You won't see it either way. Warner Brothers or someone of that ilk have probably already got it, and you'd have to prise it out of their cold, dead hands.
I saw Foo Fighters with Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey and the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Slane in 2003. I was 16 or 17 and it was the gig of my generation. I went to see Foo Fighters for the first time since a couple of years ago. Dave Grohl proudly looked to the crowd and shouted “And they say rock is dead” at a high point in the gig. I panned around and couldn’t spot a single person under 30.. It’s pretty gut-wrenching realising the music of your youth is now Dad-rock
But, Foo fighters have college age fans. Maybe it was just that night. Also, check out the reaction videos by the young - teens and twenties - discovering music from our generation. Most all of them are very excited and yet, sad they were not around during our time. I think once the younger ones hear it they like it. many are just not exposed to rock and the good stuff. I have wondered what would happen if the top 40 stations played rock from the late 60s thru the 90s for a 24 hour period to the teens today
I discovered this channel yesterday. Today I have spent about 3 hours watching and listening to several programmes on it and can't have enough. Thank you, Andy! Big thumbs up from Samarkand!
I remember that ìn the charts at the moment. For years before and afterwards, I was mostly listening to the radio as there weren't many music programmes on TV other than TOTP. So I didn't know what the performers looked like until I looked in the music papers. Sometimes, I would see them live before I knew what they looked like. Then in the late 80s there was a surfeit of music programmes on TV such as Rapido, the Chart Show, No Limits and Wired and I had access to a video recorder, so recorded videos from the TV. So video took over for me from 1987.
@@jchapman8248 But not everyone had access to video players and music channels at the time so it was mostly radio for us. I didn't even have a TV set for part of the 80s. I was working full time and didn't have much time to watch TV but was glued to the radio moat of the some when at home and mot asleep in bed.
As someone who was born in 1966 and started listening to rock as a young child in ‘72 this video made me want to cry. To see the gradual deterioration of everything I came to love growing up this is such a reality check for me. It’s heartbreaking! I guess I really wanted to believe that rock ‘n’ roll would never die.😢
I too was born in '66 and can remember the music of '72 thanks to my having a sister who was born in '61. So much of what I remember in those days is because she was entering and living her teens just a few years sooner than I would.
Genres don't die, they just fall out of popularity. You grew in an era when rock and roll dominated. Twenty years before you were born there was no rock and roll. Jazz had been the most popular genre of music for many decades. Now it's been hip hop dominating the charts for the last twenty years. In another decade or so something else will come along supersede hip hop. Circle of life.
@@mjwbulichIt’s already happening, hip-hop doesn’t have the same rebellious and anti-establishment feel it used to have, the thing that’s becoming popular at the moment is genres like shoegaze, indie, and alternative due to it having maximum exposure on TikTok, apparently, being a “alternative” is cool again, but like you said, it’ll probably last some 5 years and then bam, we’ll have other genres and subcultures dominating the youth.
Of course, back in the day, album gatefolds and joints were closely related, and not just in the way we experienced the artwork along with the music contained within the vinyl. Weed back then contained lots of seeds, and the inside of the gatefold, propped up at an angle, was an efficient device for separating out those pesky seeds.
Well, I'm a big fan of the Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Bowie and Deep Purple ever since those days and never used drugs - but I can see that for many people it was a necessary connection.
Twenty years ago I decided to sell the old vinyl LPs that I hadn't listened to in decades so I took them down to the local used record store. When the clerk opened the gatefold of one of the albums out fell a pack of rolling papers and enough seeds to fill a sandwich bag.
If the Hall of Fame wants to put in different type of musical acts.they should change it to the Music Hall of Fame not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And there's many groups that have never been inducted. Bad Company Paul Rodgers have never been abducted isn't that a crime.
“Day after day I'm more confused but I look for the light through the pouring rain you know thats a game that I hate to lose i'm feeling the strain ain't it a shame Give me the beat boys and free my soul I wanna get lost in the rock and roll and drift away”
In the UK we have The Arctic Monkeys They're no ACDC, but they're proof rock's not dead. Better, because of them, my teenage son's and their friends formed several bands and started playing Rock. I don't expect they're alone, so expect the fruits of that 'rock rebirth' in 10 years or so?
Time is indeed slipping away. I was watching a young woman with a bong and a peace sign on her T-shirt live-stream on YT, and when I made a Grateful Dead joke in the chatbox, she wasn't sure who I was talking about.
There's a couple of differences between the music environment that we grew up in and the present environment that I think we need to explore more and that is that, back in the day, we were exposed mostly to the 15- 20 song in rotation on the radio at any given time, and the few albums that you could buy as a kid. Today kids and everyone, can access the whole of recorded music in the history of the world ,and from everywhere. I teach kids , and they're as likely to listen to something 50 years old ,as something made yesterday. Styles are all mixed up, and any sound can be made and find an audience. The problem is , almost nobody can make money off of recordings like they could decades ago.Love your video.
Re your end comments about only having time to listen to music in the car. I get it, but I actually make time to sit and listen to music, usually vinyl on my turntable. In the morning getting ready is a great time and then almost every evening (at least on weekdays) I sit and listen to at least a side of an album. I put the phone away, turn off the computer, lock out all distractions and sit and listen to music just like I did when I was a teenager in my room. This is time well spent my friends.
I recorded albums in the early 90s, toured etc. This list resonates. And I would add: - The death of local scenes in the late 90s, mostly driven by radio stations getting bought by conglomerates - playlists lost the ability to support local bands, scenes, labels. - The UK music press turned rock v Britpop into a football match pool, dividing audiences, and basically ruining appreciation. My favorite acts from this time were roundly ignored by the music press, mainly Massive Attack et al, so were unscathed. - Grunge was almost the last gasp of bands rediscovering The Stooges and MC5. The problem with the grunge template is that the groove and boogie crushed a more interesting style of UK rock, such as Swervedriver. - the second wave of industry consolidation late-90s - death of the mid-sized indie label. It was a massacre, including big labels which had fostered some obscure talent on their riskier subsidiaries. All gone. - and the rest. LiveAid felt totally phony and hypocritical at the time. The best thing to come out of it was Chumbawumba's album "Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records".
100% and let me add 3 things. Gender, visual nature of social media, and extreme class stratification. Rock was sociologically a way for often short, often not handsome, average, working class men to get laid and mate at least, and at most to get some upward class mobility - even if just by getting out of dead end towns. There are many industries that were like this, journalism famously was once a working class to middle class pipeline and then became a job just for ivy league elites. You know what I am going to say next, at some point being good looking mattered more in music, women had access to more elite men (whether by looks or by income) through social media, and at the time, class mobility was lessened across the board by globalization. Also, the internet /social media let lifestyle fully become image and consumption habits, separate from real experience or communities, so the cool , off beat lifestyles and personal ethics associated with musicians, especially rock musicians , could be had without rock music, scenes, touring etc and the price they could bring to one's career, health, etc.
Britpop was the nearest to rock music in the 90s. It was a fusion of the British Invasion genre with punk. It got a bit boring after a while as it was all you saw on TOTP circa 1995 with bandwagon jumpers copying Oasis and the Stone Roses. At the same time, there were trance and house music with the Chemical Brothers, Deep Forest, and 808 State.
Your first point: so true! In the USA president Clinton was to blaim for that by passing a law on radio stations I read a few months ago. I used to think he was the last sane president (besides Obama)... 🖖
Great video....much food for thought..... I grew up listening to rock in the 60's and 70's.....After I discovered JazzRock it led me to become a jazz snob by the late 70’s. Apart from the odd band/artist I lost interest in rock, and felt it was tired... With the passing of the jazz giants, the tradition was passed onto the likes of Metheny, Scofield, Brecker etc.... As things stand for me now, both jazz and rock are museum pieces (as a living artform)...but we have the memories of live gigs we witnessed and a wealth of great recordings to listen to. I am still discovering new albums I missed first time around.....
"The Warning"; a true rock band [power trio] consisting of three 20-something Mexican sisters from Monterrey, MX, who sing in English [a couple of exceptions]. Their style is generally 70's-80's hard rock, that they write themselves. Its truly amazing seeing one of their live shows in the USA, lots of people in the crowd who clearly saw the GOATS of the past, and who had given up on ever hearing the music they love from a contemporary group. After 3 albums and an EP, of all original music, they simply have no bad songs. BTW, they had their "viral moment" as 10 year old kids, covering "Enter Sandman", but have DEFINITELY grown up into their talent.
There’s a live Zappa recording where FZ talks to someone in the audience who’s wearing a ‘Disco Sucks’ shirt and he says, (paraphrased) “I have news for you: rock sucks too."
Robert Fripp, when doing his solo thing, was interviewed by a journalist here in Sweden. When asked what kind of music he was listening to at the moment, he said “Disco!”. He sort of explained that all music is good, but we have to listen a lot to it, to grasp the quality… These days I am ready to accept disco as great music, comparing to what I hear when turning on the radio.
How can you not want to dance to YMCA. And I Will Survive is great from a lyrical and performance standpoint. But it became too ubiquitous for such limited format.@@Soundbrigade
I'm 60, and you're absolutely right. Hip-hop is not just a different "genre" to rock, it is a whole new way of approaching the creation of music, a whole new way of thinking about music using digital instruments and machines, and it all starts with the drum machines and MIDI synths of the 70s-80s, leading through disco and house directly to the soundcloud musicans of today. It is *technically,* *ontologically,* and *organizationally* different from rock, just as rock was different from big bands and barbershop quartets. Great essay.
If you like hip hop and auto tune and robot bands go for it I'd rather listen to human element in music actual singing and physically playing an instrument
@@kumarapatch1234 Totally. I'm also a Prog Rock fan. But of course, it's not an either-or thing. I loved Kraftwerk and Gary Numan in the 80s - talk about "robot bands" - even though i opposed disco and approved when Rush and Queen put "No Synthesizers" on their album jackets. Taste is funny and not necessarily logically consistent. Autotune can be used to AMAZING effect if you don't simply rely on it as a crutch for bad singing. Check out the new mixtape "Scrapyard" by Quadeca for some fascinating combinations of old and new musical influences, using a hip-hop approach to production.
@@3stringovation Wait, when did Rush and Queen do that? Geddy Lee is famous for heavily using synths, he even plays them live lol and Queen certainly used them on some songs.
@@mikesteelheart I could be wrong about putting it on the cover, but I know the "Farewell to Kings" album was Rush's first use of synths. Queen definitely did proclaim "No Synthesizers" on their first 5 albums.
Objectively, it has roots in the minimalist movement that occurred in the 1950s, joined to a certain extent with beat poetry as a possible precedent and the addition of electronics. NO idiom of music emerges as it's own reference point. What is new is the popularity and the amped up sex and violence and attitude that actually started in the mid 60s. James Brown was also a predecessor as were drum machines. Music just morphed basically, into words and rhythm. That happened long before rap was even thought of. You can even go to The Last Poets as predecessors. This is part of an easily traceable lineage that owes a great deal to rock antecedents.
Rock has become classical music. Like the centuries old symphony music, it’s a genre many people still love and many groups will still perform well for generations into the future. Same goes for its influence and still emerging descendants; it’s a genre so broad and nebulous that it basically ate most of “music” for a generation. People in a hundred years will still listen to the Beatles or Enter Sandman, even groups covering the songs- just as you still hear people ‘covering’ Ode to Joy or Mozart. But like what we now call ‘classical’ music, the period of the greats- the big innovators, the superstar acts, the historic performances inspiring city wide riots- is over. Rock music may still have a Wagner or John Williams in its future, men who at least briefly revive its glory days in terms of innovation and popular interest even centuries after the 1960s. But it’ll never occupy the cultural center of gravity again, not outside of a Star Wars like fad. I’d say popular music is now in a state akin to the post WW2 years before Elvis and Holly. It’s clear the “old world” of music is dead, dying, or rapidly becoming terminally stale but no clear successor has emerged. Hopefully the next great thing can bring back a richer variety of instruments, sounds, and lyrics. Instruments beyond the guitar and bass, lyrics that aren’t just 3 special ed sentences repeated ad nauseam. The same computers that are damn near autogenerating the latest late stage rock, pop, or hip hop could also synthesize whole bands and orchestras worth of instruments playing in virtual spaces with novel acoustics, vocal ranges few human performers can reach or sustain, or other crazy unexpected things. Let’s see what a digital conductor could really do.
I'm 54. Hardly play my large cd collection anymore. Prefer to play hi quality streaming (in the car especially and at work, home) but I still play my vinyl at home when time allows and is my preferred medium for new music purchases.
I enjoy watching your channel, but I wish you wouldn't assume we did something just because you did it. I never downloaded music just because you and other people did it. I'm 60 years old and learn new music information from your channel. Your interpretation of American music through the eyes of an Englishman is very interesting. Thank you, Andy.
I’m 58 and LoveBites have had a very similar effect on me. I have rarely seen such technical brilliance, their live performances are so tight, almost unreal.
I am 64 years old. I've seen The Warning 8 times in concert already ( October in Pomona, CA will be my 9th time ). Here in Mexico, the crowds are predominately under 30 and split about 60/40 male & female. They are touring Europe for the 3rd time and killing it as usual. These RU-vid channels ( Rick Beato, etc )cater to people who like to re-live the past and talk doom and gloom but are completely out of touch with the current state of popular music. Rock music has never been dead. The business model has completely changed and rock bands that adapt to the changing climate can and will prosper.
@@thomasmalatesta7331 gives you faith in music - there is young talent around, you just need to go and look for it. You can’t recreate yesteryear so why even try :)
Turntable sales are still rising. But to me, the thing that kills off any musical creativity is the fact that back then we all had something the youth today don't have, leisure time. That's what allowed us to disappear for months at a time to delve into the creative. Today, things are so expensive that all anybody has time to do is work. And if they have a little extra time, they work some more. If they don't work, well, that is why there are so many homeless. That didn't exist back then when "rock" was popular. Technology sped life up to 100 mph and as a result, digital streaming took off and grew because it is a lazy form of music consumption and easier to produce. It's quick and convenient like a burger. Neither of which are any good for you or for creativity. What's dead, or going to be, is the human race as technology advances.
I think we’re tending to overthink everything these days, for me it’s all about emotion and experience… I’m in my mid 60s now, I grew up listening to the Beatles, Stones etc… saw Zep, Floyd and Bowie during the 70s… enjoyed Disco and later the Rave scene…and all things in-between… Last year I could be found in the mosh pits of various gigs by acts like IDLES, Goat Girl, Alt-J, Florence & the Machine, Otoboke Beaver… alongside older acts like L7, Bikini Kill, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode… rock didn’t seem dead to me… just the opposite…
What I liked about vinyl was the sleeves where everyone was listed (and large enough to be read - it encouraged more purchases - my jazz listening started with Keith Jarret with Gary Burton and I ended up buying many ECMs by chasing down the artists from one record to the next.
Good retrospective. I might add -- rock began as an inadvertent side effect of the fact that big bands were out, more clubs were having music (instead of just dance halls) and smaller bands needed to be fuller. In other words, louder. Enter the electric guitar. Once guitarists started pushing the volume they realized that the amps would distort, which sounded even better! After a short while, there were so many people playing guitar that Leo Fender figured that a fretted electric bass could be played by guitar players resulting in more customers. Of course, the electric bass was also louder and more "solid" than an upright, and before long a music that basically started as an imitation of jump blues became something more raucous. And powerful. And the kids loved it.
the crazy thing for me is that my musical life revolves around rock but I can't handle almost any rock before the 1970s, because the production style and thin tinny drum sounds just bother me so much.
Enjoying this rock series very much Andy. I think the phenomenon is wider, and you can miss the woods for the trees. Many genres of music seem stuck in a bit of a cul-de-sac, and even the ones that are still commercial like hip-hop feel like they're struggling for exciting new ideas. Outside of music, cinema lives completely on old recycled stories and characters. In visual art, when people are engaged at all, they're much more interested in the Renaissance or impressionism than anything made after Picasso and Matisse died. Or poetry - how many living poets could most people even name? Etc. etc.
It's been quite humbling for me and my GenX friends to realize that Hip Hop was no different than other genres with life spans. Our Golden Age era was the early 90s, and we spent the 2000s complaining and bemoaning its rapid decline like the grumpy old men who complained to us about the decline of Jazz and Funk. Humbling.
I'm from 96, still can't let go of rock music (alt-rock) and i'm still composing rock music. I made 22 tracks, mostly alternative rock. it's on spotify etc
Someone asked Roger Daltrey why old music was better and he said that when he was young, music was all that young people had, Now they have computers. I would also point out that a lot of great music was created by bands, but they went away because artists don't want to split the money. Finally, rock became about everything except rock. Look at who is in the rock hall of fame.
I'd possibly add the film ' This Is Spinal Tap' to the list! Once something has been parodied like that maybe it's more difficult to take it quite so seriously?
Yes and I would also include the Comic Strips Bad News and more Bad News with Rick Mayel and Ade Edmonson.They really took the piss out of all that Poodle Pop that came along at around that time.
I thought I understood something about this subject, but it seems I'd actually only just scratched the surface, and was blown away by your triumphantly thorough and precise post-mortem of Rock. I feel privileged to have heard it, yet find I'm a little depressed now, too. Ten deep stabs is too much for any art form to take!
Wayne Kramer last week. one guy who wouldn't anytime soon, turn his back on rock bands. and Andy is here to remind me that it's not so much the music of rock only, it's the people who are still serious about making music in a rock band, that are dying. long live Wayne Kramer. (in what he created).
Wayne and the MC5 were the living personification of rock and roll for me. Forever grateful for all the artists that did it right inspite of the mainstream public and industry trying to suppress it
Great video Andy. One thing you didn’t discuss was generational change. The drift in preference in music. I was born in 1954, I recall during the 60s and 70s having no interest in the music my parents and grandparents were interested in. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I really loved the music of Al Jolson, George Cohan, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald. But it was always old music, music of a bygone era. But consider 50 years back from 1966 (when I was 12) took me back to 1916. 50 years back from now takes me back to 1974, so larger gap from now to 1966 than from 1966 to 1916. Another point, maybe this only relates to Australia, during the 1980s all these environmental laws. Health and Safety laws that reduced the number of people you could cram into a pub for a gig and the need to create fire exits that are expensive to retro fit. Noise abatement laws that allowed those who lived near pubs to close down the venues due to noise and behaviour of patrons during and after gigs. Introduction of random breath tests for alcohol for car drivers so the consumption of alcohol dropped at pub gigs. And finally, the introduction of legislation that gave poker machines ( slot machines) licences to pubs. All that killed the Australian Pub rock scene here in Australia. Finally, there are still great bands performing interesting music in the Rock genre but they fail to get airplay except on niche stations. Here in Australia, some community radio stations and the ABC ‘youth stations’ Double J, Triple J and Unearthed.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is killing Rock and Roll. It is smothering and crushing the heart and soul of rock and roll. The RRHOF celebrates the very things rock and roll rebels against.
Thanks for explaining what happened to the music/culture/zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s in which I came of age. Once I began a family and career, I tuned out the pop scene, only to find myself utterly bewildered when I again had the time and energy to pay attention a few decades later. God how thankful I am to have been young and crazy during the brief shining Age of Aquarius, when that was the only way to be.
You might be overlooking one or two things, Andy. They're obvious, I know. Firstly, there will always be families where children and teens hear music that their fathers love and take a liking to it themselves, and that becomes a lifelong love for them and they can pass it on to their own children at a later time. Secondly - and this applied to me - you can suddenly come across a band later in life that grabs you by the throat and opens up a whole new 'can of worms'. Bands like Return To Forever, Weather report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra fall into that category.. I wish I had come across them much, much, earlier. By the way, I still love putting a disc in my CD player, turning the lights off, sitting still and listening in the dark. As I have a great sound system, it's magic.
The music that these hypothetical kids' parents love probably won't be rock in the coming years. Likely, you have little to no knowledge of or interest music of artists like Helen Kane, Vernon Dalhart or Vaughn De Leath. Bands may become popular again, but they may not play any rock music. I like old music myself, but most of the people who hang out at the bar I frequent like a lot of music that I don't care for. And many don't even know what rock & roll is. As in, they think Alice In Chains is a rock & roll band.
I suppose my own interest in rock is still fairly limited and I have to admit that the three artists you've mentioned are totally unknown to me. I love so-called classical music too..
Beato also recently called Billie Eilish the heir to the legacy of Kurt Cobain. His videos are often interesting, but he panders a lot, and he isn’t always honest.
Some of it died for me when a couple of decades back I saw an interview with four quite young boys who were proudly talking about how they loved rock and had started a rock band. After a while they got up to perform, and all four of them grabbed a microphone and started singing to a backing track. Oh, a boyband, right on.
I knew that rock was in trouble when I listen to Larger than Life by The Backstreet Boys and then It's My Life by Bon Jovi back to back. I kept trying to tell myself it was Studio interference
"American Idol" aka Simon Cowell and all his associated spin-offs completely shifted the focus back to only vocals. I foresaw that coming during Season 1 when Kelly Clarkson was battling Justin Guarini for supremacy.
Laura Near-o. I learn alot from you. Love your channel. I saw Led Zeppelin in Summer 1969 at a multi-band concert. They were the last band and, after four songs, the promoter shut down the concert to avoid Union overtime pay. The audience grumbled but no riot. (The other bands were Jethro Tull, Johnny Winter and Buddy Guy)
Yes I agree with your summary of what killed Rock, one other factor was Punk Rock and the intense dislike of old aging hippies playing in huge arenas, this was the beginning of the end, oddly enough one band produced what many consider to be the best Punk Rock song without all the hype of the Pistols and that was 'New Rose' by the Damned, this short lived band, considered to be Punk were technically reflective of Rock, they could actually play, without resorting to three chords The success of Punk came from a new generation with different values who invented a new fashion and outlook on life alien to Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes and a generation of others, that was the' first nail in the coffin' for Rock
Rock might be long dead, but the segment of the music gear industry marketing guitars and gadgets to rock guitarists sure is alive and kicking. Never has there been so many choices in guitar gear, at all price points, and targeted at all eras and styles of rock music. I guess I find this sort of ironic.
Saw the Who in about 1979 in London ( "Who are you" tour I think). Kenny Jones on drums replacing the recently deceased Keith Moon (aged 32). Said to my fellow 16 year old mate at the end of a pretty dull gig "wish we'd seen them when they were young and good".
I was lucky enough to have seen The WHO when KEITH MOON was still alive at the Seattle Center Coliseum.. I was a teenager… they kicked ass.. as powerful as the LIVE AT LEEDS album… Best live recording of any band ever made in my opinion… 😊
It is true that Death is a theme that kind of runs through this channel, and it is good to acknowledge Him. I can and do listen to contemporary, shadowless k-pop girl groups for days on end, hoping He'll go away, but so far it hasn't worked. Nowhere to run.
As one of those old guys you mentioned, around the mid-80s I realized that rock appeared to be dead. All of the other genres appeared to have nudged it off to the side as younger people seemed to be content with what I called "crap". Fast forward to today and I'm finally listening for the first time to some of the bands who were very popular in the 80s/90s/00s. I'm finding that some of them had some worthwhile songs, so shame on me for putting a blanket over all of them and walking away. Suffice it to say that I never downloaded anything that I didn't pay for. What really brought me back was, as crazy as it sounds--covid. Being stuck at home I discovered RU-vid. I discovered people there doing reactions to music they'd never heard of by taking requests. I discovered bands like The Warning, who got discovered ten years ago doing a cover of Metallica's Enter Sandman as kids in their basement. They're getting ready to release their fourth album and the youngest just turned 19. It's good quality hard rock with influences from the same time period that I poo-pooed. So, I admit that I was wrong, and that the nails may be resting on the lid of rock's coffin, but they have yet to be driven in.
Damiano David rock frontman from Måneskin examines that rock is not dead it is recycled. They play with rock attitude and pop creativity. They are a wonderfully talented very young group from Italy. Anyone who has seen them live can’t dispute that they are rock. They have talent, audacity, energy, fashion, looks and they keep experimenting.
Right. As soon as the vampires notice the numbers ticking up on a band they do derivatives or straight copies which tends to overshadow the original form. This isn't exactly news.
If you watched MTV in 1989 and then tuned again in 1994, this would be overwhelmingly obvious.... They switched from third rate 80's style hard rock bands (who admittedly had some talent) to third rate 90's style hard rock bands (where riffs and melodies were heavily dumbed down and solos were almost non existent).
Wanted to add a thought: music is art, art is timeless. The fact that teens and younger people don't listen that much to rock, due to the prevalence in all the media of mediocre pop and fake idols like bad bunny, daddy yankee and the like, doesn't mean everything's lost; art is not made for a certain age group. The show biz abandoned rock and adopted other sub genres, lowering the quality level and somehow taming the younger audiences to that mediocrity. I've seen teenagers jaw dropping when they listened to Queen's music when Bohemian Rhapsody the movie came out, a lot of them were realizing how cool and amazing music rock is. These are hard times for good music of an genre. But no, rock isn't dead.
Hello Andy. My first comment on your channel that I recently discovered. I mainly agree with you in this video. I'm 55 and explored several genres of music until the first half of the 90's time when I realized that rock music was nearly dead. Now I only listen to music from the 70's, the genres you talk about here, prog, jazz, fusion even if my first loves of music during my teens are in the eighties. A special bravo for your drumming in IQ ! (sorry for my french english)
Rock was always popular because it captured the youth culture. A bunch of boomer men touting the Warning isnt going to do much in making them the biggest band in the world.
@@mykemech Im Gen Z too and by boomers I mean 40s and up. Anyone whos old gets called a boomer. If you wanna argue 40s is young then we'll be here all day.
Led Zeppelin was rarely played on USA radio when they were around as a band. And when they finally started to play LZ all they played was Stairway To Heaven.
IDK, when I started listening to rock music in California in the late 1970s they were already rock God status. Not sure how it was in the early 70s. Maybe like you said, not much attention.
For your number 3 point, MTV and the rise of cuteness, I'm surprised that you didn't mention the first video played on MTV was Video killed the radio star, which sums up your point quite nicely ! Well rock music certainly isn't dead in my garage, my band came over last Sunday, with real guitars and bass and amps, and I bashed away on a giant Rush style drumset, and recorded us on my 1980's Yamaha 4-trak cassette tape recorder, cuz I don't know how to do it on a computer. I'm only about 30 years behind the technology !
Author/rock critic Steven Hyden covered this topic extensively in his book "Twilight of the Gods", which I recommend. But the bottom line is this: public taste is what it is and you can't expect the general public to adore the classic rock aesthetic forever.
Great list Andy but the corpse was rotting well before this. The first nail was the death of '60s optimism and the hippy dream after Altamont; the Manson murders; Vietnam; political assassinations; Nixon; the death of Jimi, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin etc. The Woodstock festival lost a ton of money but the movie made the organisers millionaires. The corporations soon realised the potential and made their move. Another nail was the glam rock fashion of the early '70s. This was followed by AOR and 'yacht rock' a few years later. Look at any edition of TOTP from 1976 and you'll see what I mean. There were also two albums that killed rock through mega commercial sales: Hotel California, and Rumours. There was also a movie called Star Wars that changed youth culture. So it was over before its idiot bastard son, punk came along and danced all over its grave. RIP.
I always defend Fleetwood Mac when they are lumped in with the Eagles. Their music was not limp. There so much more musicianship going on. I even liked Stevie Nicks in that context.
@@Birdlives247 True - they were far from limp when they were Peter Green's band. :) But they became the very definition of limp in respect to music without him. Smoothed and sanitised to ensure they didn't excite the masses to any action other than opening their wallets. Wonderful performers , great writing and very clever songs. There is a place for that obviously but it's classic "dad" rock. (And that is not rock!)
Rock and Roll is not at all dead, it just packed up and moved to Japan where incredibly gifted musicians there have picked up the mantle of Rock in all its glory. They produce new amazing songs with the heart and soul of Rock's true forebearers. There are many great bands in Japan, but my favorite is the powerful five member, all female group called Band-maid. Check out their instrumental MV "From Now On" to see their impressive musical chops or see their incredible official live video "Domination" to see how a real Rock band can still blow away an audience. There are many others, of course, but if you want genuine hard Rock, one has to look outside of the dull American soundscape to the great artists playing abroad. Peace.
I wish I could give you more than one thumbs up. Rock is very much alive and well. It just moved to Japan, is female and sometimes appears in maid outfits!
Band-Maid is one the best guitar-based bands you can find. They strike that perfect balance between chaos and perfection; the sweet spot of artistic creation as Andy has described. They draw from most all rock genres, are excellent musicians, and great performers. The songwriting is genius. Plus they have a positive vibe and bring lots of happiness. They are a band that can bring us all together, if anyone can. They make me feel like I am in the 1970's again with that explosive musical creativity.
I remember when CDs became popular, vinyl LPs cost about $15 but a CD would set you back $30 plus... this is around 35 years ago. But CDs cost less to produce. Nuts.
The great thing about the aging of hippies is I walk for exercise and there’s a couple houses where these 70 something long haired bearded guys and grandma looking ladies are listening to loud music damn near as old as they are, and the aroma of weed permeates. I swear at first I thought someone ran over a skunk!
Not necessarily. In the 80s I and my friends in high school were all very keenly aware of what had just happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s before we were born and before we were old enough to fully comprehend what had been going on. It was only in the 1990s that I began to see hordes of myopic youth who only cared about what was happening then and didn't give 2 shits about anything that came before. Didn't take long for the 90s to go away and now they have to live the rest of their lives rehashing (pun) their glory days which really produced not much with the kind of staying power as that which preceded them.
I went to the Download Festival last year and while it was true that there were a significant number of oldies like me (I'm 61). There were also a lot of young people and the festival was sold out each of the 4 days. So I don't think rock is dead but it is not being noticed because it is not getting the promotion that rock bands got in the past. The main culprits for that is downloads and streaming. The music companies cannot make money from new rock bands. So to the downloaders and streamers I say well done you have damaged music. Yes the music industry was short sighted. But that is no excuse for not paying for music.
I just discovered your channel about a month ago, and I have to say your channel is the best music channel I've listened too. I don't agree with some opinions about certain bands, but you are so relatable.
The MTV phenomenon is very pertinent indeed. In the mid-70's in Australia, the ABC (public TV and radio network) introduced an hour long TV Pop/Rock program called 'Countdown'. It replaced a 15 minute daily Rock program called 'GTK'. Whereas GTK was counter-cultural, Countdown was very mainstream. I first saw Gabriel-era Genesis on GTK as a child. Countdown lasted from late 1974 to 1987. It was like MTV in that it broadcast very commercial music and rarely gave anything radical a look in. It also portrayed music in a cutesy, formulaic fashion. As a kid, I hated how "square" this show was but had no televisual alternative.
MTV in Europe at least allowed for a great deal of unusual and half experimental/niche music that was way outside of the FM Radio charts format. I remember watching a gig with Radiohead live on MTV around 1992, and videos with West German and French underground bands in the mid-eighties.
10 years back my young workmates did not know the Rolling Stones. I heard a Chinese born and raised girl humming Red River Valley, but her dad was a pianist. She knew every note of the tune.
I abandoned contenporary music in the 80's, now in my 60's, I swerved back into it, now lovin it again.. Yes, screamin' and growling can be a racket on first listen, but give it a chance to get under yr skin. Some fine introspective lyrics/songwriting/stage presence. When its good its F amazing. The energy is there... JINJER, Slaughter to prevail, Spiritbox. Also Rammstein, S.O.A.D, Tool etc etc, just some that passed me by while my old head was in the sand...Brummie far away Btw..
1. Disco 2. Drum machines & sequencing 3. MTV 4. Live Aid - Rock is the new "Establishment" 5. "Grunge" - the death knell 6. Digital recording & production techniques 7. Napster vs. the physical product 8. Britney Spears 9. Downloading, then Streaming 10. Rock's audience is dying off
Rock died because youth rebellion died. Kids today don't even want to learn how to drive. They have no interest in rebellion and freedom - quite the opposite. They want rigid uniformity. They want safe spaces. They don't want to rock. Heavy metal is the same - except it just became a bunch of weird occult themes and mindless screaming. It's horrible.
You're not even allowed to be rebellious anymore. Try it. You will get banned from venues, from social media, If you rebel hard enough, you will get your bank account revoked. You can't do it. I want to make music so bad, but I want it to mean something and that is genuinely illegal now
Not driving is probably one of the smartest things kids could do. And taking public transportation is an FU to fossil fuel industry. Acts of rebellion change with time. Ah yes, the good ol'days when kids died young in car crashes and cars killed the climate. This will get an "ok Boomer/Gen X'er" response.😂😂😂
Now we need a top ten of what kept Rock music alive as long as it did. I bet there will be some of the same things discussed here just from a different view.