A Case Study in Cultural Decline: Rock Music

Bradford Tuckfield,

Having wondered why it was so hard to find new rock music that pleased my ears, I decided to check out the history of Rock across several different countries. So I happened to stumble on this Wikipedia page on Russian Rock music. It pondered my recurring but still frail question: “Is Rock music declining?”. Finally concretized, I wrote this question on the Google search bar and found your comprehensive, well written page.

If I didn’t get it wrong, you wrote about the uncertain path of Rock intending to assess the general decline of Western culture. It is clearly stated the reason behind this and despite not agreeing with the overall starter of this (the piece without the whole is not a piece and vice versa), the final result is mostly just the case I was interested in.

Divided into four sections, the report came out clear and consistent, with the answers to each question nicely stated. For my so important questioning, “Has rock music declined?” I have to agree the most with the “Superficial changes in terminology” proposition. For me, music styles are adaptations of older kinds that no longer suit, or just sound outdated to the contemporary popular taste of a certain time or place. They don’t replace but serve for what the former couldn’t. Yet I have to include a few thoughts on the others:
Both “Nostalgic misperception of decline” and “Decline and change” touch the same concept, that of an idealized past. Rock is this youthful style that thrived rapidly and strongly, making names for lots of legends that have long lasted in people’s hearts and therefore kept us from welcoming anyone else. What makes most of what rock, pop, and even classical music are the persons who perform them. The fall of a genre is not noticed until it’s past the time of these idols’ fase, and that is what we are experiencing now.

Refering to the “cycles of history” it is true, indeed, that listening and dancing, being almost opposites, tend to interchangeably happen throughout musical history. This part explains the whole “switching” but does not mention why rock could not fit the dancing again, despite hinting the inevitability of change. This might have been fixed in the following section, but it is exactly where most of my views get conflicted.
I understand this is focused on what’s trending, but from my perception of things alongside what’s written, the assumption that misery of artistic quality is taking over modern times is either ruthlessly generalized or the result of misinformation. It is true that today most of the radio is lyrically or melodically wasteful. Nevertheless, the world of art is too varied and opulent to say that it is poor. Art has changed, but the spotlights of popular interest moved around much more. Timeless subjects, or as I’d rather say, soulful themes are still tackled by a lot of musicians. They may not be as famous as their pop orientated peers, but can make a living out of their passion. Noticing your inclination towards a mostly “clean” and “ideal” genre that is Western Classical music, it is possible you missed out on several modern masterpieces.

Save my meticulousness and amateur considerations, you’d have a conclusion that no style is completely dead, Rock being no exception. They’ll carry on in new ways and leave traces of their existance in tomorrow’s music. As for this future; No style is better than the other, it just so happens that each suit a different environment. Music does not just serve for personal enjoyment, but for movie soundtracks, festivals, traditions, from a representation of an era to a daily commute or elevator ride. There comes a time when one just doesn’t sound right for the moment and let be it.
They say music is how we decorate time. Perhaps it really is the right occasion to change our surroundings.