Rock music has always been evolving, but true rock has been headed toward extinction for quite awhile. It seems to have become the dinosaur of the music industry, but what exactly led to it's decline in popularity? Just who was it that decided that rock-and-roll was no longer likable? To answer these questions we must take a look at it's past. Only then will we be able to figure out where all the good rock has gone.
The Popularization of Rock Music
Rock music was first popularized in the 1950's by artists like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. It presented a specific style, featuring electric guitar, which set it apart from all other music at the time and it soon became the music of choice for future generations.
The Evolution of Rock Music
By the Mid-1960's a more aggressive form of rock began to emerge. Rock music also began it's evolution into sub-genres at this time, morphing into hard-rock, soft-rock, pop-rock, blues-rock, folk-rock, pyschedelic-rock, and progressive rock. The 1960's really had rock music diversifying in several directions. Out of all this chaos came great rock bands like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. These bands truly began to define rock music.
In the early 1970's rock music took it's intensity up another notch by creating yet another sub-genre, heavy metal. The 70's produced darker rock bands like Black Sabbath and the Scorpions. In the late 1970's British heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard began to emerge and a slew of metal bands would follow.
In the early 1980's, rock music shared the airwaves with both punk and new wave music, and introduced another sub-genre, glam-rock. Later in the 80's rock music began to return to it's earlier raw roots, with bands like Guns-n-Roses, while metal continued to evolve and divide into further sub-genres.
After rock's glorious return by GNR, alternative rock hit the scene and by the 1990's it was nearly unrecognizable. Grunge music began to dominate the music scene for the next decade, along with indie-rock. Rock also had to compete with another genre at this time that was rapidly gaining popularity, rap music. In 1999, the Recording Industry of America's President and CEO, Hilary Rosen stated that there was a sharp decline in rock music sales according to the RIAA's annual demographic survey of 3,051 music purchasers in the United States.
By the 2000's pure rock had become all but obsolete, with all the dividing and meshing of sub-genres. In the past decade, some of the most promising authentic rock bands ended up merging into alternative, emo, post-punk, metalcore or electronic rock. As it seems, all this fusing of genres has somehow led musicians away from straight up rock. Truly good rock music is now lost in a sea of music fusion.
According to Neilsen Soundscan, rock album sales fell from 667 million to 428 million units from 2004-2008. That is a decline of 35% in only four years. Album sales determine which genre of artists major labels will sign, which may be why fewer of them are willing to sign bands who are designated as rock.
The Current State of Rock Music
Unfortunately, the present generation has been forced to listen to bands like Nickleback, who currently dominate the airwaves due to a lack of anything better. Nickleback may be classified as rock, but it's not good rock by any means. Type the words "Why is Nickleback" into Google's search engine and the first suggestion it gives for a search is "Why is Nickleback Hated". The second suggestion it gives is "Why is Nickleback so bad".
For a brief moment Tokio Hotel made a promising attempt at bringing rock back to it's roots, but then it went in the wrong direction. What at first seemed to be the next great rock band to come along in over a decade, transitioned into more of an emo-pop-alternative style band. Tokio Hotel is still young, still trying to find the right genre, but they have the potential to be a truly great rock band.
Today's youth is starved for good new rock, and it's not because rock music is no longer popular. If it wasn't popular anymore, then video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band would not be in such demand. Until the appearance of these games a lot of today's youth had not been exposed to good, pure rock. Could a possible resurgence of rock music be on the horizon as a result of these games? Could today's youth be so inspired by them, that a flurry of good, new rock bands will bring rock back from the dead? One can only hope, and if so, it is long overdue.
Minka Gantenbein - Minka Gantenbein is a freelance journalist from the beautiful Central Coast of California. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in ...
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