|
Unsung Forum » Your best recent finds |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
| Topic View: Flat | Threaded | |
Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 01:05
|
||
|
Actually I would argue that the 1980's was secretly a highpoint in rocknroll . . . not for what was played on the radio, but all the great "indie" stuff that wasn't. Rock died in 1992 with Nirvana and the rise of hip-hop. (Not Cobain's fault, it was the GRUNGE HYPE around Nirvana that killed it. I think he sensed this and that's part of the reason he killed himself.)
|
|||
stray 2057 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 04:09
|
||
|
Sorry for being a pain, but I bleedin hate revisionism ;) hip hop was outselling, or selling equally as well, as rock before Nirvana, during Nirvana and after Nirvana. Rock didn't die anymore than hip hop rose. Grunge didnt even die, there's still plenty of it about. Hip hop/rock crossover music was also not a new thing post nirvana, it just got noticed.
|
|||
|
Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 06:01
|
||
|
That's not what I'm trying to say. Hip-Hop stole the cultural mojo from rock around the same time that Grunge Hype was suffocating the last few survivors from the 80's "Indie Rock" scene. "Sales" has little to do with it. Rock Music (vs. Pop Music) hasn't sold well since the early 70's as far as I can tell (I wouldn't call Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles "rock" for instance.) The standard rock crit line is that "Nirvana brought rock back to life" but I think they were really more like the death rattle. There, that oughta get an argument going! :-)
|
|||
Vybik Jon 7718 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 10:54
|
||
I just grabbed the first three recent HH targets I coulod think of.
|
|||
Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 12:18
|
||
|
Grunge didn't suffocate indie rock, it was a development on it. Nirvana aren't sonically a million miles away from The Jesus and And Mary Chain after all. Just mix the JAMC with The Police and you've got Nirvana! Anyway, the indie scene needed some dead wood clearing out, like all scenes do from time time. The were just too many substandard Smiths wannabes in the end. The idea that rock music hasn't sold anything since the early 70s is just plain wrong. What about glam, punk, post-punk, new wave, the indie stuff you mention yourself, Britpop, grunge, 'post'-rock and all the other things that don't fit easily into those categories. And I don't quite see why you make a distinction between rock and pop music. Rock's as much pop music as anything else that's in the charts (even if it likes to hide behind shades and pretend it isn't). There was no golden age of charts crammed full of rock music. There have always been The Brotherhood of Man, Renee & Renato, Cilla Black and Steps rubbing shoulders with T-Rex, The Sex Pistols and Nirvana. Things go in cycles. Rock music will get a resurgence in interest again, like it always does. Rock music hasn't died. People were premature when rave was kicking off saying it had created a revolution, lined rock stars up against the wall and taken them out. A few years later rave was on a heavy comedown and people had started noticing rock again. There will always be rock, just as there will always be disco (techno, rave or whatever form it takes) and just as there will always be shiny happy granny/tweenie pop. The fact we have more genres around now that ever before is nothing to be scared of!
|
|||
cancer boy 977 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 12:39
|
||
People saying "rock is dead" generally mean "I don't like it any more". Considering the Darkness are #1 on the UK album charts this week sales are lokking pretty healthy too. Kings of Leon, BRMC and Busted are all in the top ten and could be considered to "rock" to varying degrees.
|
|||
|
alan lake soon 349 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 14:36
|
||
|
Good point re NWW and yes it were the Provos, but they re-built the bridge for me to cycle over. Another best recent find: Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind (Blood on the Tracks) - wot a song
|
|||
Severin 1770 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 14:53
|
||
|
..a brilliant brilliant song You'll like the NWW,I'm bettin' and that King Dice stuff is pretty ace as well..from what I hear ;-)
|
|||
|
Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 16:36
|
||
|
I think there is a big cultural divide here -- I am not talking about the scene in the UK but in the US. There were never "hordes of Smiths immitators" over here, in fact I can't think of a single UK "indie" band I was listening to in the late 80's (except for stuff like the Clash, PIL, Sex Pistols . . . none of it was "new" at the time.) "Grunge" apparently hit the UK quite differently than in the US. Here it was just a hype machine that killed the "real indie scenes" and replaced it with dressed-down hair metal. Lots of great bands either broke up (Replacements, Pixies) or sold out and got lame (Dinosaur jr., Meat Puppets) around the time Nirvana exploded. Urban Outfitter started selling ripped flannel shirts for $50 (while indie-punks had been buying the same shirts for $2 at Rag Stock for years -- that "style statement" was more an expression of poverty than anything else.) I know I'm not the only one who noticed what was happening at the time . . . but I suppose in the UK the whole thing was an import and there was no equivalent scene there to wipe out . . . Seems to me that the UK and US music scenes have really gone different paths in the past 10-15 years, in fact I saw an article not to long ago noting that there was only 1 or 2 UK artists in the entire US top 100. Robbie Williams? Who's dat? Never heard of any of those "hit groups" Cancerboy mentioned either. These days the US charts are ruled by: 1) sexy flirty girls (Britney, Christina) and their male equivalents (Justin, Usher), 2) hip-hop (which I think has been on a downward spiral since 1994 but that's another story), 3) bubblegum "punk" (Blink 182, Sum 41), 4) MOR crap trying to be "classic rock" (Matchbox 20, Coldplay) Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stoneage and White Stripes seem to be the only real "rock" bands left that have anykind of crossover mainstream appeal -- and I'm sure all those groups combined sell less than 10% what Britny or Justin does. Of course there's plenty of good "rock" left in the underground (Bell Rays, Paybacks) -- but it's a cult thing, probably no more popular than traditional Irish music. As for the Rock vs. Pop distinction, I am talking about wild-crazy-ecstatic noise vs. smoothed out melodic tunesmithing. Iggy=rock, Bowie=pop, etc. Shaman vs. Showman as Cope likes to say. Though admitted the "genre game" is always dodgy . . . and an artist can be pop and rock or go back and forth between (Beatles certainly did both -- "She Loves You" vs. "Long & Winding Road") And yes of course there was a golden age when rock ruled the charts: 1965-1973 or so. Golden age of hip-hop was about 1987-1994 by the way. ;-) I'm sure that sooner or later something new will come along that captures the zeitgeist like rock and hip-hop did in their heydays -- probably something that is neither one of those genres. In the meantime all previous genres will continue to exist -- that's what "postmodernism" is all about. Cycles of nostalgia getting shorter as history folds in on itself . . . |
|||
|
Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Sep 05, 2003, 17:04
|
||
Sorry. There is undoubtedly a cultural difference. I didn't realise you were talking from a US perspective. You didn't get the Rave followed by Britpop thing for a start. But you really should count yourself lucky that Robbie Williams hasn't invaded the US consciousness (imagine Elton John (with a tenth of his 'talent') gene-spliced with Jim Carey and you're pretty much there).
|
| Pages: 8 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ] | Add a reply to this topic |
|
|
|
| Unsung Forum Index | |
