The Future of Rock Music

Actually, the only post-rock band I'm really familiar with is Pelican... they're not the only one I've heard, but I'm requiring more and more listens to have an opinion on a band or album as I grow older. Post-rock's a genre I've been meaning to get into for a while, but again my  "stuff to listen to" list is so inhumanly long that it probably qualifies as a Buddhist holy text or an Open Source programming manual.

Henry Plainview wrote: If the 50s and 60s were the heyday of jazz, 60s and 70s were the heyday of rock, the 80s were the heyday of metal, and the 90s were the heyday of electronica, what is our current heyday?

That is a very good question. I would say it's the heyday of emo if it wasn't for the knowledge that was a well-defined punk sub-genre back in the 1990s and the stuff most people call "emo" is just any goofy-looking depressive rock band it can't fit into another subgenre, effectively diluting the term from what it originally meant and being a faint echo of what it used to be.

Remember that site making fun of various subcultures I made a thread about in the Just For Fun forum a while ago? It has a good, if snarky, demonstration of the difference between 1990s emo and 2000s emo. A picture says a thousand words... the really funny thing, by the way, is that the guy who makes that site is a dude who designs merchandise and advertisement for rock bands. That's right, he's mocking the subcultures he's participated in defining* and commodifying. Doesn't keep the site from being funny, though.

Okay, back on topic: I really don't know. Maybe the 2000s are the heyday of a fractured music scene?  Post-rock is actually becoming popular right now in mostly intact form, but it seems like its popularity is still limited to people whose tastes already skew outside the mainstream (somewhat at least) so it's limited if it's going to definte the decade the way prog and punk did the 1970s.

*Genres are often defined more by critics and marketing people than by the artists themselves. That's why it usually takes at least 4 years for a genre to "crystallize" after someone's first defined it, because it needs a new generation of bands who have internalized the genre classifications.

darkshade wrote: Toaster Mantis wrote: However, I'm sure that 20 years from now Soulja Boy will be looked at the same way we look at MC Hammer or even Milli Vanilli today. i get the humor in this statement, however, i think even the BIGGEST HIT today is equivalent to a hit that barely made the top 40 back in the 80s. In other words, wont be as remembered as well as the hits from the 70s/80s/90s.

Humour? The smiley was because I found it funny that the general public doesn't seem to learn, but I meant it in all seriousness. Of course, 20 years you'll probably have people liking Soulja Boy only out of nostalgia like how people today reminisce nostalgically upon crap from the 1970s and 1980s because it's tangentially connected to fond memories of their youth.

Slartibartfast wrote: Rock music is so ingrained in our western culture that it will probably be with us as long as our culture is around.  It is certainly an evolutionary beast... By the way, has straight jazz or classical run its course or have I not been paying attention?

straight jazz ran its course sometime in the 70s. maybe early 80s.

Henry Plainview wrote: Rock is never going to stop being one of the dominant forces in popular music, but even if it were, I don't care, let it burn. It wasn't much better back in the '70s anyway. Negoba wrote: When Peter Gabriel sings 'It's only rock n' roll but I like it" at the end of the Lamb, already it's irony because the music had more in common with classical music, jazz, and theater than rock. I haven't heard all of The Lamb, but I would strongly disagree with the last part of your statement, and theater is not a genre. :/ But I would be happy to listen to a song that you think is closer to jazz or classical than rock. I am pretty sure he's just making fun of KISS. Keltic wrote: As for the topic itself - Roger Daltrey summed it up nearly three decades ago when he said that everything that will be been done in rock music has been done and what we'll get in the future is just a re-hashing of ideas and styles.  How right he was. That was a stupid thing for him to say, and if you agree with that you haven't been paying attention.

Wha..... Ho-w...............

How have you not heard all of The Lamb?

The Future Of Rock Music (Short-term) = PORCUPINE TREE.

Rock, or rock n roll, will never die. Kids, and I mean angry teens and young people in general, will always want to listen to bands or artists who confirm to them their worldview that the arseholes running the show suck and there is a better way - it's why punk took off, mod before that, Presley before that. Its the rebellion thing, and a loud noise doing it just adds to the fun (it pisses off oldies like me).

I think this is a good thing. I started off listening to heavy metal, and graduated to prog around my thirteenth birthday when my cousin got me GFTO (no disrespect, BTW, to heavy metal fans - I still love a lot of it). I am of the opinion that a lot of those angry young kids will realise, as did most of us, that there is more to life and music, listen to bands such as Radiohead, Muse, Porcupine Tree, to give but three modern examples, and then delve deeper into the mysteries of fantastic, complicated music.

In reality, the press think that prog dies with Rotten & Vicious gobbing on us all. They were wrong, it is still thriving, just not as commercially successful as it used to be, but still enthralling enough fans to make the best bands commercially viable. 

Rock music is so ingrained in our western culture that it will probably be with us as long as our culture is around.  It is certainly an evolutionary beast...

By the way, has straight jazz or classical run its course or have I not been paying attention?


Edited by Slartibartfast - April 13 2009 at 04:44

AlbertMond wrote: I actually don't mind New Wave, Electronica, or even Disco that much.

Neither do I.

What truly irks me a bit, though, is when it feels like electronic music is trying to replace non-electronic. And in the worst way, too. A lot of rappers don't even make their own beats, now. Not everybody will agree with me, I guess, but I think rap used to be something great. Some underground rap is still alright, but most rap is nothing more than glorified retardation. Just look at Soulja Boy! But I'm getting off topic

This happens to pretty much any genre which becomes a fad, with breaks given to lots of acts many of whom are substandard and don't really deserve the exposure, with those that are harder to market because they don't fit the stereotype sometimes getting left behind. It's just easier for this to happen in some genres than others.

However, I'm sure that 20 years from now Soulja Boy will be looked at the same way we look at MC Hammer or even Milli Vanilli today.

Henry Plainview wrote: Huh, I thought you were talking about the evil labels and kids these days. I would attribute the fragmentation to the increasing availability of music that the labels and musicians are acting in response to. Which maybe is what you are saying?

i think because there are so many years of recordings out there now, especially compared to the 60s and 70s (even the 80s) and much easier access to them that people could be turned onto ANYTHING and i think within the next few years, we'll start to see something extraordinary in music (may it be rock or not, though it'll probably somewhat rock-influenced)