A long rant about the current state of rock.

[Kizzume]

What happened to rock?

Seriously. What happened?

When did it become “selling out” to do anything that doesn’t sound like you’re trying to emulate a hard-edged hard-rock group of the mid 1990’s?

Seriously. What happened?

When did a clean tone guitar or acoustic guitar automatically bar someone from being able to call their music “rock”?

Seriously. What happened?

When did actually singing become taboo? When did “good vocals” become someone yelling at the top of their lungs?

Seriously. What happened?

When did one genre of music sounding almost exactly the same for 15 years become acceptable? It’s never been acceptable in the past. Even as late as 1992, if there was a group in any genre that even sounded remotely like 1989 they were considered old news. But now—now you can sound like any rock band between 1993 and 2000 and be considered the sound of 2007. Well isn’t that nice.

All I know is, rock went from standing for musical rebellion to TOTAL MUSICAL CONFRMITY with a badass appearance and more distortion than ever to make up for a lack of creativity (we can thank the grunge era for that). The 80’s didn’t help with the awful butt rock and hair bands—that's what set the stage for what happened to rock in the 90’s—but at least the 80’s had change going on!

Don't get me wrong--the 90's had some really good bands, but in constantly cloning the sound of that period, we have lessened the greatness of those good bands. Now they just sound like "generic alternative" because we've overplayed/overperformed that sound for WAY too long.

Even groups like Tool that everyone makes such a big deal about—they’re nothing more than a big conglomeration of 1993-1998. Yeay—they’ve taken the best of the best from that period. So what—it’s old news! Get out of the 90’s people! Move on!!!

Mix styles from the past with today, and not just the 90’s (or butt rock 80s)—there are a couple hundred years that people can easily take bits and pieces from. In rock there are around 50 years to take things from! What is so f**king hard about grabbing music from more than one decade?

Most of the time, the reason why people are unwilling to do other styles is because they’ve been led to believe that doing anything else would be “selling out” because the 90’s represents the hardest edge that rock has ever seen, and people aren’t willing to give that up to be able to live in 2007—they want to believe that side of rock will live forever. Well guess what? It’s dead. Being "badass" back then was cool. Now it just looks absurd. That’s why it’s not heard very often on POP/top-40 radio—you have to listen to an “alternative” rock station to hear it now on a regular basis. In the 90's, IT REALLY WAS TRUE that if you didn't do hard-edge-grungy-thrashy-sounding rock, you most likely WERE selling out. Those times have been gone for about 8 years. Now, going softer in one's sound is what is innovative (or country-rock, or jazz-rock, or [pick-a-style-or-decade]-rock), and going harder-edge is what is the most cliché--it's really not possible to get any more cliché.

If people weren’t so concerned with keeping rock like the 90’s, it would actually still be a substantial part of top 40 radio. Unfortunately, rap and r&b and hip-hop has taken over the spotlight, that and the message that you should spend all your money on underwear-showing name-brand jean-shorts that look like baggy capris with t-shirts down to the knees, bling, and hydraulics for your car because the man is keeping you down.

Maybe if rock starts offering something NEW instead of the 90’s sound, it will start to become popular again. Oh wait, that’s not what you want, that would be selling out, so keep doing the same thing because that’s what being “innovative” is--that's how you avoid “selling out”... yeah right. Oh wait---let me use a 90's word: NOT!

Whether “rockers” want to admit it or not, top 40 radio thrives on innovation mixed with hooks. Any one style may be short lived, but that's what keeps things fresh. People ARE starting to get tired of the repetetive rap/r&b sound, and something new is going to be QUITE welcome. This is the best time to be innovative. This is the best time to get out of the 90's.

Selling out is when you give your song to a large corporation to use in their commercials. It’d be like if you heard “All you need is Dove” (instead of “All you need is love” by the Beatles) in a Dove commercial. That’s selling out. It’s not when you actually make something innovative.

 

[chipshotx]

You aren't looking in the right places.

 

[Superfluous_Nut]

i'm guessing you didn't really like the 90's rock. i'm sorry, but nothing i'm hearing today is very good and i loved the 90's rock.

tool is tool. they sound generally like they've always sounded and i'd not appreciate them suddenly becoming something else.

i may be way off base, but i think the greatness of the rock from the 90's is that the style those guys played wasn't the popular choice and so doing that kind of music took courage and conviction that came across in their music. today, it seems like playing in a post-grunge pop-punk-rock band is a no-brainer and so you get a lot of no-brain music. i seriously cannot stand bands like yellowcard, new found glory, all american rejects, etc, etc. i know it's cliche, but they all sound the same to me. they sound generic. and don't get me started on crap-hole acts like good charlotte.

 

[blackjackwally]

What happened to rock? Seriously. What happened?

No shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RUtvfkANuo

 

[Freakshow]

Rap had a lot to do with it. Used to be, kids wanted to play guitar and sing...to front rap bands. Now they want to be a DJ or rap...so they aren't learning to actually become musicians. I knew tons of good guitar players when I was a kid. You don't see that as much these days.

I totally see why some people hated 80's metal, but the guitar players could play and the singers could sing. The 90's took it down a notch...then rap killed the whole thing.

There are still good bands out there, they just aren't popular.

 

[chipshotx]

There are still good bands out there, they just aren't popular.

DING DING DING!

You have to try to find the good stuff. You can't turn on the radio or MTV and expect to find good rock. Word of mouth.

 

[Kizzume]

i'm guessing you didn't really like the 90's rock. i'm sorry, but nothing i'm hearing today is very good and i loved the 90's rock.

tool is tool. they sound generally like they've always sounded and i'd not appreciate them suddenly becoming something else.

i may be way off base, but i think the greatness of the rock from the 90's is that the style those guys played wasn't the popular choice and so doing that kind of music took courage and conviction that came across in their music. today, it seems like playing in a post-grunge pop-punk-rock band is a no-brainer and so you get a lot of no-brain music. i seriously cannot stand bands like yellowcard, new found glory, all american rejects, etc, etc. i know it's cliche, but they all sound the same to me. they sound generic. and don't get me started on crap-hole acts like good charlotte.

Actually, I really like a lot of 90's bands. I just think all the clones of the 90's sound, particularly the grunge/limp-bizkit sound, have lessened the greatness of those great bands by turning their sound into a cliche. What makes it worse is, like you said, the fact that these 90's-sound-clone bands aren't even doing a very good job cloning the 90's sound.

I just quit the band I was in for almost a year (11 months) because they were continually bugging me, particularly this past month, to play things on keys that sound more like standard "hard rock" instead of mixing jazz and other styles into it--they also wanted me to change my vocal style into a more aggressive sound. Why did they have to try to "fix" something that wasn't broken? We actually sounded different than other bands--I don't get why they wanted to remove those elements--and what's funny about the whole thing is that some of their reasoning was so that we didn't have a "sell-out" sound. Sell out?! WTF?! That was the whole drive for my rant about rock in the first place.

My mentioning of Tool was not to suggest they should change their sound (although I wish they would)--I mentioned them because I know that there are a lot of rock musicians (and just listeners in general) who practically worship them--like the guitarist in the band I was in--he was a Tool worshipper--he'd claim that they're just --SO-- diverse in their sound: But when I hear them, it's often hard for me to tell one song from another. Probably the worst thing they did was turn No Quarter into a 90's grunge song. UGH!! I just want people to realize what they sound like--a conglomeration of 90's bands. I won't lie though--if they did change their sound so they're not cliche-ing themselves so much, I might like them more.

Probably my favorite groups of that era: Stone Temple Pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana. They made some really good music. If they all were still around and were only making music that sounded exactly like what they did then, I probably wouldn't be interested in them anymore and would only talk highly about their older material.

I have the opinion that bands need to change with the times, or at the very least, experiment a bit more once they've reached the peak of the sound that initially got them popular. The best example of a band doing this is the Beatles: They wouldn't be so well renowned if they had only kept with the sound they had when they started.

It's been very frustrating trying to find another band. I've gotten quite a bit of hate mail as responses to my ads that ask for musicians that aren't stuck in the 90's. They don't seem to like that very much. What's really almost humerous though is the fact that those kinds of responses are common here in the Puget Sound area, but when I did a test ad in New York, I got 12 positive responses in an hour (and I had to tell them, "Well, I really posted this just to scope out the area. Thanks for your response.") It sort of tells me that the whole puget sound is STILL trying to ride the coattails of the "heyday" of the Seattle music scene--the grunge era.

I’m hearing the start of some change in rock (country-rock is making its rounds and just a HINT of jazz-rock is starting to peek its head out)—I think within 2-3 years those changes will become blatantly apparent and the hard-edged 90’s-sounding rock bands will start to look as cliché as they really are, and maybe stations like Funky Monkey will have to start labeling themselves as “Classic Alternative Rock”.

Once this happens, rock will be back on top 40 radio--not just rock radio.

Unfortunately, rap and r&b and hip-hop has held the spotlight of top 40 radio for at least 7 years. There’s only one way to change that: Innovation.

This is the best time to be innovative. This is the best time to get out of the 90's. The committed groups that start the change now will be the ones making it big in 2 years. I believe this wholeheartedly.

But then again, this IS a rant.

 

[Playa]

Rap had a lot to do with it. Used to be, kids wanted to play guitar and sing...to front rap bands. Now they want to be a DJ or rap...so they aren't learning to actually become musicians. I knew tons of good guitar players when I was a kid. You don't see that as much these days.

I totally see why some people hated 80's metal, but the guitar players could play and the singers could sing. The 90's took it down a notch...then rap killed the whole thing.

There are still good bands out there, they just aren't popular.

Jesus, is there anything you don't blame on black people?

 

[magnus]

DING DING DING!

You have to try to find the good stuff. You can't turn on the radio or MTV and expect to find good rock. Word of mouth.

exactly.
It's no different than any other form of music. Rap, pop (yeah, there's some stuff around that's pop that's not on the radio 24/7), rock, country if that's your thing, whatever. There's plenty out there.

It does blow that it's Nickelback v/s emo bands. Modern radio hasn't had good innovation in a long time and I don't think it's going to get any better.

 

[magnus]

Jesus, is there anything you don't blame on black people?