Gene Simmons Says Rock Is Dead. He’s Clueless

UltimateClassicRock ^ | December 4, 2024 | Bryan Rolli

[nickcarraway]

Tony Soprano once famously said, “'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation.” This never dawned on Kiss’ Gene Simmons, whose recent “rock is dead” rant amounted to little more than waxing nostalgic about the days when his band ruled the roost — and revealed his ignorance and disinterest in the current state of the genre.

Simmons made his latest proclamation on an episode of The Zak Kuhn Show. When asked if he believed rock was still dead, Simmons replied: "It is. And people don't understand how I can say that when we all have our favorite songs and we love our favorite bands, you and I and everybody else. But what I mean is that — well, let's play a game, and I've done this before. From 1958 until 1988, that's 30 years. Thirty years. So what came during that period? Well, we had Elvis, we had the Beatles, the [Rolling] Stones, Jimi Hendrix, all that, Pink Floyd, the solo artists, David Bowie and just music that lasts forever, we'd like to think. In the disco world, you had Madonna, more heavy guitars, you had — oh, God — AC/DC and everybody else, Aerosmith and on and on. And you had Motown at the same time. You had Prince. It was a very, very rich musical menu. It could go up and down. You had prog bands, you had Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, and you had the heavy bands, Led Zeppelin and so on. And from 1988 until today — it's something like almost 40 years, certainly 35 years — who are the new Beatles?"

When Kuhn suggested Nirvana, Simmons interjected: "Stop. We are blinded. I'm a major fan. If you walked down the street and asked a 20-year-old, 'Who's the bass player in Nirvana?' they wouldn't know what you're talking about. Or, 'Can you sing a Nirvana song?' No, no. The Beatles — and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Stones and Elvis — everybody knew the Beatles. If you hated rock music, you knew about them. By the way, I'm delusional enough to believe some market reports about how the Kiss faces are the most recognized faces on the planet. And I've tried this before: You walk down the street, randomly ask people, 'Who's on Mount Rushmore?' They'll say, 'Uh, Elvis.' They won't get it, but they know those four faces anywhere you go. They may hate the band, but you can't deny that.”

It was a typically meandering and self-aggrandizing response from Simmons, and one that failed to offer any tangible evidence that rock is dead. Instead, it revealed that Simmons’ idea of a “thriving” rock scene can be commodified and sold on department store T-shirts around the world. Simmons is talking about rock as a corporate monolith that looks, sounds and acts the same as it did in 1977. There’s still a market for that, as evidenced by the many legacy rock artists who have announced massive tours for 2025, as well as young acts like Greta Van Fleet who have debuted inside the Billboard Top 10 and filled arenas off the strength of their classic rock cosplay. But this narrow, antiquated view of rock barely scratches the surface of the genre’s rich, albeit embattled, present-day ecosystem.

Simmons’ “Who are the new Beatles?” refrain is a lazy and irrelevant response to the discussion of rock’s current standing. For one, the Beatles were a one-of-a-kind sociocultural phenomenon that will simply never be replicated. (Taylor Swift may have made a similar global impact, but she operates in a music business and a world that is unrecognizable from that of the Beatles’ heyday, so it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison.) Secondly, the 30-year period Simmons is referencing, when labels had endless money to blow on fostering up-and-coming talent, is a mere blip on the radar in the scope of music as commerce. It wasn't considered such a lucrative business enterprise before that, and it probably never will be in the same way again, save for the 99th percentile of pop superstars. The streaming economy has simultaneously democratized access to music, fragmented listenership and bankrupted small-to-midsize artists to the extent that a rock band cutting their teeth today has virtually no chance of achieving a whiff of the same success. They could be writing the next “A Day in the Life” as we speak, but it’s not going to sell 20 million copies, and it’s going to take some digging from avid music listeners to find. That’s a serious problem in its own right, but it’s not the problem Simmons purports to highlight here.

Furthermore, Simmons’ quick dismissal of Nirvana on the basis that no casual fan knows Krist Novoselic’s name rings hollow, considering the same casual fan would be hard-pressed to tell you who played alongside Simmons and Paul Stanley in Kiss for the past 20-odd years. His similar rejection of Pearl Jam, another one of Kuhn’s suggestions, ignores the inconvenient truth that both Nirvana and Pearl Jam outsold Kiss by at least five-to-one when you compare their highest-certified albums. (Pearl Jam’s Ten: 13 million. Nirvana’s Nevermind: 10 million. Kiss’ Destroyer: 2 million.)

Kuhn also offered up Foo Fighters as an example of a modern-day rock giant, to which Simmons argued that Dave Grohl has eclipsed both Nirvana and Pearl Jam’s popularity by becoming a Hollywood socialite, not based on his music. This, he claimed, is the same reason that Snoop Dogg remains more popular than “other rappers who might actually be bigger rap stars — M.C. Criminal or whatever, I just made that up.” This is, um, ignorant at best and racist at worst, but it makes Simmons sound bafflingly out of touch at a time when rapper Kendrick Lamar’s new surprise album GNX reigns atop the Billboard 200 and he occupies the entire Hot 100 Top 5 — a feat previously accomplished by only Swift, Drake and, that’s right, the Beatles.

If Simmons wants to lament the death of rock ’n’ roll as monoculture, he has some grounds to do so. But to proclaim the entire genre dead across the board shows that Simmons has no interest in looking outside his insular world. If he did, he might notice that Green Day — whose major-label debut Dookie was recently certified double diamond for sales exceeding 20 million — is headlining Coachella next year. He might realize that My Chemical Romance just sold out an entire U.S. stadium tour. He might see that Linkin Park and Pierce the Veil have hefty arena tours booked for 2025. He might marvel that genre-bending psych-rock weirdos King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have become one of the biggest cult bands on the scene, packing theaters and amphitheaters around the world. And if he really wanted to do his homework, he might take pleasure in the rock/punk/metal hybrid of bands like the Dirty Nil or White Reaper, who are dutifully making the rounds on the club and theater circuit the way old-school rock bands used to do. (For the record, either of these bands could have made great openers on Kiss’ farewell tour if the band didn’t take the easy way out and handed the gig to Amber Wild, led by Paul Stanley’s son, Evan Stanley.)

But Simmons doesn’t want to do that. He would rather complain that he and his retired boomer cohort no longer run the show, and if they’re not in charge, then nobody should be. He’s well within his rights to lament the death of rock to anybody who will listen — but he ought to know it’s the lowest form of conversation.

[T.B. Yoits]

Name one rock band today that can fill an arena, much less a stadium. There is no Who, Skynyrd, Aerosmith, Kiss, Foghat, Thin Lizzy, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Deep Purple.

Those bands didn't start in arenas and only had a brief window in them. Stadium Rock and then Arena Rock was the result of wider radio airplay and television exposure for bands that previously would only be heard live or on vinyl.

Bands played clubs, ballrooms, and even high school auditoriums. Most of the San Francisco bands played in parks. The Beatles started at the Cavern Club playing to lunchtime patrons. The Who often played in two halls a night for months on end. CBGB is smaller than a chain pharmacy store.

Led Zeppelin at the Mayfair Ballroom:

[imabadboy99]

My unpopular opinion is that grunge killed off rock n roll and it never recovered. Some good stuff here and there since then, but grunge completely changed the culture and allowed crap hop to take over while rock withered on the vine.

[vpintheak]

Over all both rock music and country music for the last 10-20 years has become bland and similar sounding to each other. The bands all sound alike. There used to be a lot more variety in sounds and styles. It’s all corporate now.
My Gen Z kids all feel the same way. They listen to the music I grew up with for the most part.
Rock now is either the same sound with a Whitney kind of voice that then rages into guttural screams; or it’s all guttural screams with the same guitar and drums.
Country now is all similar and has to include whiskey, the club, or a reference to an old rock band or musician.
Lame.

[TalBlack]

“… I never knew anyone that bought a KISS album, and nobody I knew ever mentioned KISS.“

I was 15 and I can say the same. And I’m talking about people who did nothing but check out all new music.

[basalt]

the whole KISS thing was targeted for 12 year old boys, and the 12 year old boys ate it up. Terrible, amatuerish songs, mediocre musicianship. All became cartoonish.

[Mariner]

He’s right.

There are no great rock bands coming up.

The last of them is Metallica. And they are now gray beards.

[discostu]

No current bands won’t be viewed that way. But not because they’re not good, but because the market no longer digs rock and roll, and radio is dead. So nobody is going to be going multiplatinum or being omnipresent enough to create that nostalgia. Yesterday at the grocery store their radio played Autograph’s Turn Up the Radio. I never liked Autograph, I never liked that song, I never bought it, and yet I knew all the words because I was alive in 1984 and that song was everywhere.

Rival Sons (my favorite 21st century band) makes better music on accident while loading in for a show than Autograph has ever done, but the world doesn’t play new rock and roll anymore so other than the occasional Chevy commercial (they’ve got 2 songs Chevy has used) you’ll never hear them without choosing to. So there won’t be any nostalgia. But they are a completely amazing band I’ll hold up to any of the nostalgia “classics” any day.

But rock is only dead in the sales. As far as creativity and quality are concerned this is a beautiful time in rock and roll. Great music is being made by great bands, and there’s no Paul Anka’s crowding out good music. You just have to go find it. But honestly, as a person who’s always been drawn to “optional entertainment” (like Frank Zappa, the guy who gave us that phrase), I’ve always gone to find it, and the hunt is half the fun.

[Larry Lucido]

I’ve heard good things about Greta Van Fleet from Michigan, but have not yet listened to them. They have been compared to Led Zeppelin (even Robert Plant commended them) but I doubt it’s possible to ever be as well known as the great bands from the sixties and seventies were.

[38special]

Pete Townshend been saying that since the 80’s.

[dfwgator]

“Jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny.” - Frank Zappa

[dznutz]

That has to be the best description of most modern country I have ever heard. That should be a term sued world wide.

When I first heard it I thought the same thing, it hit the nail on the head.

Country music has changed from what it was in its Grand Ole Opry heyday. Seems it transitioned to a country/pop mix in the late 80’s and devolved from there to its current form.

[Biblebelter]

Old news.

Don McClean declared the day the music died over fifty years ago.

[dfwgator]

“Rock n Roll’s been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died.”

[Dutch Boy]

I grew up with old style country. Still my father’s favorite but I prefer other styles now. My dad was in charge of the music. We listed to George Jones, Jimmie Rodgers, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams Sr, Hank Snow, Faron Young and bunch of others I have forgotten over time.

[dfwgator]

Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxHjRqnY7zA

[Fresh Wind]

I’ll take “bad rock with a fiddle” over anything Tom Petty ever did.

[dfwgator]

Them’s fightin’ words!

[Dutch Boy]

It sounds just like the country of today..... in exactly no way.

[DesertRhino]

Lights and sound and effects are generally there to cover mediocrity.

[DesertRhino]

Skynyrd didn’t have a good light show. Neither did the Allman Brothers...