Posted on 05/04/2025 7:01:31 PM PDT by DoodleBob
… By its peak in 1983, rock music dominated radio play and accounted for over 60% of the Billboard Top 100.
… In many ways, the rise of pop, rap, and hip-hop can be seen as a market correction to mainstream rock's lack of cultural innovation, aesthetic appeal, and musical experimentation.
In the years leading up to the stylistic shifts of the 1980s, there was a significant disconnect between critical acclaim and consumer music preferences. However, when rock began its descent from the mainstream in the mid-1980s, the association between critic and consumer music preference rebounded and stayed aligned for the next 30 years.
Researchers attribute the critical-commercial disconnect of the late 1970s and early 1980s to widespread "rockism," an era of rock hubris that assumed perpetual relevance and dismissed other genres. During this period, critics maligned the stale output of hair metal bands and the shallow theatrics of acts like Def Leppard, Twisted Sister, and Kiss. The rise of pop, hip-hop, and rap realigned critical and commercial preferences, infusing mainstream music with new-fangled stylings and technical innovation.
The grunge movement of the 1990s, characterized by its low-fi production and anti-capitalist sentiments, is often seen as rock's last gasp at mainstream relevance. Yet there was an inherent contradiction to grunge's ascension. Artists like Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder struggled with their newfound success, which directly conflicted with their rejection of commercialism and rock stardom. The grunge movement effectively ended with Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide, marking the decline of this ascendent subgenre and rock's best chance at a mainstream comeback.
(Excerpt) Read more at statsignificant.com ...
True.
Stones Sticky Fingers
The good news is that there are still a lot of folks who actually create their own music by writing their own stuff and actually playing an instrument or two.
A few months back, one of my musician friends, a classical pianist who, crazily enough, writes EDM music, sent me a message saying, "We musicians are finished! Machines can now do everything." He came over to my studio that night and showed me sites where you simply type in a song subject, style etc. and bingo-in a minute your song is finished. Didn't sound bad, either. It's wild. But within an hour of us screwing around with it it became totally boring.
Actually writing, performing and producing music the tradtional way is so much more creative, challenging, maddening - and fun. But it takes focus, patience and the ability to stick with something for more than five minutes, three attributes that I've noticed are sorely lacking today among most young musicians and musician wannabees.
for some people, rock didnt die... we just stay listening to what we like...
“After that, it became louder, darker, more explicitly drug influenced, and monotonous.”
.
My neighbors—in two different states—play loud music that sounds like hurdy-gurdy.
Allman Brothers band "Live at Fillmore East"
Blues, Jazz, Rock, and more blues.
cRap and Hippity Hop are not music.
HipHop and CRAP RAP RUINED MODERN MUSIC!
Bflr
Got turned onto that by Wendy (Walter) Carlos “Switched On Bach” that I picked up after I had the “Clockwork Orange” soundtrack.
My favorite video version (by the Freiburger Barockorchester):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLj_gMBqHX8
After Leon Russell perfected Rock and Roll in the late 1960’s, less talented musicians turned to Rock.
I don’t think that Don Van Vliet had rock and roll in mind when he and the Magic Band made that one. It’s probably the most amusing record I’ve ever heard.
“Hip hop and rap are not music.”
Neither is jazz — the “musical” answer to Tourette Syndrome. A lot of unstructured noise.
“The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse”
I wonder if the upswing in hip hop and rap is corresponds in any with with the dumbing-down and lowering standards in the American education system.
It would be interesting to see a chart juxtaposing those two factors.
Pink Floyd is Rock, not Rock & Roll. Johnny Rivers is Rock & Roll.
“Rock’n Roll and ‘rock’ are two distinctly different things.”
Right. I hate rock, but love rock ‘n’ roll. They’re not even close to the same.
I listen to some podcasters who have children in their late and early teens, and it seems that they’re discovering that “oldies” are better than current dross.
AC/DC Back in Black
That’s a really interesting point. I correlated it with the educational dumbing-down of America. But the loosening of morals and ethics of parents, and passing that down to the next generation, seems huge.
Maybe a root cause analysis would reveal that taking God and prayer out of schools was the beginning of the slippery slope. As you said, no longer important were “themes of dating and love, heartache and loss, work and unemployment, self-awareness and self-improvement, and foregiveness and redemption”.
Review,
Bands and acts have their hits... fmFrom the Allman brothers to ZZ Top and everything in between. Might even be 2 or 3 albums in a larger catalog that are good.
Many people have said that if it sounds good - It is good, and I agree with that. I have lots of favorites. Stylistically they can be very different.
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