Rock and Roll isn't drowning...It's just waving two fingers!!



Rock ‘n’ Roll isn’t drowning, it’s just waving two fingers!

“It’s the end of the rock era. It’s over, in the same way the jazz era is over.” - Gambaccini… you WHAT now?
      So we’ve all been hearing about the controversy across the newspapers and radio recently about the fact that ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll is dying out’. Look what good old Paul Gambaccini A.K.A, the professor of pop has let out the bag now. It got our jaws wagging when one of the UK’s well-known music reporters and former Radio 1 Dj continued on to say,
“…This doesn’t mean there will be no more good rock musicians, but rock as a prevailing style is part of music history.”
  
  …dude, I don’t know what your taking but it has really pulled the stage curtains over your eyes. Gambo came to this absurd conclusion based on the fact that last year, only 3 songs out of the top 100 UK chart songs were by guitar-based bands, according to ‘Music week’ . The highest ranking of the 3 being a re-release of 'Don’t stop believin' ' by US. Rock band ‘Journey’, which peaked at number 25 in the charts. Well I’ve got news for you my friend, you say we are witnessing the last gasps of what’s been the soul dominant sound of our counterculture for the best part of 50 years, but facts and figures don’t mean jack!

    Its irrefutable to say that just because rock and roll doesn’t rear its rebellious head in the charts, it’s going extinct…just because Beethoven isn’t in the top 20, does that automatically mean classical music is dead? Many would beg to differ.
     It’s true, perhaps that many more young people these days are influenced by TV reality shows such as The X Factor and US. Teen drama Glee. It may also be true that nowadays, that the main artists who are getting the most radio airplay are those that come under genres that are Hip-hop inflected and influenced by urban electronica.

   Does anybody other than pre-pubescent girls and Simon Cowell really give a damn who actually tops the singles charts these days?

    The fact is, rock itself as a genre is such a broad term; it’s hard to define it. Big names like Hendrix, Buckley and Pink Floyd exerted an influence, which has been paramount to great musical acts that have followed. Take ‘Mumford & Sons’ for example. These guys stormed on to the scene in 2008(where they reached number 10 in the UK charts), with a sound that was innovative, fresh and novel. Their folk-rock riffs and their configuration of mandolins, accordions and string bass were enough to make the likes of Ms Gaga and Guetta…or whatever his name was, fall flat on their faces.



   Rock music isn’t fading out of the limelight. If anything, its more alive than ever before. It’s just diversifying and splintering into many sub-genres. We’re seeing more great rock acts than we can shake a stick at, sprout on the flower-bed of the music industry. I believe that instead of issuing a death certificate, as many believe this to be the case, we are actually shortly entering a new golden era of rock music. It’s underground. Rock has once again become the outsider; the Maverick.

   The visceral thrill of an electric guitar riff , which pumps through the veins of the many generations of rock ‘n’ roll fans is something which is timeless. It continues to thrive. Festivals are in rude health. Rock acts headline the stages.

 
  Ignore the charts. Ignore what Gaga Gambo says, he’s clearly having a mid-life crisis...

              Rock is definitely not in a hard place. It’s in its place…on the stage!