What happened to guitar rock?

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VideoGameCritic
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What happened to guitar rock?

Postby VideoGameCritic » June 4th, 2020, 12:23 pm

There have been a few good threads going on here, and a lot of the bands discussed with rock bands from the 1990's. Whenever I hear some kick ass rock songs from the 90's I think, why don't they still make music like this?

The only band that really stands out as continuing to make the old style rock is Foo Fighters, one of my all-time favorites as you know.

What's going on and will rock ever make a comeback? Music seems so muddled right now. Every is listening to their own thing in their "buds".

Thoughts?

Cafeman
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby Cafeman » June 4th, 2020, 1:09 pm

I don't know, I would love for some good rock band recommendations. Every now and then I'll hear a new band or new song on the local rock station, but to be honest I haven't liked any of the songs recently. The only artist that has recently satisfied my rock guitar craving has been Buckethead, although I could be listening to older songs of his for all I know.

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ActRaiser
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby ActRaiser » June 4th, 2020, 1:37 pm

I know it's cool to hate on Greta Van Fleet but I enjoy them. Sure, they try to copy Led Zeppelin a little too much. However, it's not exactly as if Led Zeppelin didn't borrow their material from others as well.

jon
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby jon » June 4th, 2020, 2:57 pm

While it started getting worse around 1996, things didn’t change too much until the lo-fi movement kicked into high gear. This happened after bands like Fallout Boy and My Chemical Romance. The next popular groups after those bands were incredibly awful and destroyed rock music. They make Fallout Boy look like legends. And Vampire Weekend led the movement. They were unbelievable garbage and were so bad I literally want to beat them up. They destroyed rock music with their wimpy garbage. Robert Christgau can go hang out with his bff’s. The reviews he gave them are unforgivable.

Lucifixion
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby Lucifixion » June 4th, 2020, 6:46 pm

It has been co-opted by the masses who require that their music is easy to digest. This means no complex structures, no fancy rhythms that stray beyond a singular beat, and most of all, nothing that transcends 3 chords. Music that requires a listener's attention is all but gone, which is a reflection of our society as a whole. But why bother using musical instruments when you can program everything, and then have someone with an attractive appearance ''sing''? Talent is not needed, everything is programmed anyways, and we can just shift those vocals to the right pitch and key (anyone have an earlier example than that atrocious Cher song from the 90s?). Regardless of who or what you want to attribute the demise of music to, technology has played a major role in eliminating the use of real musical instruments. The phrase ''necessity is the mother of invention" is very applicable. Without a need to learn an instrument and hone your craft, very few do it and even fewer craft something new and original.

My advise is to go back further than the 90s, get yourself a good record player, a good receiver, and some proper-size speakers. Then hit the local used record store and buy up cheap 70s and 80s rock albums. I have over 300 and counting since moving into my house 5 years ago. No earbuds. No poor sound quality. No missing guitar.

jon
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby jon » June 4th, 2020, 8:48 pm

I still think that there just isn't anyone great out there. There are no great rock bands. People might say, oh the internet makes it hard for good bands to get noticed. I think that's not true. If there was a great rock band, they would be very successful and popular. Why isn't there? I think it's because young people don't like rock music. And the ones that do are playing the same wimp rock of the last decade plus.

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velcrozombie
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby velcrozombie » June 4th, 2020, 11:05 pm

Tried to think of current rock bands at work today I like that weren't too far into metal, prog or avant garde - your mileage may vary and I haven't necessarily heard every album (I've listened to little music in the last six months):

Clutch
All Them Witches
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats
Kadavar
Dozer
Royal Blood
Black Mountain
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell
Graveyard
Unsane (more on the abrasive side)
Queens of the Stone Age (last album wasn't very good)
Torche (early stuff has a lot of sludge mixed in)

EDIT:
There's a band called Nothing that I forgot. The album Guilty of Everything is shoegaze with a heavier rock focus while the next album Tired of Tomorrow has a few songs that wouldn't have sounded out-of-place on 1994 rock radio. If you like Hum, Smashing Pumpkins or even My Bloody Valentine there will be something here you'll enjoy.

EDIT 2:
If you're okay with something slower there's True Widow. Mix of shoegaze, doom and twang with both male and female vocals. Their guitar sound is interesting - it's not overly distorted, it's this cleaner but "blown-out" sound that comes with playing VERY loud and letting the amp break up naturally. Check out the song "Four Teeth" or, for something more driving, "Theurgist". It's not the most exciting music (some of their material is almost glacial), but it's dark and soothing at the same time.

The Afghan Whigs are together again and they put out an album a few years ago. Don't know how relevant they are since they are just as much Motown/R&B as they are rock but they're a good band nevertheless.

tREVdesigns wrote:My faves to listen to now are:


+1 for Orange Goblin, Red Fang and The Sword. I like the album Black Holes and Revelations by Muse but I'm mixed on some the other songs I've heard - "Plug in Baby" is really good, though. Going to give Deap Valley and Sturgil Simpson a listen.
Last edited by velcrozombie on June 6th, 2020, 10:15 am, edited 2 times in total.

jon
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby jon » June 5th, 2020, 10:28 pm

I looked at the UK singles chart. And the #1's are all dance pop and rap. I'm a fan of Oasis. A couple years ago I decided to check out Noel Gallagher's albums. They're pretty decent. So I checked out what Liam Gallagher was doing. He's released a couple solo albums. Now they're on the pop side of rock but I enjoy them. And they've been popular in the UK. His first single "Heart of Glass" was nothing insane but it was a pretty good song. I figured it hit #1 on the UK singles chart. But one thing that shocked me was Liam Gallagher's single from a few years ago only made it to #21 (although it did go gold). I checked out the UK singles charts and it's all dance pop and rap. It really shows how ridiculous things are. Even Liam Gallagher, a huge rock star from the not so distant past, who's still in his prime, didn't even get into the top 20. In my opinion, there are no good new rock bands. A poster here recommended the last 2 Warrant albums a couple years ago. It took me a while until I listened, and I wasn't expecting much, but they're really good.

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tREVdesigns
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby tREVdesigns » June 6th, 2020, 2:16 am

It’s still out there but albeit harder to find. Grunge killed hair metal, Lo fi/Emo killed everything else after that. What goes around comes around I guess. I also blame YouTube. Why would someone pay for an album of music when they can watch a 4 year old play Eruption. It gives the music publishers no incentive to sign new talent.

My faves to listen to now are:
Wolfmother - A direct 70s rock emulation. Keeps albums under 40 minutes with no filler! Victorious is one helluva video.
Deap Valley - A 2 member girl band with a stripped down garage rock sound. So so good.
Red Fang - They get lumped in as “sludge metal”. Sounds like Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Incredible albums.
The Sword - Was hooked since Freya on Guitar Hero 2. Same genre as Red Fang.
Orange Goblin - More “metal” than the above 2 with darker songs, their albums are mixed incredibly well. Return to Mars has a riff very similar to Metallica’s Harvester of Sorrow. Almost too similar.
Muse - More pop rock than the others but the guitarist plays solos and experiments with new equipment (gasp). Knights of Cydonia was in Guitar Hero 3.
Sturgil Simpson - Sound and Fury - A wicked cross between ZZ Top, Pink Floyd and Fatboy Slim. Was turned into an anime on Netflix.
+1 for Clutch

Audioslave carried the torch, but with Cornell’s passing no more of that.
Now only if Jack and Meg would put that “band” of stripes that are white back together.

Will definitely have to check out what others are suggesting. Something new needs to be put in rotation, as I roll my own playlists in the car and at work.

jon
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Re: What happened to guitar rock?

Postby jon » June 13th, 2020, 8:42 pm

I wouldn’t lump in Lo-Fi with emo. At least the latter had good production for a lot of the bands. It was when those trash bands afterwards. Rock music wasn’t that terrible.really even in the mid 2000’s. I’m an Audioslave fan. Their last album, released in 2006, I really liked as well as their first 2. Relevations debuted at #2. But they broke up later that year. At that point there were probably no good rock bands active that I liked. But I can understand why people liked Fallout Boy and bands like My Chemicals Romance. I liked their songs. I didn’t buy their albums but they weren’t that bad.
It’s when the wimpy pathetic Bands came out. I mean, taking aside the incredibly pathetic wimpy Vampire Weekend the other bands stunk too. We’re talking Best Coast? Cmon it’s a joke. I didn’t realize until years later who MGMT was. They have a good song or two. But they’re really low fi. Maybe I shouldn’t be singling them out although Time to Pretend is borderline horrifyingly bad.
I point to early 1996 as when rock went from being awesome to mediocre maybe slightly above. When Spacehog got popular it was a good time to point it out when alternative got Soft, although it’s probably a bad example because they had A couple good radio songs . It morphed into something that sucked. It wasn’t 1992-1994 let’s just put it that way.


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