For Those About to Rock: Where Are You???

Good essay by All Music Guide writer Thom Jurek. Of course, I agree with it. Jurek bemoans the downer that mainstream rock has become these days.

"Rock & roll, that great music that celebrated freedom and exhilaration, has become repressively dour. The bright and wild colors of rock & roll have faded to a shade of dark gray."

He traces the lineage - and some rock snobs may scoff - from Elvis and Chuck Berry to the 80s goodtime hair metal of Poison and Cinderella as well as urban R&B from Prince.

But he points to a turn in the late 80s with Guns 'n' Roses and Metallica (probably my favorite band along side The Beatles) taking things darker and more personal. Then came grunge. Alice in Chains' opus "Dirt" was "making bleak, angry pessimism and nihilism accessible and salable to young people."

Writes Jurek:

"One has to wonder if everything in rock does indeed cycle repeatedly, or if this time out the music merely collapses from the sheer exhaustion of expressing pain and other negative emotions ad nauseam. Let's hope so. In the meantime, pull out those Cinderella CDs and listen to Whitesnake's recent Gold double disc. Or better yet, pull out the Beastie Boys and Warrant, then go back to Chuck, Little Richard, Carl, Elvis, and Eddie, dig in, take off your shoes, and raise a toast to living for its own sake and listen to those two generations talk to each other with laughter."

Now I've been arguing musical tastes with my friends for years, who loved to diss me for liking Duran Duran in junior high and Poison in high school. But I love Metallica, GnR and AIC as well. Sometimes I wanna rock, sometimes my head feels like a hole.

But I do miss the good time rock that I think is missing these days. There is no Van Halen. The only hedonism I really hear in music belongs to hip-hop.

Let the good times roll...

Is Rock and Roll Really Dying? A Case Against Dourist Rockism [All Music Guide]

Earlier...
For Those About to Rock, I Look Down On You [Jonworld]
For Those About to Rock... [Jonworld]