Week Of 1/28: Live!

Billboard's top 10 rock artists of 2016:

1. Twenty One Pilots (mostly alt-pop)
2. Coldplay (hot AC)
3. X Ambassadors (alt-pop a la Imagine Dragons 'roots-stomp')
4. Panic! at the Disco (various: emo, pop, alt-rock, hot AC)
5. James Bay (alt/pop-rock)
6. Elle King (alt-pop)
7. Disturbed (heavy rock/radio metal)
8. The Lumineers (folk-pop)
9. David Bowie (classic rock, only on here because he'd just died)
10. Blink-182 (90s alt-rock)

@geosync "What's rock even mean? Is it something that requires a guitar?" Rock and roll originally was an offshoot of the blues and folk, so guitars are predominant in rock. But Elton John and Billy Joel can rock with a piano.

To me, rock has more of an organic & human element whereas pop tends to feel more repetitive and pre-programmed with either obviously-looped beats & melodies (or if it is performed throughout the track, unchanging). Also, rock means 'a band playing instruments' where pop tends to be a person (or bunch of people) standing (or dancing) around while machines (or hired guns) do most of the work.

For a good example, compare these Twenty One Pilots songs: "Tear In Your Hand" feels like an alt-rock song to me, it sounds like a band of musicians actually performing music with instruments throughout the track. But "Levitate" feels like alt-pop with it's looped beat and moody synths.
 
geosync said:
Rock doesn't 'rock' anymore and hasn't for some time. The artists these days are quite a bit less aggressive maybe.
Click to expand...
Now this is what gets me going. Parquet Courts doesn't rock? Jack White doesn't rock? Did Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age turn into folk acts?

Don't blame "rock" just because you're listening to shitty music. The irony is that we're discussing this on the Howard Stern forum. You know, that guy who most people think has long disappeared, ever since he left KRock. Howard's just like "rock"; they're both still here, just not in the same place they were decades ago.
 
I also feel that today's rock definitely still rocks. Here's what I'm listening to that kicks ass:

Altitudes + Attitude, Black Stone Cherry, Blacktop Mojo, Body Count, Cane Hill (excluding their new 2019 stuff), Ded, Five Finger Death Punch, Ghost, Glorious Sons, Halestorm, Hyro The Hero, Insanity Alert, Irontom, Nine Lashes, Northern Skulls, Nothing More, Otep, Parkway Drive, Pop Evil, Prophets Of Rage, Rat Boy, Royal Blood, Shaman's Harvest, Shinedown, Skindred, Thrice, Toothgrinder, Ty Tabor, Vein...

And they have all released music within the last year or two that rocks!

PS Great Van Fleet also technically rocks, and are quite big right now... but I can't stand them.
 
I'm with you Sadchild.

I like that there's kids rocking out with good and loud guitars.
I dig that they can actually play.
I LOVE that they are getting a lot of airplay.

I wish they would find their own identity, and very soon.

As a Zep inspired tribute(ish) kind of a thing, they are killing it, and may not have gotten noticed if they weren't. Now that people are watching, it's time to take the next step.
 
Great conversation guys!

The Beatles were told that guitar bands were on the way out....

I went through that phase like a lot of us do where Classic Rock was everything... the college years. Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Hendrix, Boston, etc..

I still like those groups, but now I'm a good bit older, and my tastes in music have changed a bit. Give me some Carole King's Tapestry album, or some Yacht rock. Kind of an embarrassing admission in this thread. Kudos to you guys who are still rockin' as much now as when you were younger! Glad to hear they've still got rock music worth listening to out there.
 
I can find a thousand songs worse than Greta. They're a bit too neo-retro for me, but they have a tight sound, and they're inoffensively fun.

I appreciate music from the 60s to unreleased music played on XMU. Everything from Zeppelin to Ty Segall, Ray Lamontagne, LCD Soundsystem, Jethro Tull, Grimes, Steely Dan, Dead Can Dance, Against Me!, and Brandi Carlile. I dislike most pop, country, rap, metal, and that whiny teen emo stuff.

I can't imagine either abandoning old music or giving up on new.
 
Rock isn't dead it merely has cancer of the phallus to which there is no cure. The rock that wakes me up in the morning really wakes me up, if only to shut it off.
 
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