Is loud guitar-based music destined to be "throwback" music from here outwards?

[s_mcsleazy]

ok. i'll admit i'm kinda guilty of what i'm about to say here..... but i'll explain further later.

so, one thing i've noticed about a lot of "new" guitar based music in the "rock" sphere seem to be trying to recreate the music of the past but a very idealized and popular version of the past. for example, i'm not the first person to notice greta van fleet is basically led zepplin for the kids who always say "i was born in the wrong generation" or the biggest shock in the rock world in the last year has been machine gun kelly basically writing blink 182 songs (but somehow worse). i think it says more about rock fans that we're basically rewarding mediocrity. neither GVF or MGK is doing anything that different from the artists they're clearly taking influence from. they're not really advancing the genre, they're more reveling in it.

at the same time, there are bands in each genre that are trying to move things forward but they're kinda not very appealing to younger audiences. for example, PUP are a fantastic pop-punk band, they sound raw but still have strong melodic hooks, they've been getting lots of attention from the older pop-punk fans who might have trouble going back to the older stuff..... but the kids aint super into them.

honestly, i see lots of young people gravitating towards the lofi indie pop or trap rap because they're actually doing something that feels new and fresh but also has crossover appeal. i can only speak for myself but if you asked "do you wanna listen to greta van fleet or doja cat?" i'm picking ma girl doja (seriously. if you can't appreciate this song then you have no soul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXnJqYwebF8) i also want to use rap as an example from a marketing POV. they're very good at marketing themselves as a personality and embracing virality. there's a great video that shows music memes over the years and the first thing you realise is towards the 90's. rap got VERY good at making these meme worthy moments. memes are an important part of modern internet culture and internet is where the new big artists are made. yeah, hype live shows is one thing but to a lot of younger audiences, that's only part of it. they wanna buy into your brand.

now, i'm kinda guilty of playing "throwback" music. i play in a post-hardcore band. at the same time, i do use the excuse that post-hardcore was never "popular" and what i mean by that was it never had it's big spotlight stealing moment. but we try to add elements of other music in there so it doesn't feel like a complete throwback. because i cant be arsed just playing straight up post-hardcore. i'm also going to say this. i feel a lot of modern "rock" music doesn't really feel....... real. it feels very calculated and impersonal. i've been trying to write lyrics for the first time in years and while it's been hard, i'm proud of what i've wrote because it's very personal and i'm trying to get people to feel what i felt.

i know "rock" music goes in cycles where it's popular then un-popular and lot's of people would argue that it's never been this unpopular for this long, i think that's mainly because most "rock" musicians are just stuck in a past where they could make enough money off record sales and when pedo dinosaurs roamed the earth. just like the dinosaurs, i think we need a meteorite to come along and wipe them all out and the attitudes they bought along. i also think "rock"media needs to stop writing articles about older generation musicians while ignoring the younger generation and acting like complete snobs. i used to joke about the irony with NME which stood for new music edition was how much they'd talk about the same 3 bands. the beatles, oasis and joy division..... and sometimes nirvana. but i just googled NME and half the articles were about bands/artists from 20+ years ago..... hell, the biggest "rock" publication is loud wire and at this point, it might as well be a blowjob machine for corey taylor of slipknot.

there's another thing that i really don't want to mention but i'm going to. lots of older rock fans are pretty....... sexist, homophobic, transphobic and racist at times. my bandmate is an AFAB non-binary lesbian and you'd be amazed with some of the comments people have made about them. i've been in projects with trans men/women and it's been the same. 50% of new guitar players are women/NB and i've seen so many cases where they've said they're afraid of going into guitar shops without a man who knows something because they get talked down to or treated like a child. same with on stage. i've been in projects where if you've got a conventionally attractive female member, they get sexist comments. if they're not conventionally attractive, they get called ugly dykes. or "trying to be like the boys" whatever music they make is secondary. it's gotten better recently but it's still bad at times.

honestly, my album of the year this year has been an electronic album simply because a lot of the new "rock" music ive heard just sounds tired, old and bored. (if anyone is curious what it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7a0nr91y8) this somehow sounds more rock and roll than most modern rock music.

[stevejamsecono]

i know "rock" music goes in cycles where it's popular then un-popular and lot's of people would argue that it's never been this unpopular for this long, i think that's mainly because most "rock" musicians are just stuck in a past where they could make enough money off record sales and when pedo dinosaurs roamed the earth. just like the dinosaurs, i think we need a meteorite to come along and wipe them all out and the attitudes they bought along. i also think "rock"media needs to stop writing articles about older generation musicians while ignoring the younger generation and acting like complete snobs. i used to joke about the irony with NME which stood for new music edition was how much they'd talk about the same 3 bands. the beatles, oasis and joy division..... and sometimes nirvana. but i just googled NME and half the articles were about bands/artists from 20+ years ago..... hell, the biggest "rock" publication is loud wire and at this point, it might as well be a blowjob machine for corey taylor of slipknot.

STRONGLY agree with this one. I had a twitter account for a few weeks where every time Stereogum or Pitchfork would post a review of a "classic" rock album I'd immediately respond as to why this material needed to be revisited yet again when there's so much new music going on and then make a pile of suggestions. The whole "10th Anniversary of XYZ" thing is so tiresome. Albums are great but they aren't babies. They don't need birthdays.

[s_mcsleazy]

i know "rock" music goes in cycles where it's popular then un-popular and lot's of people would argue that it's never been this unpopular for this long, i think that's mainly because most "rock" musicians are just stuck in a past where they could make enough money off record sales and when pedo dinosaurs roamed the earth. just like the dinosaurs, i think we need a meteorite to come along and wipe them all out and the attitudes they bought along. i also think "rock"media needs to stop writing articles about older generation musicians while ignoring the younger generation and acting like complete snobs. i used to joke about the irony with NME which stood for new music edition was how much they'd talk about the same 3 bands. the beatles, oasis and joy division..... and sometimes nirvana. but i just googled NME and half the articles were about bands/artists from 20+ years ago..... hell, the biggest "rock" publication is loud wire and at this point, it might as well be a blowjob machine for corey taylor of slipknot.

STRONGLY agree with this one. I had a twitter account for a few weeks where every time Stereogum or Pitchfork would post a review of a "classic" rock album I'd immediately respond as to why this material needed to be revisited yet again when there's so much new music going on and then make a pile of suggestions. The whole "10th Anniversary of XYZ" thing is so tiresome. Albums are great but they aren't babies. They don't need birthdays.

that too. i mean yeah, sometimes it can be cool to look back on an album years after the fact but it seems like there's so much navel gazing that they're trying to get back in their parents through the navel. granted, in the case of pitchfork re-reviewing albums, it makes sense since their old reviewers were happy to throw around homophobic, transphobic and ablest slurs in the 90's and 00's.

[Larry Mal]

I happen to be reading an article about early Elton John and I was reminded of the song "Crocodile Rock" which opens up with the line "I remember when rock was young".

That song was released in 1972, and people were already thinking that rock and roll was long in the tooth then. A lot of the 70's was Baby Boomers looking nostalgically back on the music of their youth and shit.

What's my point? I don't know. Rock and roll has been throwback music for some time now, I guess.

It's quite possible that the genre has exhausted itself and all we will hear is recycled ideas from here on out. That happens. There's a limit to what people can actually do within a musical genre and there's a limit to what people will accept, so if your big idea is that the backbeat has never been married to twelve tone row composition done on distorted electric guitar, you'll quickly find out that people probably don't really want that shit.

I mean, when's the last time anyone heard a fresh concept from blues? Or reggae? Polka? Big band? Ska? I don't listen to much anymore, but when I do hear much hip hop I'm stunned at the incredible repetition of concepts and catch phrases. Like, whatever Shawty was doing at Da Club sure lasted a whole lot longer than I ever would have thought, maybe people are still doing that now, I don't know.

Things end, and frankly, I feel that rock and roll is only really around because nothing new has taken off quite yet.

Extinction is the rule, not the exception. The language you speak? It's extinct, you just don't know it.

It's not a bad thing, either. You know why you have to die? Why you being immortal would be a terrible thing?

Because you can't evolve, that's why. From the moment you are born you are a fixed thing, and the future might need something different and you can't be that. You can pass along your genes in tandem with a mate, and those genes can turn into a new thing, but you yourself never can and that's why it's best for the world that you do your work and get out of the way, and death makes sure you do just that. You are hardwired to do the right thing for the future of your species whether you want to or not.

If you could live forever you would consume resources that your offspring needs to be the thing the future needs. And that's kind of the state of rock and roll to me.

[Singlebladepickup]

When Keith Richards croaks I'd like to consume him up my nose

[CivoLee]

I'm not going to bother quoting anyone in particular because I feel I'm addressing the whole floor here...

Maybe the song I posted wasn't the best example of what I think it is I'm talking about. And maybe I'm full of crap for lashing out at the those with the opinion of "yes, rock is dead, and good riddance, because it was always formulaic misogynist garbage anyway".

Why did I pick djent not being noticed by the pop charts as being relevant to this discussion? Because it's been a major trend in heavy music, and the last major trend in heavy music - nu metal - like it or not, very much was noticed by the mainstream. But perhaps that was an anomaly, and I'm just too young to realize it, even though I'm not all that young. Perhaps bands like Nickelback, 3 Doors Down, Lifehouse, Puddle of Mudd, Creed/Alterbridge, Hoobastank, and Jimmy Eat World being able to sustain rock's mainstream exposure (even if they were hated as much as they were liked) throughout the 2000s was just a hangover from the 20th century bleeding into the 21st.

My stance on the "is rock dead" question is that rock isn't as much "dead" as it is "done", meaning there isn't much left that can be done with the music and have it still be "rock" that hasn't been done already in some capacity. Rock 'n' roll injected the blues with a new energy, then the mod/British Invasion bands took that energy and turned it into something new and for the time, modern. Then rock 'n' roll became rock, and the voice of a new generation crying out for change in the world. Soon, adventurous and highly skilled musicians created progressive rock, imbuing the music with the scope and grandeur that it never had before, while stadium rock cemented its place in the hearts and minds of the average person at that time. But then the protopunks and punks said it had all gotten too complicated for its own good and things had to be distilled back down to the purity of old. Meanwhile, in the land of those who found rock too loud, lacking in "fun" and just wanted to dance, someone started a new dance craze and sold so many records that record execs wanted all music to be like that. And then so many people lapped it up, injecting it into not just popular music but all popular culture of the time; movies, TVs, clothing, you name it. And with over-saturation always comes the inevitable backlash. On one side of the Atlantic, this meant a bunch of punks telling the other punks the only difference between them and the players they claimed to hate was they couldn't play as well, though they had a point about progressive rockers making things too complicated. Some of them also said that whole disco thing isn't half bad in small doses, but then another group stepped out from that group and said that guitars themselves were an outdated relic of the past, and that the music of the future would be made on synthesizers instead, just look at what the Germans were doing. On the other side of the Atlantic, closer to the Pacific, this meant a little band from Pasadena said that rock could be just as "fun" as disco, we just gotta add the 'n' roll again, and their Dutch-born guitarist proceeded to start off a cover of an old British Invasion pop song with an extended intro that showcased guitar playing of an intensity not heard in a long time, along with sounds not heard in rock music ever before. This made every guitarist want to play like him, and every non-musician want to hear them try, no matter how badly they failed. This continued until some guy in a top hat came along and said they were all full of crap, and THIS is how rock is supposed to sound, before ripping into some classic sounding riffs and soloing over top of the punky grooves his bandmates provided. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country/world, one set of antisocial misanthropes had been saying the punks had the right idea initially, they just needed to be louder, faster, and more aggressive while playing more technically, while another set said they just needed to be more honest about their feelings. Some of the latter group started tuning their guitars to create music like they wanted to hear, instead of what came before. Others within this group decided to drown their guitars in echo and swirly sound effects instead of the roaring distortion that characterized electric guitar sounds previously. Unfortunately for the guy in the top hat, the singer of his band turned out to be a hyper-perfectionist, pretentious egomaniac; so while he and his band get bogged down with working out string arrangements, shifting band lineups and endless rewrites, from a small town in Washington state came a guy from that group of antisocial misanthropes whose music embodied a little bit from all of the other groups of misanthropes mentioned earlier: loud, swirly with lyrics that reflected his feelings. When his music was heard by the masses, it turned out that many of the younger people felt the same as him, making him a postmodern rock star in no time. All was right with the world of rock, until it all got to be too much for him and he took his own life. Whether it was via drugs or a shotgun is up to speculation, but the fact remained that he was gone and the music industry and popular culture in general spent the next 5 years trying to replace him. Their search would take them all over the world, from Chicago to London to Newcastle, Australia, but ultimately no one fit quite the same. That's largely because the youth of the developed world had found new voices...

While all of the above was happening, people of African descent living in the less-nice sections of large cities had created a new kind of music, free of traditional instruments or song structures. It was made of endless loops created by disc jockeys and vocalists delivering lyrics about their harsh everyday reality in a speedy, rhythmic style they called "rapping". This lead to the music being called "rap", or "hip hop", a later term which stuck longer. But it remained largely underground, that was until a trio of rappers discovered a riff from a 70s blues rock band while searching through old records. Their producer thought it would be a good idea to cover the song with the original band, and he was right. The song became a hit, revitalizing the old band's fortunes and helping to propel hip hop into the mainstream. Suddenly, there was a new music in the world, divorced of the traditions of old. And on the other side of the Atlantic, those punks that rejected guitars had spawned a sound that sounded slick and modern, and often more "danceable" than anything rock was doing. Popular music producers picked up on it, and used it to underlay legions of photogenic starlets readymade for the new era of "music television". All of these ate into the fortunes of rock musicians.

How did they react to this? Well, one fast heavy metal band named after a cattle disease tried to reproduce what the trio of rappers and 70s band had done with a local hip hop group led by a guy wearing a clock around his neck and a more typical "angry black guy" to some success, as did the soundtrack producers for an otherwise average action/suspense film. But the guy who had the most success was a struggling "shredder" of African descent, who decided to adapt to the new musical climate by trying to imitate the sounds of hip hop on a guitar through the use of effects and idiosyncratic playing. He and his band successfully merged the aggression and energy of rock with the rhythmic sense and political lyrics of hip hop. Unfortunately, this also inspired a certain fratboy douchebag to hook up with a DJ from an Irish American hip hop trio and a wacko who liked to dress up in darkly weird costumes and play darkly weird rock. He told him to reign in the darkness and weirdness a bit and rip off the guitarist of the band named after a piece of headgear that the DJ had collaborated with on the previously mentioned soundtrack instead. They too, had success, although their spotlight was quickly stolen by a bunch of pretty boys named after the phonetic spelling of a suburb in Chicago. But then the world changed when a group of Saudi Arabian terrorists financed by some rich guy in Pakistan decided to make a political statement by committing mass murder and destruction, and people's music tastes changed with it. Hip hop remained largely unchanged, but rock went through an identity crisis; it couldn't decide if it wanted to be stripped down music played by stylishly-dressed bands whose name started with "the", stadium rock with an "alternative" sound, or poppy punk rock with lyrics that were a little too heart-on-the-sleeve for many people's tastes. One 90s punk band brought things to a brief consensus with a statement on the political situation at the time and few other poppy punk rock bands with heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics attempted a revival of progressive rock attitudes, but it didn't last. Some bands tried to make rock "danceable", but that didn't last either. Within time, the music press began to refer to a new style of music as rock, one where distorted synth stabs are where distorted power chords used to be, while guitars sketch out clean single-note lines and chords, if they're there at all.

So basically, I've answered my own question, because once there's nowhere left for something to go but back, it can't be "modern" anymore as the definition of "modern" is always changing.

I don't know, I guess what inspired me to create this thread and bore everyone with details they likely already know in the above (albeit with a cynical dry humor that I hope anyone who takes the time to read it finds entertaining) is my frustration with my own musical efforts. The first guy I was going to start a band with decided to give up music, the band I actually started to go somewhere with fell apart (and I got kicked out of the band I briefly joined while that band was on one of its many hiatuses) and then I convinced myself I didn't want to make a career out of music in an effort to save a relationship that I knew in the back of my mind was doomed from the start. I started a "semi-serious" band in the hopes of gigging and jamming, but all we've done is jam and record, because first we spent months trying to find a suitable vocalist, then the other guitarist thought he could take up vocal duties, but then he quit singing and just focused on guitar while we jammed. Finally I convinced everyone we had to find a singer, and we did, and were getting all set to finally play some shows...but this was in the first few months of this year, and I'm sure you all know what that means.

I've come to regret not having formed another serious band instead of trying to convince myself that I'd moved on from wanting to be a "rock star", but honestly it's too late to do anything about that now. I could feel better about it if we were still jamming and had actually been playing shows, even if they were just local shows. It's just frustrating, that's all.

[s_mcsleazy]

oh. i kinda touched on this earlier but i've noticed a lot of the most interesting and new voices in "rock" music are LGBTQIA+. tbh i think because there is still a lot of the old attitudes in rock music, it pushes a lot of people away or limits how much exposure these people get. it's great that we've got publications like she shreds but honestly, i rarely see lots of media mention women, trans folk or NB's. hell, mention LGBTQIA+ stuff around some older rock fans and you'll get "stop bringing you're SJW bullshit into music"

[NickD]

Short answer to the OP’s question, yes. If I hear a modern guitar band it tends to sound like something that was done better a few decades ago, with the odd exception. That isn’t true of other genres - my purchases of new music are almost never guitar based now.

[budda12ax7]

Speaking of which...AC/DC new album out now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLA70huskTk
Enjoy

[Joey Ace]

Rock Guitar music is not the current "Pop Culture" music. It will never die, just like Big Band, Country, etc.
You'll just have to look harder for it.

[s_mcsleazy]

Rock Guitar music is not the current "Pop Culture" music. It will never die, just like Big Band, Country, etc.
You'll just have to look harder for it.

while i do agree no music ever really dies...... rock music isn't really doing much to get itself back in the limelight. what do you think the biggest platform for under 21's discovering new music is? radio? itunes? friends? gigs? youtube? spotify? NO. it's tiktok. one of the biggest songs of the year was a rapper who sampled an indiepop song that got famous on tiktok. biggest song of 2019 was old town road and it got famous on tiktok. bad guy - billie elish was endlessly memable/quotable. juice - lizzo was popular in memes and on tiktok. hell, one of the biggest songs of last year was a song that wasn't even really in english, it was a song in korean.

am i saying every rock band should go on tiktok and do a dance? no. honestly i think tiktok as a platform is pretty bad. but those songs are getting out there and often, it's bringing attention to the artists. most rock bands i've noticed still think the most important way to get people to listen is to get on the radio.

100% honest. most the "rock" bands that are still charting are basically dinosaurs or young people pretending to be dinosaurs. why is this important? because little to no new blood is entering the rock scene and from what i've noticed, lots of bands that do try get dismissed by the older generation.

[budda12ax7]

Rock Guitar music is not the current "Pop Culture" music. It will never die, just like Big Band, Country, etc.
You'll just have to look harder for it.

100% honest. most the "rock" bands that are still charting are basically dinosaurs or young people pretending to be dinosaurs. why is this important? because little to no new blood is entering the rock scene and from what i've noticed, lots of bands that do try get dismissed by the older generation.

I would really disagree here....I have so many bandcamp purchases this year with great rock music, but the average music fan wants safe and comfortable,,,that would be pop music in its many forms. ...here is band for ya...look up Code 10 from Greece.

[s_mcsleazy]

Rock Guitar music is not the current "Pop Culture" music. It will never die, just like Big Band, Country, etc.
You'll just have to look harder for it.

100% honest. most the "rock" bands that are still charting are basically dinosaurs or young people pretending to be dinosaurs. why is this important? because little to no new blood is entering the rock scene and from what i've noticed, lots of bands that do try get dismissed by the older generation.

I would really disagree here....I have so many bandcamp purchases this year with great rock music, but the average music fan wants safe and comfortable,,,that would be pop music in its many forms. ...here is band for ya...look up Code 10 from Greece.

i did mention "still charting" what i really mean by that is placing on the top 40. yeah, there's lots of cool music on bandcamp and all that..... but it's not entering the top 40 and being exposed to more mainstream audiences.

i know it's easy for us older music fans to forget but while we're out here trying to find new music, there's lot's of young people who's main exposure to music is the top 40. yeah, we can make fun of a lot of the radio rock of the early 00's but for many young people, that's their main exposure to music. wouldn't we rather have the pop charts at least point people in the right direction?

plus having legacy/throwback acts clogging up the rock charts can't be healthy. think about it this way. if you're just getting into music and you see artists with long running careers OR bands that sound like those other bands with long running careers, you're going to get put off. if it's a band with a long running career, you're then going to wonder "ok, so they got 10+ albums, where do i start? is the new album the best? what about the new stuff? did they have lineup changes? but if it's an newer band that sounds like an old band, that's just going to cement the idea that people only want to buy the same old stuff.

honestly. i kinda want whatever the next big wave of "rock" music to just hurry up already so we can stop having the conversations on why rock music is dying.

[s_mcsleazy]

ok. so i've been mentioning that for a while, the rock album charts have basically been stagnant and full of older bands just taking up space. wanna see the proof?

https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/r ... ums-chart/

as much as i like seeing reuben in there, that's a reissue of 2 albums from 10+ years ago. there is only one artist in there who's formed in the last 10 years and that's machine gun kelly, who's basically doing a bad blink ripoff.

[budda12ax7]

Those are good points, but that’s why there is an underground.