When did Rock and Roll officially die?

[Taverner]

Come on, you have your thoughts...

[taterguy]

1. It's still alive, it's just on life support

It won't ever be the cultural force it once was, just due to demographics and evolution. However, there will always be tiny pockets and glimmers of hope, like those Japanese troops that hung out in caves long after the end of World War II

[Kajsa]

45. Ditto.

Rock will hang on and survive long after the techno-pop
hip-hop and whatever is coming up, come and go.

Rock is here to stay.
Long live Rock !

- Roger Daltrey

[AmandaRuth]

2. I voted Marky

however, I think rock died when corp sponsorship became something to boast about.

[jobycom]

3. Good point abut corporate sponsorship. I voted Cobain's death

because I see him as the last successful rocker who did it as an art form more than as a business or as an echo of things past. There has been a lot of rock since then, but it hasn't tried to move forward, and hasn't been as successful. There have been no great advances in the art.

There are still some great individual songs and artists. Just, as a force, it's dead.

[Tikki]

19. Johnny Ramone was a total freeper BUT your source on Marky, please...

I would be totally interested in anyone's source for calling Marky Ramone any thing like a freeper.
Just askin', ya know!!!


http://www.i94bar.com/gigreviews/marky.html

snip....

Surprises? Only a few. CJ Ramone has married Marky's niece and has spawned some mini Ramones. No-one else in the band has chosen to pass on the family name, most of the surviving band members seeming to think their genes would be too damaged. We already knew the Ramones' politics (Marky's a liberal Democrat, if that means much to Australians) and...



Tikki

[CanuckAmok]

20. It was Joey, and it was never a secret.

He's always been a militant republican, so if you want to cite him as the measure of rock's death, you'd have to go back to '75 or '76, and that's pre-punk.

[ghostsofgiants]

52. Johnny, not Joey.

[CanuckAmok]

53. You're Joey.

Joeyjoeyjoey.

[Crazy Dave]

4. When all the "heavy metal" bands sang fluffy, sweet, Celine Dion

...type ballads and when Pat Boone sang "Enter Sandman" :puke:

[otherlander]

5. When they invented MTV.

And turned it capitalist. Now all the well-known bands are corporatist, and the few real anti-establishment ones can't gain any recognition because they won't sell their soul to the devil.

[Crazy Dave]

7. Do they even play music videos on MTV anymore?

There's always some type of bullshit reality show on MTV whenever I flip through it. I haven't seen a music video on that channel in at least ten years.

[Throd]

12. MTV made image more important than the music

A no-talent band with the latest hipster look will always get signed before a bunch of ugly fuckers who can actually play their instruments and write their own music.

[asthmaticeog]

16. Oh, bullshit.

Image wasn't more important than music before MTV? Really? A David Eisenhower-lookin' clean-shaven short-haired act would have been taken seriously by rock-hounds in 1969? Image wasn't critically important to the success of Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles?

A short list of ugly fuckers who can play and write who have had major-label record deals in the last 10 years:
Jesus Lizard
Liars
Tool
Kings of Leon
The Shins
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
System of a Down
Butthole Surfers
Meat Puppets
TV on the Radio
Pixies
Queens of the Stone Age
Mars Volta
My Morning Jacket
Spoon

That's just off the top of my head.

Of course easily-marketable cuties will outsell other artists, but throwing "when I was a kid I walked ten miles in the snow to school uphill both ways" attitude at MTV does nothing to change the fact that save for a couple of indulgent periods, it was always thus since at least the '50s.

[mvd]

17. You're right - and I enjoy some on your list

I like some of the pop (especially pop/rock) artists, but certainly Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Christina Aguilera, and Britney are trumped by the likes of My Morning Jacket, The Shins, Kings Of Leon, and System Of A Down.

[Jade Fox]

40. The music quickly became soundtracks to the videos......

after MTV, rather than the other way around (visual images supporting the music). It's a subtle difference, but quite noticeable if you grew up in the pre-video era.

[Initech]

6. To quote Frank Zappa - "Rock is not dead, it just smells funny."

[LeftyMom]

8. Corporate radio

There's still plenty of great music out there, but hardly anybody hears it.

[mvd]

15. I will agree on..

much of the hip/hop, soft rock, and modern rock on the radio. But some good artists get through: lately this includes KT Tunstall, All American Rejects, Saving Jane, Kelly Clarkson, Anna Nalick, and Brad Paisley. Country plays great stuff from artists like Julie Roberts, Sugarland, and Brad Paisley. (there are others that should get more exposure, like Miranda Lambert and the Dixie Chicks.)

[MsAnthropy]

9. When Clapton remade "Layla" to sound like elevator music

:grr:

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Does the term 'rock and roll' have any meaning anymore?

Whatever it WAS is so fractured into subgenres that the term is essentially meaningless as a descriptor. 'Rock and roll' died when it became a dozen different things...glam, punk, post-punk, goth, emo, grunge, metal, thrash, industrial, etc., each with its own associated subculture.

[Beware the Beast Man]

11. Don't you mean Johnny Ramone?

Yeah, he was a big-time freep, but he was Johnny Fuckin' Ramone, and that trumps all. Not to mention he was close friends with Eddie Vedder and Kirk Hammett, who aren't exactly bastions of the Right.

Unless Marky is one, too. Haven't heard that one.

[mvd]

13. Never

It's there in artists like The White Stripes, Sleater-Kinney, Damone, Sheryl Crow, and in the reinvigorated Pearl Jam, to name a few. It's not that I dislike Pearl Jam's last 2 albums, but the self-titled one is more pure rock. I'm not sure I like Wolfmother, but they're also doing rock. Beatles-esque rock is alive in artists like Belle And Sebastian, The New Pornographers, Nina Gordon..

[jmowreader]

28. Sheryl Crow sucks, dude

Sheryl Crow writes great choruses that are strung together with the worst fucking verses ever put on tape.

Let's analyze "Soak Up The Sun." It's got a great chorus...but it's almost like someone else wrote the song, she's singing it, and even she realizes how bad the verses suck.

[mvd]

29. I disagree

To each his own, and I notice nothing that you speak of. In fact, her verses can be the strength of the song, such as in "Riverwide." That is all I'll say about this - I mean, music is subjective.

[ghostsofgiants]

39. Since I'm not a Cheryl Crow fan either, I offer these bands in her place

Wintersleep, Contrived, Pistolita, Paulson, Muse, Pilate, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, and so forth.

[mvd]

41. I'll still take Sheryl

:-)

Of course, maybe some of those others, too.

[mitchum]

42. She's just a journey(wo)man...Steve Miller with ovaries

[HEyHEY]

14. As long as there are 14-year-old boys - there will always be rock n roll

I can't remember who said that. But it's true.

[Maestro]

18. None of the above

When huge corps like Clear Channel control most of what we are listening. BTW, thank gawd for satellite radio!

[Book Lover]

21. It's not dead yet , baby

Last night my 3-year-old and I danced to "Boogie with Stu." One of the first songs he smiled and giggled to (while still in the hospital, mind you!) was "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." I have tossed The Wiggles out of the house and replaced them with original Beatles. He uses an upturned coffee can to drum out beats even at this tender age. Rock ain't dead yet, man!

[khashka]

22. When Grace Slick hit menopause

but I ain't giving up yet......

Khash.

[RagingInMiami]

23. When Lenny Kravitz sand "Rock and roll is dead"

Actually, that helped bring it back to life. I love that song.

[Ron Green]

24. When Don Kirschner took over "Rock Concert"

[ghostsofgiants]

25. When motherfuckers started asking "when did rock and roll die?"

Because it means that people are disregarding newer bands and letting it die.

[mvd]

31. LOL

True - bands are trying to keep the spirit of rock alive: ranging from those influenced by classic rock to those influenced by punk to those influenced by Nirvana. The bands need our support, or else radio won't change.

[ghostsofgiants]

32. No kidding.

Really pisses me off to hear people whining that rock or whatever is dead when I go out to shows and see bands busting their asses to put off great shows all the time, or when I listen to a band like Death From Above 1979 or the Arctic Monkeys. If you can listen to any number of bands out there now and seriously say rock is dead, I have one suggestion: Call up Doc Brown and head the fuck back to the '60s/'70s.

[mvd]

34. I even find some good rock on mainstream radio, as..

I said. But since rock is not a concern of FM radio anymore, I hear much of it on Top 20 on XM.

[ghostsofgiants]

35. One of my most recent song addictions...

Was a song I heard on the radio, actually. "Barely Listening" by Pilate. Worth checking out.

[mvd]

37. Thanks for your recommendation

I'll go try them out :hi:

I've made my points here. This isn't GD, where things often aren't subjective and you have to back up your points.

[name not needed]

49. Yes, but it's much, much easier

to spread the gospel of Jimmy Page until your friends decide to murder you in your sleep, than to seek out something new.

[ghostsofgiants]

50. Yeah, people are morons.

Lazy, self-righteous morons who need to either stop being so damned closed-minded as to think that rock actually is dead, or like I said etake the time machine back to before whenever the fuck they think it was that rock died. I'd almost prefer they did the latter, since you know their listening to new bands would result in, "It's good, but it's no (insert random douchebag musician here)."

[Deja Q]

26. Heuy Lewis and the News - the final rock band as we know it.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

27. oh God

I saw Huey Lewis on Hangin WIth on VH1Classic. Huey was such a condescending prick, still, just like I thought he would be. At one point he actually said that most people who go to his shows had been to "waaay too many".

Then he went into a soliloquy about how "Hip to Be Square" was really written to be ironic, as if he were writing from the POV of a yuppie rather than being one. See?! He was being ironic! Get it! ugh. . .

[Gatchaman]

30. When Nirvana Relased "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

totally fucked up the whole industry, and ruined an entire decade/generation.

[jus_the_facts]

36. Infuckin'DEED....

....THANK YOU! :applause:

[mvd]

38. Another disagreement

I can see how someone would have that point, but I don't subcribe to that philosophy. Again, not much to say but we have a disagreement. I never understood getting heated about music - it's pointless.

[Benfea]

33. It's not dead, it's just not on corporate radio.

And it hasn't been for some decades now.

[Withywindle]

44. Thank you for saying this!

Jeez, I realized that corporate radio wasn't playing "the good stuff" back in 1982--when I was 13 and into metal! And it had been true long before then, and for lots of genres.

No excuse for that coming as a shock to anybody NOW.

It's so much worse now, radio and TV-wise, but listeners today have so many more options for finding about the good stuff easily with Internet radio and satellite radio and file-sharing and downloads, etc., than I had at the time. I was all about Xeroxed 'zines and mail-order catalogs from Europe!

[mitchum]

43. When youth culture embraced rap and hip hop as their generational...

soundtrack. Yes, I know there are sone youths who still listen to rock, but they are now just genreists much like they would be into ragtime, jugbands, klezmer, etc...

[madrchsod]

46. it ain`t dead...

rock and roll is here to stay....

[Withywindle]

47. So many possibilities...

When Eddie Cochran died.

When Gene Vincent died.

When Wanda Jackson didn't get her due as one of the very founders--as sexy as Elvis and as wicked as Jerry Lee.

When Brian Jones died.

When Captain Beefheart fired the Trout Mask version of the Magic Band and got that bunch of hacks for 'Bluejeans and Moonbeams.'

When Lou Reed kicked John Cale out of the Velvet Underground.

When The Kinks couldn't play the US for years due to legal problems and so missed their proper ranking on the very very very short list of all-time greats.

When Elvis shook hands with Nixon.

When Janis Joplin died. See, it's true what happens to uppity women who care more about music and soul than being pretty. So put that makeup on and shut up.

When the MC5 broke up.

Every time a male rocker has dissed women.

Every time a white rocker has dissed black people.

When Marc Bolan died.

When Ronnie Van Zant died.

When Bon Scott died.

When The Who met Ken Russell.

Whenever the first rock band made a full album with a symphony orchestra (I want to say it was Deep Purple, but tell me if I'm wrong)

One word: Foreigner.

When Ozzy left Sabbath.

When Ronnie James Dio left Sabbath.

When Ronnie James Dio came back to Sabbath.

When Ozzy came back to Sabbath.

When Michael Stipe cut off all his long golden curls.

When 'Headbanger's Ball' was cancelled.

When Sonic Youth tried to make trendy grunge records.

When X broke up (but then Exene hooked up with Viggo Mortensen, so you can't really blame her!)

When Johnny Cash died.

When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened.

When Patti Smith endorsed Ralph Nader--in 2004!!


And some recent moments when I knew it was still alive:

When Rob Halford came out of the closet.

When Jack White made a GREAT album with Loretta Lynn--and rumors were flying they were having an affair, and the idea was sexy!

Hearing Bruce Springsteen play a couple of acoustic songs opening for John Kerry and feeling goosebumps the size of Montana.

Anything High on Fire does. Ever.

[kskiska]

48. When Dick Clark beat the Payola Scandal and Alan Freed got blackballed

Clark went on to "clean up" rock 'n roll (after divesting himself of his music-related companies at the order of ABC) with his handpicked Philadelphia white boys, and promoting white covers of black performers' songs.

By the time the scandal came to an end, Freed was persona non grata in the world of entertainment. Aged beyond his years, alcoholic, penniless, brokenhearted, and suffering from both uremia and cirrhosis, Alan Freed died in 1965.

What isn't fair is that Dick Clark didn't really care about the music at all. He's said he was only in it for the money - that it could have been any kind of business at all. Alan Freed loved the music and the original black groups and individuals he was involved with from the beginning as a DJ in Cleveland. He just wasn't as appealing a character as Clark was, and didn't come off well at the hearings. His initial refusal to to testify "on principle," claiming that he never played a record he didn't actually consider worthwhile, no matter what was given him, led to him being blackballed by the industry.

[Seabiscuit]

51. When radio stations stopped playing "Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie"

[HughBeaumont]

54. The good rock music went underground.

The bad shit floated to the mainstream surface like a steaming pile.

For good rock acts, I would avoid listening to magazines like Rolling Stone and SPIN, who haven't been relevant in decades, and the new jacks like Blender, who suck ass through a straw. All they'll do is lead you to mediocre bands that are being pushed by their corporate handlers. Go to magazines like Alternative Press (who at least put other like-sounding bands in their reviews that the user could relate to), Maximum RnR, Loud Fast Rules, online sites like Pitchfork, etc.