I think it's great that this subject has been brought up with such passion and yet remains so thoughtful. As a 26 year old, I've seen the record turn into the tape turn into the CD turn into the mp3.
I've seen rock die. Saw it die again as 80's "alternative" and Punk/Thrash Metal made way for the bombastic freshness of Hip-Hop and Techno - which took hold of urban music in much more profound ways than disco and funk ever could have.
And here we are again. Are we looking at revivals? Ressurections? Or is the appeal of rock deeper than we think - Maybe it never died!?
I think one of the most important facets of Rock and Roll has always been its ability to remain honest. Think about it: In nearly every form it has taken, Rock has remained the cockroach of the music industry throughout the decades. From early beginnings as an offshoot of Blues and Honky Tonk, to Garage, Surf, Psychedelia, New Wave, Avant-garde, Punk, Metal, and just about every conceivable iteration in between, rock has remained in our minds, hearts, sometimes the charts.
Love it or hate it, people keep finding ways to come back to rock and roll. Why? Honesty. There's a degree of playfulness in Rock that just can't be found elsewhere. Rap tends to have inaccesible lyrics and ultimately neglects melody. Techno tends to focus on dance or pure soundscape and often abandons message. Classical is rigid and (thankfully) has not yielded to embrace those not accustomed to the time commitment required and feeling emotion through strict instrumentation. Jazz alienates with an often outright pretentious attitude to the uninitiated. (I'm missing genres here, but let's get to the point):
From a three-piece to full orchestral set ups, the experiments in sound, delivery of lyrics and range of recording styles have kept rock fresh; the consumption of which keeps rock validated. True, in a lot of cases this translates to a return to form - retro-rock-revival as it were. In other cases, we see the fabricated pop-rock (Crock and Roll?) on the charts. Even pure expansion of unchallenged paradigms.
But it's all beyond the point. Music is good based upon taste alone. A snobby connoisseur can dismiss the trendy listener as an uneducated sheep who listens to music for it's chic status. The same uneducated sheep can come back and dismiss the snob as a sucker for punishment who can't find enjoyment out of life without sucking some out of another. Fact is, you like what you like and
your own reasons for it alone are what matter.
There have been a lot of excellent points made throughout this discussion, but I think one in particular has really emerged as the catalyst: The idea of the dig. Let's disregard rock and move this to music as a whole. The moment one starts to dig - to see what's available outside the margins, to see what's been pushed aside into obscurity and to delve into the roots of a particular music style - we learn one critical point about a person.
Not just that they want to see what else is out there.
Not just to see what they're missing.
Not just to give themselves a history lesson.
Certainly not just to take a critical approach in discovering why they like what they like.
What someone is truly trying to uncover, is more of what they love. Inside or outside the confines of what they already know, the musical archaeologist is simply trying to uncover pieces of history, past and present, that culminate in an endlessly expanding database of experience, and above all, joy.
I feel confident that I can speak for all of us when I say there would be no hunt, no turned stones,
not even this thread, if we would all be content with the idea that our musical escapades were limited. We do it for fun. We do it for our souls. And given the forum, we all do it for our precious, precoius ears!
I hope this sparks more thought than it does controversy!
