Friday, September 12, 2014

Metal Op Ed - Rock is Dead?


Gene Simmons says "Rock is Dead"
You're gonna hate me for saying this but I agree.

Rock n' Roll, four chords and a dream.
It may have all started when Robert Johnson met the Devil at the crossroads.
What did he learn that day?

In it's hey day, it was just young rebellious kids coming together to create a simply beautiful ruckus that the old folk couldn't stand.
It caught on like brush fire with other young folk and it raged.
That musical inferno changed pop culture and the world as they knew it back then.

Rock spoke for a generation.
In the 60's it represented the counter culture.
It outlasted the beach boys and the dave clark five.
It even changed the Beatles.

Rock was the soundtrack to the civil rights movement.
Woodstock and feelings of free loved sailed along on the notes of Hendrix and Havens.

Rock had an ego.
Sex, Drugs and Rock N' Roll

Rock was careless and claimed many a young soul.
Hendrix, Joplin & Morrison to name a few.

It survived the seventies, eighties & nineties.

Disco, boy bands, country music, glam, grunge, punk, electronic, metal
could not kill Rock N' Roll

Technology
Yes Technology
Killed Rock N' Roll

Yes Technology had taken it's share of lives.
From the atom bomb to the last silent movie and beyond.
Technology

Live theater and classical music took a back seat
to the moving pictures you could stare at and music you could listen to at home.

Paintings, sculpture, photography and the printing press.
Technology got them too.

It came for the Rock music.
All the tracks and production.
Free
to 
Download

It came for the young folk who supported that Rock N' Roll aesthetic.

No liner notes. No artwork.
No band photos.
No identity.
No more Rock icons.

While Video had Killed the Radio Star.
Digital killed all the Rock Stars.

Video and Record stores.
Gone.

Cameras, action and access to the world for every tom, dick and harry.
Kardashians and Hiltons were born.
Why value anything you can't get for free?
Why have substance?
That comes with a price. 

Rock N' Roll as we knew it, is dead.
No more contracts, labels or execs.
Bands touring for years to make up for production costs.
Dwindling.

Fan supported albums.
Growing.
New bands influenced by the old
Always.
New ground being broken, new stories being told.
Essential.

Maybe Gene didn't even believe what he was saying.
Maybe ole Gene had a trick up his sleeve.
How many Icons are left?
The ones that can still move the dial?
The ones that still get quoted for the crazy shit they say to the press?

Is that a heartbeat?

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