Alice is right. There are any number of good, even great unsigned bands in your town or within a 100-mile drive. They play at a bar nearby with 4 other bands, asking only a $10 cover charge, a two drink minimum (when there isn't a pandemic), and for an open ear to receive innovation and entrepreneurship. Some will suck, but others will renew your faith in capitalism and music.
If you are old and can't be bothered to leave your couch, find new music online.
It’s been over a decade since I heard a new song I actually liked. The last “rock” band whose stuff I really liked was The Rosewood Thieves and they disbanded around 2010 or so.
I would definitely say that the Rock I knew in my youth is dead and probably never coming back. The demographics just don’t support it.
Luckily, there is enough good music made from the 1950s to the 2000s that I will never lack for it. If I had to put a year on rock’s decline, it would be 1987, when the song “I want your sex” (by George Michael) was a hit. When I heard that, I knew rock was in trouble.
There’s a bar here, Howard’s Club H, always has bands. Some have been good. Ya never know...
I’m not part of their target demographic. Too old. When I turn on the radio, I mostly hear a boring, throbbing beat. Nothing of interest musically. The emphasis seems to be on the singer and her strong vocal pyrotechnics. Gets old very fast, for me. I think Whitney Huston was a bad influence — impressive voice, but absolutely nothing else of interest going on. Then American Idol came along and seems to have convinced people that that’s all music should ever be.
But I think the public wants a throbbing background score to their daily lives. They don’t seem to “listen” to the music. They just want it to be “there”.
While my son isn’t learning instruments (poor kid inherited too much of my lack of coordination), he is discovering the good music from my youth. I grew up in the 70s and 80s. So I got the exposure to 50s and 60s music from my folks and we listened to the 70s and 80s as I grew up. Great time.
I also agree with Mr Cooper, the visceral excitement of a power chord will never leave the young at heart. As a musician, I can guarantee you that if you think any good music is dead you are merely not finding it. It surrounds you, but there are no record companies with giant budgets to promote it to your favorite radio station. In some ways, this is better, because bands with something to offer aren’t shaken down by the big “independent promoters” being paid by the record companies. That entire house of cards crumbled. To find good music (there is a flood of it out there)it pays to ask the intelligent young adults what they have found. Write down the artists names, check them out on youtube and start discovering hidden gems. Don’t resort to Rolling Stone, they are clueless.
I have made an attempt to listen to the new rock groups over the last few years.
They all sound the same, nothing that really catches you the first time like Dream On or Enter Sandman. It’s all so generic and blah.
Rock and roll is dead, it was poisoned by Hollywood.
Punk, which actually was fun for a brief time, was it’s death rattle.
Postmillennial trash, along with “Pop-country” which the late Tom Petty described as “bad rock with a fiddle”, are the products of choice for the money brokers now.
“Prove me wrong.”
The title of this article may be Alice’s way of being a bit, if you’ll excuse the pun, cryptic. After all...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpKGfFw8FEA
Rock isn’t dead, but The Machine we’re all welcomed to will never be the same, and that’s a good thing. Rock needs to be small and angry, and the current trend of worldwide media censorship will not only encourage that, it will force it.
www.cosmicorderband.com
I write all the tunes, sing and play bass, drums and keys on it all. I also handle all the mixdowns and mastering.
Check out my recently released second album here:
https://cosmicorderband.com/album/1848014/duality
If you dig it, grab a download or CD. Not all musicians and folks in the arts are leftwing assholes - we non-leftist artists are too busy working to spew leftwing talking points. Support us!
I dunno Alice, have not heard rock on the gym sound system in a long time now.
Just a computer drum track, and a lot of shouting and chanting. Some weird yodeling now and then.