WTF happened to rock?

[JesseJames]

Has anyone else bemoaned the state of rock music? Where are the kickass bands like the ones from yesteryear?
I use to listen to the radio a couple years ago but now I find myself relying more on my CDs in my car.
Gods of rock, why have thou forsaken us???

[shadowfax]

haha, where have you been? i have been living off of my iPod and car CD changer since i got them this year, and had been relying on my mp3 library for years before that. the radio has been shot to hell, by and large, for several years now, if not more.

good bands are still pioneering with music though. it just doesn't make it to the radio, or is on it, but diluted by so much crap it isn't worth it anymore...

there's nothing anyone can do except boycott the audioexcrement on the radio, which you seem to be doing.

audioexcrement... could be a good band name.

[BaghdadBob]

I've always hated the radio. I've found a little solace in classic rock stations. They play exactly what modern radio/MYV isn't: music that people care about after it's hot. The only problem is you still have to hear Bon Jovi abd David Lee Roth from time to time. Overall much more tolerable.

I still don't listen to the radio at home.

[tazo]

Originally posted by shadowfax
haha, where have you been? i have been living off of my iPod and car CD changer since i got them this year, and had been relying on my mp3 library for years before that. the radio has been shot to hell, by and large, for several years now, if not more.

good bands are still pioneering with music though. it just doesn't make it to the radio, or is on it, but diluted by so much crap it isn't worth it anymore...

there's nothing anyone can do except boycott the audioexcrement on the radio, which you seem to be doing.

audioexcrement... could be a good band name.

BoycottBadMusic.com?

;) :p

[MrMacMan]

Queens of the Stone age?

:rolleyes:

Some bands are up and coming, they are getting there.

[Kethoticus]

I concur that radio sucks the big one, and has done so for years. Most radio music is cookie-cutter crap designed not for art's sake, but for money's.

Back in the mid-80s, in the NY tristate area, there was an awesome station called WLIR (92.7), that played lots of sub-top-40 stuff, like The Cure, Depeche Mode, Erasure, 5440, The Smiths, Alphaville, Nik Kershaw, Ministry, etc., etc. But in the late 80s, starting in '87, they began to decline, in my opinion. They slowly started playing less edgy new-wave/alternative and almost sounded like a mixture of a folk and a club music station, which is pretty much where they are today.

NYC, fortunately has college radio stations which are not worried about ratings, and usually play anything, including some of the most underground stuff I've ever heard. There's also WXRK (92.3), which is a VERY edgy alternative station, playing the likes of Korn, Orgy, etc. But I am no longer in NY.

Out here in Los Angeles, where I've been living since late 2001, there is one station that comes close to playing stuff I can deal with, and that's KROQ (106.7), which is a hard-edged alternative station. They mostly play Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Offspring, etc. They're a lot like the aforementioned WXRK But because they do not play more of the kind of alternative I like (less of the amelodious garage-sounding stuff and more variety, like Front 242, Faith Assembly, Assemblage 23, etc.), I rarely turn them on. Other than that, 95.5 (call letters unknown) OCCASIONALLY plays something I like, like The Cure or early U2. And there are no college radio stations out here.

The way I used to find out about great new music was via WLIR and the NYC college stations like WNYU, WFUV and WBAU, altho what these stations are playing today I don't know. That may have decayed too for all I know.

But anyway, I do not get my new music info from the radio anymore. Haven't for the better part of 14 years. I usually get it from accidentally coming across a band in a record store, a movie soundtrack, something I see on a teenager's shirt or a buddy of mine doing something illegal over the internet. I wish there was a really good radio station out there that would not play the most commercially successful music available. That's all my fiance listens to and it drives me nuts. She loves the likes of Christina, J-Lo, Beyonce, etc., etc., whom she loves to refer to as "artists".

(If anyone knows any good alternative music sources on the radio or internet (or anywhere else), please drop me a line. I love the classics I have on my iPod, but I only occasionally get to add something truly new to it.)

[mymemory]

I was in a radio interview once and they played 2 times the same song in less than 30 minutes, that was a year ago.

[dstorey]

the only radio i ever listen to these days (when i remember) are steve lamaque and john peel on bbc radio one (they stream the shows) but they are only on in the evening after rime time (think steves show was cut to maybe once a week now too). they play a lot more smaller label stuff and underground bands.

Most the bands i like are lesser known bands that havn't made it onto normal radio/MTV etc, and there are a lot of good bands out there in rock...I like some that have broke though too such as Black Rebel Motorcycle club, strokes and sometime the white stripes. At the momnet i love Radio 4 ( the band not the station), Interpol, The Sleepy Jackson and the french kicks...bands like that really. Theres a lot of music coming out of NYC and detroit at the moment as well as a few in scandinavia and Australia/NZ. Sadly the british rock music scene is pretty flat at the moment.

[LethalWolfe]

radio where I live is so horrible I find myself listening to the 80's station 90% of the time.


Lethal

[evoluzione]

guys, you gotta listen to The Darkness (http://www.thedarknessrock.com)

you can listen to it on iTMS and then I recommend you actually buy it, i've been listening to it non stop for a week now. it's awesome. plain and simple.

[evoluzione]

oh and it moved Kerrang! [magazine] to dub them "the greatest rock'n'roll band of the last twenty years".

not bad eh?

[Nermal]

Originally posted by evoluzione
guys, you gotta listen to The Darkness (http://www.thedarknessrock.com)

you can listen to it on iTMS and then I recommend you actually buy it, i've been listening to it non stop for a week now. it's awesome. plain and simple.

Yeah I heard The Darkness on the radio the other day, and promptly, er, "acquired" their CD :)

[Rower_CPU]

Tenacious D (http://www.tenaciousd.com) ;)

[3rdpath]

oh there's still good rock...you just won't hear it on the radio. i quit listening to the radio over a decade ago. seriously, pulled the damn thing right out of my car.

i won't get into who i think rocks because...who cares, it's all subjective.

but it IS out there.

[mac15]

it died when the macarena come out :D

[WinterMute]

Have you seen the vid that the Darkness are currently touting? Priceless. I like rock bands with a sense of humour, Tenacious D are a blast, Max Webster were excellent while they lasted and Kim Mitchell continues to fly that flag, Zappa was the undisputed champ for a long while, and it's good to see some yuks back in the old riffola machine.

Too many bands up their own arses for my taste. (Mentioning no names: Limp Biscuit, Linkin Park, Radiohead etc)

Still, I like Rush, so WTF do I know?

[mactastic]

How about what happened to punk? When I was a kid, punks were dirty, scum of the earth types and their music reflected it. Now punk is ****ing mainstream. Groups like Green Day and Good Riddance with all their squeaky clean little suburban fans make me wanna ****. When did alternative become mainstream? And where's all the political outrage that punk was about? All sold out I guess.[/RANT]

[irmongoose]

I'm still in love with Rage Against the Machine. Not many people like RATM. I wonder why.



irmongoose

[howard]

hey,

i know its not rock rock but what about indie rock?

its a taste you have to aquire but some can be really good. try checking out death cab for cutie, in particular the album "we have the facts and we're voting yes". You probably all know the band cake, there great and i would consider them rock. or if you want more experimental with an eastern kinda sound try out macha.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by mactastic
How about what happened to punk? When I was a kid, punks were dirty, scum of the earth types and their music reflected it. Now punk is ****ing mainstream. Groups like Green Day and Good Riddance with all their squeaky clean little suburban fans make me wanna ****. When did alternative become mainstream? And where's all the political outrage that punk was about? All sold out I guess.[/RANT]

errr... Punk is still out there (Pennywise, NOFX, Rancid, Distillers, Tiger Army, etc.,). But if you are looking for it on Mtv you'll never find it. And the alternative always filters into the mainstream for a while. In the 50's it was the rock 'n roll from Elvis and the like. The 60's was full of counter-culture that went mainstream. Disco started out in small clubs before it exploded into the mainstream during the 70's. Punk and Metal was the mainstream alt music trend for the 80's. Of course then "alternative" music hit the scene in the early 90's. By the mid/late 90's nu-metal/rap-metal went from the cellar to the front room but thankfully that trend should be nearing it's end. The next "big thing" seems to be bands like The Strokes, The Hives, and The White Stripes.


Lethal

[revenuee]

Originally posted by mac15
it died when the macarena come out :D

So true....

[JesseJames]

Well, my personal tastes are weird.
I've been surviving on Days of the New and its bastard child band; Tantric.
I should get into Alice in Chains but for some reason I don't. (Shrug)
I also like Collective Soul for my more melancholy moods.
My favorite album from the grunge-era is Temple of the Dog. What an album. Chris Cornell, Eddie Vedder, and the crew just cranking out those awesome songs. I guess lots of money really does take away your edge.
All the bands I've mentioned seem to be in a state of flux. They're all suppose to have released new music in the past year and there hasn't been a peep from them. Sad, sad, sad.
Another thing, one of the two decent rock stations in my area has changed their entire format to hip-hop. Needless to say, that station has been replaced on the memory buttons with a classic rock station.

[mactastic]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
errr... Punk is still out there (Pennywise, NOFX, Rancid, Distillers, Tiger Army, etc.,). But if you are looking for it on Mtv you'll never find it. And the alternative always filters into the mainstream for a while. In the 50's it was the rock 'n roll from Elvis and the like. The 60's was full of counter-culture that went mainstream. Disco started out in small clubs before it exploded into the mainstream during the 70's. Punk and Metal was the mainstream alt music trend for the 80's. Of course then "alternative" music hit the scene in the early 90's. By the mid/late 90's nu-metal/rap-metal went from the cellar to the front room but thankfully that trend should be nearing it's end. The next "big thing" seems to be bands like The Strokes, The Hives, and The White Stripes.


Lethal

I hear ya... There are still some underground bands out there, and I'm lucky enough to be able to see some really good local bands in my hometown. I just miss the days of DK and MDC, the Vandals, 7Seconds, Minor Threat... Back when Henry Rollins was a scrawny drunk!

[jefhatfield]

"rock" got old and are dying every day

rip robert palmer (power station was really kick butt)

rip john entwhistle (what a great bassist he was)

rip joey ramone( punk's original pioneer)

rip michael hutchence and kurt cobain (we didn't see it coming)

etc etc etc

...i have not liked too much in the last ten years and rock and roll has already seen its best days

we will have to wait for something new and its about time for a new music form

[vixapphire]

I've driven across the country between Chicago and LA several times during the past decade, and came to the conclusion, repeatedly verified, that the Oklahoma City rock station KATT-FM (100.3 or something) is the best rock station in the country. Even better than Detroit's WRIF, WLLZ and (going way back) W4 and WABX (I grew up on those stations in Detroit, and hell yeah, they rocked).

KATT plays the most solid list of true "album rock", including plenty of classic rock stalwarts, but with a twist - they actually play album cuts of classic rock hit records, not just the same old "kashmir and black dog" routine of most big-city classic rockers. then, they work in a lot of new stuff that's format-matched very well, like Creed and the new batch of rockers, in ways that you can't really tell whether you're listening to something old or something new. in other words, this is what the FM radio experience is supposed to be, baby! when i'd be heading towards OKC on my cross country jaunts, i'd often find myself hoping to get stuck in rush hour traffic so i'd have an excuse to hang out and listen to what's going on on the KATT, such a different breed of station it is than those in LA, Chicago and elsewhere.

Anyway, long story short, KATT used to be available via link from "broadcast.com" before Yahoo got involved w/ "broadcast"; you can now google KATT FM and find their web site, from which I think a broadband link is still available for streaming audio. I haven't been there in several months b/c my tastes have gone in a different direction, but it's the only place i ever go for rock anymore (outside my own record collection).

vixapphire

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
"rock" got old and are dying every day

rip robert palmer (power station was really kick butt)

rip john entwhistle (what a great bassist he was)

rip joey ramone( punk's original pioneer)

rip michael hutchence and kurt cobain (we didn't see it coming)

etc etc etc

...i have not liked too much in the last ten years and rock and roll has already seen its best days

we will have to wait for something new and its about time for a new music form

RIP Lane Staley.

And RIP the entire grunge era. We may never see a finer batch of music hitting the mainstream in our lifetimes.

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by mactastic
I hear ya... There are still some underground bands out there, and I'm lucky enough to be able to see some really good local bands in my hometown. I just miss the days of DK and MDC, the Vandals, 7Seconds, Minor Threat... Back when Henry Rollins was a scrawny drunk!

punk is going just fine in my opinion. it's the fans that suck. when freaking Thursday debuts its new album in the billboard top 10, that's a bad sign

i was at the thursday show in dc yesterday. and i say "at" meaning it was sold out and there were tons of people (including me and 5 friends) who were trying to get tickets outside. a joke

that said, their new album doesn't seem bad. so i don't think they "sold out" whilst just somehow getting "big"

bands like boy sets fire, cursive, sense field, hot water music... these are good punk/hardcore bands in my view... now granted, a band like sense field isn't so much "punk" now, but they're still ****ing amazing.

the problem with always comparing music to the music of yesteryear is that it's bound to change and progress. new bands will take the influence old bands had on them and change it.

i mean, the hardcore scene wasn't ready for 7 seconds when they got into the emo bit, and it took a while for emo to really take off, even well after 7 seconds kinda died down...

but i digress.

[BaghdadBob]

You're wrong, jello, punk is not healthy. Like the other genres, there may be music which is good that is not on MTV, but when people widely mistake Blink 182, Sum 41, and Good Charlotte for punk we have a serious problem. I've never been a big fan of punk, myself, but those bands are pomp and hot air, and America's youth think that the image they tout and "message" they blab is punk, that's a problem. One's sense of rebellion should not be based on being a dumbass loudmouth. Like any mainstream genre, it's all about the sex, just tha fashions are different.

AFAIC, the last band I would consider punk that stormed the charts were the Offspring. They had the punk message, and it wasn't just ignoprant random disrespect of the establishment, it made some freaking cohesive sense that wasn't circled around "chicks dig me cuz I dis stuff."

But hey, I'm not a fan of the genre in general, so what do I know...well, except for the first paragraph, I stand by that. Punk should never be used as an excuse for no talent...but it is.

[jelloshotsrule]

but i don't care what other people think is punk. i care about what i like and heck, i don't care what label it falls under.

now THAT (not caring) is punk! haha

[Chomolungma]

"when I grow up, i'll be stable. When I grow up I'll turn the table"
I now list to NPR at work.

anyone here listen to WHFS in D.C. ? Is that station still alive? This thread reminds me of the Ramen noodle thread. Reminds me of times when I'm broke and happy.:confused:

[Tequila Grandma]

To me, punk rock started and ended in the 70's. With such a simple structure, there's really not a whole lot that can be done, and IMO, if you just stick to the classics (Sex Pistols, Ramones, Patti Smith, X-Ray Spex, The Stooges, a few others...), you'll never have any need to listen to any other punk rock.

I say: Who the hell cares if rock is "dead"? There are so many great old bands out there, that I don't think any person could soon run out of things to listen to. Of course, there are plenty of good bands producing rock music today, such as the aforementioned White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hives, and Strokes (the big four of the "garage rock revival" movement). The Flaming Lips still put out good music, although perhaps they're a bit too experimental to be considered straight "rock".

All the great artists are exploring other styles and genres, rather than trying to do the standard rock n' roll band thing. I personally think this is a great thing.

[evoluzione]

Originally posted by Tequila Grandma
To me, punk rock started and ended in the 70's. With such a simple structure, there's really not a whole lot that can be done, and IMO, if you just stick to the classics (Sex Pistols, Ramones, Patti Smith, X-Ray Spex, The Stooges, a few others...), you'll never have any need to listen to any other punk rock.

Patti Smith is still rocking hard...there'll be a movie on PBS coming out within a year, following her life for the last 10 years. awesome stuff :)

[iGav]

Originally posted by howard
hey,

i know its not rock rock but what about indie rock?

its a taste you have to aquire but some can be really good. try checking out death cab for cutie, in particular the album "we have the facts and we're voting yes". You probably all know the band cake, there great and i would consider them rock. or if you want more experimental with an eastern kinda sound try out macha.

Is indie rock a musical genre though?? there were alot of bands that were around in the start of the 90's that people deemed 'indie', like Manic Street Preachers, Senseless Things, Neds Atomic Dustbin etc etc etc... but they were all major label signed acts and thus not really indie.... I don't really think 'indie' is a sound, or a style or an attitude...

What makes a band 'indie'??

[vollspacken]

"Rock Stinks..!" IMO

the only rock bands I still listen to from time to time are:
- Slayer
- Anthrax
- Minor Threat
- Kyuss
- Sick Of It All

other than that, I don't listen to rock anymore...

vSpacken

[eyelikeart]

If u ask me, "rock" started it's decline back in the early 90's when hair bands were out of control. I lost track of who was who, they all looked the same, all wrote songs about the same stuff, all sounded the same.

Then, the new wave of music started flowing thru. Pretty soon, the market was flooded with these "alternative" bands as well.

Now, it's been this (what I like to call) whine rock & teen angst rock. So many of the new bands I'm seeing out are either complaining about how bad life is, or talking about useless stuff like being younger again or something. I hope that didn't offend anyone.

I've been feeling, for a long time now, that it's the record companies & MTV who are responsible for the decline in music. They sign on a band, pick 1...maybe 2...songs off the record they produce that sounds similar to so many others, then play the hell out of that track on every radio station in the country (not to mention having MTV try to make these guys look like the friggin' Beatles).

There's no innovativeness. There's no real talent, IMO. There's nothing there that grabs me.

These, and many more, are the reasons why I stopped listening to commercial radio a few years ago, and would rather pull my toenails out with rusty pliers than to sit & watch MTV.

I have more on this, but this post is already getting long. ;)

[jefhatfield]

...but i don't suggest it

1) have a huge generation gap...don't trust anyone over 30
2) get heavily into drugs as a major teen subculture
3) let politics become violent
4) start a war like vietnam and have a draft
5) explore untested social experiments and do away with society's traditions

i think these were helpful factors in creating a very vibrant music scene from the british invasion to about the mid-70s

i can't imagine a ten year period like that which will have an infulence on music quite like those years which records like marvin gaye's "what's gong on" to the beatle's "sgt pepper" to bands like the velvet underground and the doors to led zep, the ramones, and the supremes

it seems like when the big party of cretivity ended, disco came in and was followed by other not so intense musical forms and it shadowed a more content, safer society in general (which as a citizen, i much prefer)

[ColoJohnBoy]

Rock? Who knows! Apparently Britney Spears counts as Rock right now. With a few exceptions, commercial music is in a pretty sad state right now.

And the labels blame declining sales on P2P. Maybe they should consider, oh, I don't know, improving the quality of their music to boost sales.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by ColoJohnBoy
Rock? Who knows! Apparently Britney Spears counts as Rock right now. With a few exceptions, commercial music is in a pretty sad state right now.

And the labels blame declining sales on P2P. Maybe they should consider, oh, I don't know, improving the quality of their music to boost sales.

Why should they "improve" on a product/products that are currently making them money hand over fist? For the most part the labels only give a hard push to what sells. And there are hundreds of great bands signed to major labels (either directly or indirectly) they just don't get ***** for air play usually.


Lethal