Quote
"After decades of premature pronouncements, rock may just really be dead this time around, at least as a living, breathing, forward-looking musical genre. Take a spin around the rock dial. There's the so-called alternative rock on the Buzz, which sounds as stale and mainstream and as unable to shock, offend or thrill as the bands of the late hair-metal era that were swept aside as the offal they were by Kurt Cobain and the grunge movement.

Meanwhile, even the hippest and coolest rock bands of the day -- the likes of the Strokes and the Darkness, the Kings of Leon and the Rapture -- all blatantly recycle past trends, both in their music and in their styles. One minute the small-b buzz bands are recycling the psychedelia of 1968; the next minute the blues-derived pre-metal of 1973 is the vibe du jour. Some young bands even unironically pay homage to bands such as Foghat and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Nostalgia can take you only so far. "

This is from http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2...l/1/index.html , an article detailing the rise of mexican influence on the hip hop culture.

If "rock" still applies to a musical culture , is it dead or dying?

As a socially popular and relevant art form?

holy shit... is everyone all crawling out from under the same rock this week? this is like the 3rd time the same issue is being brought up in as many days...

yes current rock music is becoming stagnant (or so it seems)... it happens to every genre at one point or another... eventually someone will come along and kick it in the pants and things will sound new again... until then i'll keep an ear open for new stuff but i'll keep my old...

and that douglas adams quote rocks hehehe

this thread is in the rock section too. I'm seeing double.

anways, yeah I wager that at many times in its history people have declared rock dead. Look at the big pictures, a 5 year period of slight stagnation certainly does not equal death. Things phase in and out, ect ect, some one will come along and re-revolutionize things. I don't think it's dead, maybe out for a nap. In terms of being popular rap has stollen alot of its thunder, but I can't see rap being absurdly popular for a lot longer. Everything gets old eventualy and people want to listen to something new. So maybe some new rock style or something will come along in a few years and change things.

I think American/European pop music is pretty much a dead end at this point. The most interesting music I hear these days is either world music or individual artists of dependable excellence (in my opinion, anyway), all of whom are pretty much "off the map" as far as pop culture goes. Radio? I have pretty much given up on that.

I think the article today from USA Today on "Downloading is Squeezing the Art out of the Album" was really interesting. I think we're at a paradigm shift concerning how we listen to and collect music. Everything's up in the air right now, and it will probably be a few years before we clearly see where it's going to land.

don't suppose you have a link to that article reverand?

I think this is it

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/n...bum-main_x.htm

hmmm that's pretty interesting... and i can understand how it looks to the companies that live and die by album sales... but they did it to themselves... it's not like the internet was hiding out until napster came along... it's been there for a lot longer than most people think... they chose to ignore it until it was too late... but i don't think the concept of an album will ever die off...

i think the next big shift will be when someone finally starts taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by the net... as i see it right now it's just a marketing tool to sell singles... instead of walking into the store and picking the album off the shelf i go to the page and add it to my 'shopping cart'... i'm still being invited into the store...

i want to be invited into the studio...

hehe, interesting line there. I think I like where you're going.

anway, Pop music was being made for the 3min single with max airplay way before napster came along. Just then people would buy a single or buy the album just for a few songs. Napster didn't create this problem, it just made it more obvious.

exactly... it's like the press people for the industry are trying to blame the internet for the downfall they started... it's like they mentionned in the article... the major labels abandonned the cd single in the early 90s... i RARELY saw them for sale before about 5 years ago... and then they were $15 canadian... who's going to pay $15 for 2-3 songs?... i like how universal dropped the price for their singles to $4 though... albeit a little too late i think...

but i agree that cds are partially to blame for the downfall of the 'album' concept... with the old vinyl albums you had room for artwork... opening the cover allowed for something really big to be put in there... thick as a brick by jethro tull came with a 'newspaper' with articles relating to the songs from the album... and with the album you actually learned song names they had a specific place in relation to the album as a whole... you wouldn't talk about track 2 from some album it was song X... i hate to say it but there are more than a few cds where i know what numbers i like but don't know any song names... the sequential aspect of the albums was also broken with cds where you could listen to the songs in a random order...