Gone are the days where big rock bands sell out stadiums and have action figures made after them. In a fight to compete against pop music, old school rock bands are losing. You no longer see new bands emerging and living up to the fame of KISS, Korn, or Nirvana, among other aging rock bands.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, KISS frontman Gene Simmons said,
"Yeah, rock is dead. Not that it can't come back to life, but the business is dead. If the business is dead, rock is dead. You know what's not dead? Pop. Lots of pop divas, little girls buy the material. Black music, especially rap, their fans buy the music. Country, yup, their fans buy the music. Rock, no."
Simmons believes that the main cause of the death of rock music is that no one is actually buying the music. In an age where streaming services and illegal streaming are used rather than listeners buying albums, rock bands can no longer rise to the fame that they could before. This is why "rock did not die of old age. It was murdered," said Simmons.
Korn's frontman Jonathan Davis also believes that "real rock bands" are dead. Although he has more to add to the issue by saying that Korn and other bands from their era are the last batches of these "real rock bands." He then goes on to bring up the same fight against pop music that Simmons believes in, explaining that it was them verse Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys.
Now what I have to say about this is that mainstream rock bands may be dying, but rock music is in no way dead. Yes, gone are the days of being in a rock band as your full-time job, but that doesn't mean that there aren't bands just as good thriving below the surface of the general public. Contrary to the beliefs of Simmons and Davis, I believe that the last commercially successful rock band was Imagine Dragons. They were the last true rock band to play stadiums and have their music played on the radio. Their last album "Evolve" peaked at number two on Billboard's top 200 charts the year it was released. To me, all this qualifies them as a "real rock band."
Sure, rock music is no longer as commercially successful as it used to be but good new rock music is still being made. All you have to do is look a little deeper.
twerk gif GIF
