The Decline Of Mainstream Rock Music
 

Before reading on, please note, this is not intended to create controversy or as flame-bait. Actually it's been a personal concern for a while and I think it's an interesting topic worthy of some discussion.

The essence of my claim is that mainstream rock music has been undergoing a sharp decline for an exceedingly long period of time, to the point that I feel that quality has slipped to an all time low. Plaguing the charts seem to be insipid songs of an extremely highly commercialized, over-produced format, by completely faceless bands with virtually no identifiable sound or vision of their own. Not only that, but I speak to friends who tell me that bands such as Breaking Benjamin, Papa Roach, Finger Eleven, 30 Seconds To Mars, Plain White T's, Three Days Grace, Silversun Pickups, Sick Puppies, and other bands of their ilk, are examples of "tremendous" and "brilliant" rock bands and not only that but are even better than other mainstream fan-favs like the Chilis and the Foo Fighters. I can vouch for the state of mainstream rock music in Britain being even worse: popular up and down the airwaves at present are bands boasting the mediocrity of The Enemy, The Feeling, The Fray, The Hoosiers, The Pidgeon Detectives, Scouting For Girls, The Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, and some more assortments of creatively bankrupt uselessness that for some reason nobody can seem to get enough of.

There was a time many many MANY moons ago when cutting edge bands were all the rage. We have come so far since then. Why is it that the modern consumer is content for such garbage? Why, in this age of information in which we live, are we neverless content to have such low, undemanding standards?

its a new day out there baby,....and i personally believe the reason such bands are promoted is because the mass consumor base is ignorant of true muscianship,......

I thought Silversun Pickups were uber indie...*unsure*

Anyhoo, what about QOTSA or The White Stripes...? Good bands have always been a dime a dozen, bands like Nirvana come around once in a blue moon...:\

this is very true,...however,....certian era's seem to have fostered, i dont want to say a 'better sound',.....but maybe a more 'pure' sound,...
i still dont think thats the right words,.....

I have to ask myself are things REALLY that worse than they were 20 years ago

uhhhhh,....i like belinda carlile,.....its a girl thing

Consider that your one guilty pleasure used up

:p:

Yeah, I shouldn't have included Silversun Pickups. They are still the lameness, tho.

As for good bands, I think there are literally loads of good bands on the indie side and pretty much have been for ages.

Good point, probably not. But going further back to the 60s and 70s, bands held in very high esteem critically speaking had substantial mainstream popularity. Maybe I'm wrong to say there's been a steep and steady decline. Maybe it reached a low at some point and never really changed. But I do think that the rock bands today are more produced and manufactured than they were 20 years ago.

My answer-there is always good music out there. You just have to look. A lot of mainstream scenes for any genre of music are pretty poor and music video channels and mainstream radio will never dictate what I should be listening to or tell me what is really happening.

I never listen to the radio these days and I don't have a clue what's top of either the album or singles charts. The whole point of being on sites like these is to share and enjoy different viewpoints on music that is NOT mainstream.

Of course i like a lot of mainstream music but it has always sucked.

Every decade has had good and bad music but some of us don't hear about them because only the good bands remain behind. It just seems that mainstream rock is sucking now because you are growing up with it. Trust me there has always been plenty of crap music around.

Yeah this is true, but it's not the essence of what I'm trying to say. What I'm saying is that really GOOD bands of old (Beatles, The Who etc.) still recognized as being great today, were hugely popular in the mainstream back then. Today, very few bands that people on these forums for example would consider good are particularly big in terms of MASS popularity. For the most part, only the bands that we insist are garbage have truly huge commercial success. And THAT is a marked difference in the times. Hell, check it out, Nickelback's last album sold like 7 million. No band that dedicated music fans consider good (except maybe for the Chili's? 'cos a lot of people here seem to adore them) can rival that.