LONG LIVE ROCK! (Hope this can be considered fair use of the The Who’s Who’s Next album cover.)

Hey Otterites!

You know Francis has put a stick through the bars this week. He’s got Robert and me all fired up. We are ready to dig into the question, is rock dead?

The short answer is basically yes. Every once in a while, there’s a slight pulse, but in the main, the patient is terminal and a machine is breathing for it.

First though, a quibble with the esteemed Gene Simmons and his timeline. Rock made it to 40, not 30. Yes, the decade from 1988 to 1998 saw a major rock resurgence. Gone were polka dotted, bleached blonde hair bands and actual rock acts, with a ton of attitude and in your face style were back with a capital B. Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Sublime and many others emerged, and old favorites like Metallica held the line. Grunge was a force. Singers with swagger were back. Rock seemed rejuvenated, stronger than ever, shed of pretense and posing.

And then it all went to shit.

In a word, the difference is songwriting. You see, when rock started, only a handful of performers wrote their own music. Elvis became the biggest entertainer on the planet and didn’t write his own songs. Record companies and producers paid songwriters a pittance, and most importantly kept the rights to the songs themselves, and had performers record them.

Then the 60’s overturned the record company apple carts. Performers insisted on recording and performing primarily their own music. The Beatles, Stones, The Who, The Doors, all those counterculture figures owned not only their personas, but their music too. This was the new paradigm, and recording songs handed out by the record companies was for the oldsters, the crooners. If you really wanted to be a rock star, you wrote your own music.

This lasted all through that classic vinyl and cassette eras, and all through the 70s, 80s and 90s. Occasional hits were written by someone other than the performer, but rock songs were owned by their performers. It was glorious, creative and awesome.

Then suddenly the record companies realized they could get back to that old paradigm, get back control, and make a mountain of money doing it. All they had to do was find some cute kids, and boom, you had 98 N’degrees Spice on the Block. Yes, the acts made money too, but the record companies no longer had to cater to preening, drug addled front men, no more waiting 8 years for Boston to release another record, no more worrying about the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac hating each other’s guts. Just crank out the tunes, make another boy band, and cash the checks.

There were other factors to be sure. Those drug addled bands who couldn’t stand the sight of each other didn’t help when they imploded or died. The dynamo that was MTV in the 80s became a network of sideshows and spray tans instead of introducing new music to the buying public. The industry is also flying apart in the wake of the new streaming paradigm too. You don’t need to buy a CD if Spotify or Apple can just play your favorite tune over and over again for you.

Rock music got to its full height and maximum swagger when the performers wrote their own stuff. Grow your hair long, stuff some tube socks down your jeans, drink out of the Jack Daniels bottle right on stage, it didn’t matter, it all worked and the band OWNED it. Potent and menacing, it was fully alive. Now, rock lies prostrate with a tube up its nose and those inflatable socks that keep you from getting blood clots on its feet. The drugs are often the same though, so there’s that.

Let’s add a little of that boss 90s rock to prove the point.