The Future of Rock Music

 I can't help but feel that Rock Music has all but died and to quote Little Stevie Van Zant, "all we have now are 2nd hand riffs, 2nd hand culture, hand me down emotions of today".The past renaissance of rock started w/ Rocket 88 Ike Turner in 1951, Then possibly ended w/ Exile on Main Street, The came Rocks Swan Song in the form of the Ramones, all that new music the innovation of the past, the fun, the fun, the last generation to have an identity of it's own was the Grunge movement of the early 90's.All of that will never be equaled I am so fortunate to have been in the centre of it all. But this is just my opinion.

That post reminds me: I've read about a book called Kill Your Idols where various music critics each criticize an album that's seen as a classic but they don't like, and one of them criticizes Led Zeppelin's fourth album... apparently his main point is that he pretended to like that album to get close to a girl back in the seventies!

^ There are many here, including myself, who share your concerns, Quasar.

Quasar wrote: I have to say, after spending too much time reading all this thread, that so long as the so called "prog" fans appreciate, in the main, the sound-alike bands, shows that they just don't inderstand music at all. It's just a 'snobs club' ! There are some progressive bands being genuinely progressive, they get slammed. Prog media is aften just as bad, wanting all prog to fit into their neat genres like Neo, Metal, Synphonic etc. ad nauseum. You're making prog music stale!   Encourage the defiant, the oddballs, the freaks, and shun the sound-alike bands.   Oh, but where would your comfort zone go?

crimson87 wrote: Quasar wrote: I have to say, after spending too much time reading all this thread, that so long as the so called "prog" fans appreciate, in the main, the sound-alike bands, shows that they just don't inderstand music at all. It's just a 'snobs club' ! There are some progressive bands being genuinely progressive, they get slammed. Prog media is aften just as bad, wanting all prog to fit into their neat genres like Neo, Metal, Synphonic etc. ad nauseum. You're making prog music stale!   Encourage the defiant, the oddballs, the freaks, and shun the sound-alike bands.   Oh, but where would your comfort zone go?             YOU ROCK. PERIOD

I've never experienced rock as something comfortable, it was originally designed to make you get up and move or in the old days,we danced. The drug era created psych and prog for people who couldn't dance, to sit on their ass and feel the music. The way good prog affects me is , it puts me in another time and place (w/out getting wasted) to achieve that sence and occasionally dance.

Visitor13 wrote: Rock is a comfort zone. The defiant, the oddballs, the freaks are established genres in their own right. Heck, I can't think of many genres that are not  comfort zones nowadays.

Visitor13 wrote: Yes, I get the point you're trying to make here, musicians should not be complacent etc. and I agree with this - but remember that there's only two roads you can take here: out or in. You go out and chances are people will lose sight of you. You stay in and chances are people will say you're a cliche. It's possible to be creative either way, but given people's present attitudes, audience-wise you're pretty much in a lose-lose situation.

fil karada wrote: " When you want to hear where music is going in the future, you put on a King Crimson album." - Bill Bruford, 1995 Where are they now?

An alternate timeline where they're always in the future.

Rock music (IMHO) is only the wrapper around a song. A great song can generally be played on an acoustic guitar. It's the way an artist chooses to produce his song that defines the genre. Technology has given song writers an easy way of producing their song, and a simple fact is it is easier to sequence drum / keyboards than it is to play a real instrument like the guitar. Therefore statistically more great songs will be produced using the more accessible and easier midi drums / keys etc than will be produced within the confines of a rock band.

Rock music therefore won't ever die, but it will become more specialised until technology provides artists an easy and authentic way of re-producing the rock guitar sounds and the real drum sounds that it currently cannot do.

Its all in the packaging :o)