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Old 05-15-2021, 11:06 PM   #14
Prowler
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumac View Post
Rock music embodied a creativity and a protest.

When it has become mainstream it had become less creative and, naturally, its protest fizzled out. After all it was hard to take seriously rockers who were singing about social problems, while receiving millions for their performances.

It doesn't help that the 80s were a hard time in the West - many social problems, economic problems, renewed rivalry between West and USSR - majority of the people didn't want hear about protests, they wanted something softer and inspiring, thus glamour rockers.

With big money and fame, both creativity and protest in rock music had died. What once was a challenge to the norms, has become a new norm - stale and boring. As a result creativity went into electronic music (raves) and the last sparks of "protest" led to creation of grunge, which was anti-mainstream rock and when grunge itself has become mainstream - it has finished rock for good in the mainstream, since there was nowhere else to go.

At least this is my version of events.

As for modern music - there are some good and creative artists, but due to informational stream speeding up, thanks to the Internet and new media, they tend to appear and die out very quickly. It doesn't help that music making nowadays is more easier than ever.

Mainstream is occupied by glamour names, who are more known for their scandals and boobs, rather than music itself, which is the prime reason people remember them.
This is a pretty good post.

Something similar seems to be happening to rap music. I guess it eventually will go through a down period as well?

It seems like the whole sex, drugs and rock n roll lifestyle is no longer that appealing. A lot of the most popular modern rock bands are of the alternative or indie variety without frontmen that are the living embodiments of the "Rockstar" stereotype.

Lemmy from Motorhead was one of the last true Rockstars. It wasn't just a gimmick. He lead a brutal lifestyle. And he's dead now. Eventually Keith Richards and others will die too, and then we won't have any Rockstars left.

Protest and social conscious music seems less of a thing nowadays. At least in the mainstream. I can only think of Rage Against the Machine and they've been around since the 90s already. Plus they broke up some time ago.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew NDB View Post
When I was young everyone looked up to rocker heroes, because they were the bad boys. Then came the gangster rappers, who may have actually murdered people in many cases... even better news! New heroes! But then there was really nothing to replace these with. There is no rock anymore, really. It is all just slightly different flavors of pop, most "hip hop" too.
A lot of the gangster rappers were just a gimmick. I kinda view gangster rap and themes as the hip-hop equivalent of satanism in metal. A ton of metal bands will have songs that reference Satan or primarily talk about Satan and demons in their songs, but VERY FEW are actual satanists. It was literally done for shock value in the 80s.

Sure, some of those gangster rappers were gang members in the past, but a ton of them are just using that image as part of their gimmick.
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