Rock’s Demise

“Revelations” serve as a mini essay / blog that may be converted to a Podcast Episode and or published to print.  Written by Magico777 * Copyright 2022

Welcome to Revelations on Rock’s Demise

Rock N Roll history is fascinating because it had garnered worldwide popularity from the 1950s – 1980 and then faded away for a decade only to come  back in the late 80s and 90s with the advent of Grunge Music – a derivative of Rock Music.

During the 1970’s, rock acts were making more money than blue chip companies on the NYSE and became household names.  So many Rock Stars made headline news all the time by dating super models and selling out football stadiums as they toured from city to city and country to country. 

Many Rock Acts would travel on Boeing commercial airplanes as well as large private jets that the band had actually purchased with their own money.  The sky was the limit and there was no end in sight.

Fast forward to present times, and we see Rock Music has been placed on “medical bed rest”.  Legions of young generation millennials have not supported or had an insatiable appetite and or interest for Rock Music. 

What happened?  What exactly was Rock Music’s demise and what shall be the future of Rock Music?

Let’s explore what was happening in the 70s with the mind and opinion of Jim Morrison of the The Doors on the topic –

The short story of Rock Music’s demise is there was a perfect storm brewing which entailed a number of characters within the theater of music which were –

• Classic Rock Radio would not introduce or promote new rock acts.
• Pirating music with the introduction of NAPSTER and similar torrent sites completely decimated the earning potentials for not only Rock acts but all music acts that were managed through major record labels (companies).
• Rap, Hip Hop, House, Trance, Pop, Country, EDM and DJ Artists became the orcas of the music scene. Pop and Country intermingled with Nashville, hungry to market artists and keep Music City in business.  Rap, Hip Hop, and digital music all joined together and spread worldwide practically overnight. 
• Pop culture’s music audience did not have the attention span for Rock Music and liked that they could easily become a part of the other music genres without learning an instrument. Less became more and desirable in terms of music. 
• People liked to dance to music more than trying to find the message or hear the voice of electric guitars and what guitar solos provided before to audiences in the former times.
• The newer, larger Rock Acts of the 1990’s such as GUNS N’ ROSES broke apart. The Black Crowes had problems. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had problems. The Grateful Dead‘s iconic leader, Jerry Garcia passed away. NIRVANA and ALICE IN CHAINS both fell due to deaths of their lead singers. Van Halen, Motley Crue, and Pearl Jam followed the same suit.  Even the lighter Rock acts such as U2 began to become less and less in the public eye. Everywhere in Rock N Roll was quiet a bit of gloom and doom and or less lime light to go around compared to past years.

It is interesting that Aerosmith thought to synergize with the Rap / Hip Hop revolution in the 1990s and opened up Pandora’s Box in the process because at that time Rock N Roll needed to keep marketing itself as being glamorous but instead Aerosmith’s somewhat strategic plan, diluted the strength of Rock N Roll.

However, as Aerosmith opted to recycle their hit song “Walk This Way” with rappers RUN DMC – pop culture took note and those within the genre of Rap and HIP / HOP received more leverage from this joint venture than Rock N Roll. To be fair – Rock N Roll was on its way out as noted prior in the blog – No GUNS N ROSES. JERRY GARCIA DIED. DICKEY BETTS is kicked out of the Allman Brothers Band. The more complex models of music could not sustain itself against more simplified music. Not to say that Aerosmith caused the fall of rock – that is definitely not the narrative, however, they did not exactly help their genre by assisting to cross over a new generation that would not support them.

With the emergence of widespread popularity of Rap and Hip Hop along with all the digital produced music, a very large creative movement followed where many people began to independently market themselves as a Rapper or DJ or Trance/House Producer.  A significant amount of independent artists were crowned as Kings and Queens of the new movement while Rock N Roll had to essentially, downsize.

Where Rock N Roll was the great white shark of the ocean, the hunters of the sea became the hunted and haunted. With the indie RAP / HIP HOP / DJ / House / Dance / EDM revolution in play during the late 1990s, that era downsized a majority of Rock N Roll acts into tuna fish from the mighty great white shark.”

Magico777

On the other side though – so many new artists emerged within the Hip Hop, Rap, EDM and DJ arenas that these spaces became more saturated with music than Rock N Roll had been at its highest and most popular level in history. In essence, the supply of Hip-Hop, Rap, etc., was plentiful.

Far easier to produce the music of Rap, Hip Hop, EDM, etc., and with no real instruments used on recording tracks; and having to deal with egos of only 1 artist at a time instead of a group of egos in a band, Rock’s demise had taken its fall by the end of the 1990s and has not rebounded ever since the late 90s. 

Sure, big Rock acts still tour such as: Cold Play, Def Leppard is gearing up to go on tour in 2022 as are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but it’s completely a different game at present times.

So what will be the future of Rock N Roll? 

The good news is that music is cyclical and while Rock N Roll may have been a great white shark in the ocean, now Rock N Roll can be a beluga sturgeon in a pond and that translates to being a good sized fish in a decent sized pond. This means that there really has never been a better time to get involved with Rock Music! Similar to a stock that has fallen in price to rock bottom, if you buy it at rock bottom you only have one direction to go which is up. Rap and Hip Hop, has a very saturated artist pool, and its entire perspective, domain and space has gotten challenging to break through the mold and find professional success.

Folk Rock, Americana, and Rock Music genres allows modern musicians to focus, grind the pavement, be independent, self-market and even delve into producing Digital Rock Music where entire songs are composed and produced with computer software programs but performed live at concerts.

The element of EMOTION is and shall always be the trademark of Rock, Folk and Americana Music, whereby musicianship, showmanship along with the traditional organic way to actually play instruments on recordings and in live performances will always propel the genre and keep it relevant. However, referring to popularity – Rock Music should cyclically rebound sometime in the future.

Below – Damien Rice, a multi platinum record selling Folk Rock artist, street performs or ‘busks’ for free in Hong Kong. One voice + a real instrument = Depth of Soul and Raw Emotion, the essence of exceptional Rock Music.

A fairly new rock band, Royal Blood, from England consisting of only 2 musicians – a drummer and a lead bass / guitar player (who is also lead vocals) is an excellent example of Rock N Roll revisited with fire and vigor led by millennial generational musicians who adopted the philosophy that less is more . The lead guitar / bass / vocals, Mike Kerr, uses technology to his advantage and emulates Electric Guitar Riffs from his bass guitar which is a fairly new approach to structuring and playing Rock songs. The formula worked, majestically well for Kerr and Royal Blood was born.