So have you ever brought yourself to start singing any classics from many of your favorite rock bands of yesteryear? What about jamming to that old cassette that you have in your car? (I know that you have one, don’t lie) Well then you’re like me. You love/miss rock being in the forefront of the music industry.
To give a background on why I believe rock is an amazing genre, I grew up listening to classics, especially when I was in high school. My friends who were in theatre always listened to classic rock. I mean, I always had an interest in rock (mainly from playing Madden), but my friends always played it.
One of my best friends, still to this day, only plays rock in his car. I can’t really blame him. However, I hadn’t listened to a lot of rock for awhile, especially since I got into a bunch of other music since I got older. Much of the things that I hear on the radio doesn’t get me amped like when I listen to rock music. Things had to change, I had to go back to my roots.
Earlier on this week, I got really nostalgic. I went to go listen to Van Halen and I wasn’t disappointed at all. They are one of my favorite bands of all-time because of their flare and heavy riffs. Who couldn’t like their self-titled album, which contained classics like “Runnin’ With the Devil” and “Eruption”? After listening to Van Halen, I yearned for more rock.
So I thought to myself, why not create a Spotify playlist that is entitled “The Classics”? With this playlist, I put together my favorite rock songs from the 80s mainly. It consists of musicians from Billy Squier to bands like The Romantics (Some people consider them to be New Wave, they are rock to me). Then I had something dawn on me: Rock is no longer in the mainstream.
Why is that? It seems like people like automated beats for the most part nowadays. Pop music is just EDM with vocals over it now. Plus, if people want to hear an authentic percussion and guitar sound, they go to country music. I don’t know why people seem to like country music so much. It’s literally beer, truck, girl, wash, rinse and repeat, but I digress. Rock should be back at the forefront of the authenticity that music should represent.
When I hear an electric guitar, I don’t want to hear a twangy voice and maybe for some people that works. Not for me. I want to see the hard riffs, tongue wags, diverse lyrics and high energy performances. We have that today, but many bands don’t get the credit that they justly deserve.
Bands like the Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, bring us back to the glory years of rock. They are awesome bands that put their heart and soul into performances, but they aren’t in the top-40 playlists. That’s garbage. Maybe because of the music that the media moguls try to push down our throats on a regular basis is this watered down rap, boring country music and pop music that is barely intelligible. (Wor wor wor wor war… come on really Rhianna?)
If we want music to be actually be listenable again, let’s put rock at the front of the charts. Stream new bands, go to their shows and make them big. Fans of rock need to make it loud and clear that we want our voices heard. If we want to be taken seriously, we must show the media moguls that we want rock in the top-40 playlists. How awesome would that be?
