metal and more rocky but cool nonetheless. They've got a good knack for melody.

Oh God! Don't get me started on Tom Gabel. I love(d) that guy. To give you an idea of how highly I thought of him as a songwriter - well, I mean, you know, right? - they are totally left politically and they write a lot of political songs, but I didn't even care because the songwriting was so good and Tom put so much passion into what he did. Against Me! was just such a great band. And Tom was just a good guy in person as well. He took care of his fans. But I feel like now that the guy I used to love and support is gone. It's weird. I don't really run in those circles, and I don't know anybody personally that's gone through that kind of stuff. But being a longtime fan of both LOA and Against Me! and those records being such a big part of my life and plus having met and hung out with those guys on multiple occasions, it's just................. it's just (*)(*)(*)(*)ing weird, man. I don't know how to feel about all that. I feel like somebody took two of my favorite singers away and replaced them with two strangers I don't even know. And I don't like it. And I can't imagine being able to relate to anything they write about anymore.

I have wondered about the hormone effects on their voices, though. That has to change the sound of the band at least a little, right?

 

The hormone thing is interesting. I've seen videos of female to male transsexuals and their voice went from a frilly and high feminine voice to a deep baritone voice. It's weird how the hormones only work one way. I think it might have to do with the human fetus starting out as female and then having a 50/50 chance of receiving the Y Chromosome, which might explain why a masculine voice can't recede.

I fully support the LGBT community, but I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't be hard to adjust if my favorite singer underwent a sex change. It was a shock when I learned last year that one of the Wachowski brothers (they directed The Matrix trilogy, Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and produced V for Vendetta) had already transitioned from Larry to Lana Wachowski. She's definitely a brave woman, but the pinkish/reddish hair caught me off guard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHHycz7T_c

 

Yeah, I heard about that too with the Matrix thing. This is where we get back into politics. I'm just not sold on the whole transgender thing. You can't kill a Y chromosome. This is what puts me in such a (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up position. I feel like I'm either forced to accept a lesser version of someone I used to know or treat them as if they are gone forever. It's a lose/lose situation on my end.

LOA had already broken up again anyway, so it didn't really affect that one too much. But Against Me! is still going. I have no idea what I'm going to do about supporting them in the future. I thought I might be able to find a loophole and preview what they've become to further make up my mind since they've been touring a lot as an opening band again over the last couple of years (they got dropped by their label), but it just hasn't panned out. Like they were supposed to be supporting Bad Religion last month, and for whatever reason, they didn't show. So even though I was there, I still have no idea what they are like now. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. I just can't see myself connecting with an album called Transgender Dysphoria Blues and paying to see them headline again now without knowing what they're going to sound like. And I definitely can't see myself saying what's up to Tom after the show. What the (*)(*)(*)(*) would I say? I won't call that guy Laura. I refuse to.

 

WT used to be Gothic Metal now they play something like experimental rock ( same with Lacuna Coil) and yes i have listen to that single tho i was not overly impressed since i am most into their older stuff.

Listening to transgenders are nothing to be ashamed of , i had my dose of Anne Varney & Sopor Aeternus

If you depleted 20th century stuff i recommend going back to previous centuries listening both to folk and classic music , there are some great stuff there and it hits you in the head when you realise that dark ages music was much much happier from everything made during the renaissance .

While you are into Germany check out their folk-ish scene Faun and Helium Vola are both great bands .

Since Greece is in the middle between east and west i am fairly familiar with both worlds and their music , Al Andaluz project made 1 or 2 LPs with music from Granada ( Spanish, Ladino and Arabic) , if this stuff does not sound too outlandish for a westerner and you can deal with the cultural shock jump straight to Fairuz , Natasha Atlas and Savinna Yannatou if not there is always Asia and the erhu .

 

Something else I've found interesting is that there seems to be more transsexuals that are Male to Female than Female to Male. You rarely ever hear of transmen in the media, but there's at least an article once every week about a transwoman getting busted for using the women's restroom or being denied a legal gender and name change. I've theorized that it's due to it being more acceptable for women to have masculine identities than men having feminine identities. I think there's guys who feel extremely uncomfortable with having a feminine identity that they go through with the hormones so they're treated better by society, whereas many women that are muscular and manly are still treated as such and they don't feel like they have to transition.

 

Another band I've seen at Download - twice, in their case. Great band, but definately gone off the boil lately for me - gone in a more poppy direction, and lost that kind of folky element to their sound. Interestingly, despite the accusations levelled at Anette Olzon's voice, Nightwish (guess what - I saw them at Download last year!) have done almost the opposite and really embraced their folky side, as well as getting more and more twisted (great shame Olzon has gone, I think - she was really expanding her own voice and the sound of the band with it). Imaginaerum is, I think, an absolutely astonishingly good album, with such an interesting range of sound and ideas. This song is my favourite from the album, and it's something I can just listen to over and over again:
[video=youtube;xqqiM_TiiIQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqqiM_TiiIQ[/video]

I know that feeling. I went through a period like that for a few reasons - partly just the result of being a lifelong musical obsessive who was getting older, partly that other things were demanding more attention in my life (my kids mainly), and party the inertia of following my own 'traditional' methods and not really grasping all of the newer opportunities available to find new music. Trouble is it's all too easy to end up in a kind of 'they don't make music like they used to' kind of mindset, as lots of people do as they lose track of the newer stuff, and start thinking that there isn't any decent new stuff out there.

I did make a concious effort to get back into finding new stuff, reading the magazines and so on, but what really changed it completely for me was Download festival. It's not just that one specifically, in that it could be any similar big rock festival the way that such things are done these days, with multiple stages and 100+ bands, but that was the one I started going to. In particular, though, there was one year (200 where the headliners and some of the main stage acts weren't quite as good (or to my tastes) as I'd expected when I'd bought my ticket (before the bands were announced, whicvh I obviously knew was a risk), and that forced my to research the rest of the options, and the bands I didn't know so well, properly. I was so glad I did, and discovered so much that was new to me at the time, and that's now one of my main avenues of 'discovery'.

In a sense it doesn't even matter if it is a festival that you are going to (I do it sometimes on some of the European festivals that I have no intentions of visiting, just to see what else is out there). As the bands are announced, I go and research every single one of them, no matter how minor they are (and some of them are unsigned or just signed), on spotify, youtube, myspace, etc.. Of course, I find lots I don't like, but also plenty of bands where there is promise, even if it hasn't yet been fulfilled because they are just starting out. It's better than just random web (or even magazine) discovery, because you know every one of them has at least some change of some kind of success - they have decent management and a bit of regard to have got there. I do get a bit anal about it, in fact, and make up a spotify playlist of every band (who has music on spotify, which is 99% of them) - as far as possible the top 5 songs they play live according to the setlist.fm site, so that I get a feel for their 'best' stuff. From that I decide what new cds to get, and obviously which ones I want to see at the festival (and that gets like a military operation for scheduling, but it's the only way to get the maximum out of it - I usually see about 30 bands over the 3 days, which makes it well worth the ticket price!). I've discovered so much new (to me) stuff that way, whether or not I've ended up seeing them, and it's really made me realise quite how much good new stuff (and older stuff that I'd missed) there is around.

Here's one that played last year, for example, opening the 4th stage on the Sunday. Not a big slot, and not somewhere I would probably have been at the time if I hadn't checked them out in advance (and the fact that there was a surprisingly large number of people for that slot at that time proved that others had been doing the same!). Kind of an old fashioned vibe, but great stuff. Kamchatka (from Sweden):
[video=youtube;_JdP-1KFQF8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JdP-1KFQF8[/video]

Always tough to do that kind of thing transatlanticly, I think, because you never know what has made it across the pond and what hasn't in terms of awareness of even the most dedicated music followers. On the other hand, it's always good to get a bit of perspective from elsewhere too.

How about some Rap Djent crossover from the UK:
[video=youtube;jFUizeNi7SI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFUizeNi7SI[/video]