Gene Simmons: Rock Is Finally Dead

Taylor Harbin

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Interesting interview with his son, Nick.

He speaks well and makes some good points, but I'm not sure I completely agree with him. Reminds me of the people who keep saying the novel is dead and it's all e-books from here. Perhaps the industry is undergoing a big change, but is it really dead?

Enjoy.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/gene-simmons-future-of-rock
 

Larry M

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Yes he does make some very good points. The music business, at least for rock, as Gene points out, has changed dramatically since he started out.

Maybe the old way is dead, or at least changed so much it is unrecognizable to old rockers like him.

I agree with him that we will likely never see another Dylan or Beatles, or Elvis or Frank Sinatra. They were perfect for their times - times that were more conducive for such acts to be wildly popular.
 

Amadan

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It does sound very similar to what a lot of people say about the publishing industry. I don't know music well enough to comment on his opinion of rock, and I think he overestimates the influence of downloading, but it does seem like the decline of "iconic" rock groups tracks somewhat with the decline of mid-list authors...
 

Xelebes

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Rock is dead just as much as jazz is dead. Okay, a little less dead, but the market for music and the industry alongside changed radically in the late 70s and early 80s. The change is still taking effect but it is harder for rock bands to stay together, simply for the fact that there is less performance spaces available.

There will always be a space for rock, but rock will become a niche instead of the predominate genre slugging it out with country (in North America) and schlager (in Europe.)
 

Jack Asher

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Gene has no idea what he's talking about here. He goes on about how labels and album sales were somehow important to rock and roll.

What he doesn't understand is that KISS was able to succeed because of the little bands his label destroyed with rotten contracts. That he only made money on albums because he got play on the radio, and had an agent who kept him from getting screwed.

But there are bands today who have ditched their labels, moved entirely online, and are outselling KISS in tickets.

When Gene Simmons says "rock is dead" what he means is "the system that made me rich, and has allowed me to sit on my ass for the last 25 years, turning out 'greatest hit' album after 'greatest hit' album no longer works like I thought it did."
 
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Wilde_at_heart

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Drivel like KISS helped, didn't it? I always thought their music was completely forgettable and about as 'rock' as a broadway production.

Meanwhile Indie music is better than ever, imo.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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When Gene Simmons says "rock is dead" what he means is "the system that made me rich, and has allowed me to sit on my ass for the last 25 years, turning out 'greatest hit' album after 'greatest hit' album no longer works like I thought it did."
This.

Drivel like KISS helped, didn't it? I always thought their music was completely forgettable and about as 'rock' as a broadway production.

Meanwhile Indie music is better than ever, imo.
And this.

Rock and Roll died with Gene Simmons facelift. Seriously though, I think it's pretty pathetic that he's going to come out with this silly opinion when the only newer rock band he's even heard of his Tame Impala, which he only listened to because his son dropped it at his feet. He's musically and intellectually lazy. He doesn't even know what's out there. He's never been to a sold out My Morning Jacket show or rocked out to The Black Angels or heard of Fang Island. He couldn't be more out of touch with modern rock.

The period of rock and roll superstardom of the type he enjoyed was pretty brief (I think maybe the mid-fifties with Elvis through the very early nineties, so about 40 years), and was fueled by the baby boomers' consumption of homogenized entertainment. These days it is different, but that doesn't mean rock is dead. Perhaps it just means a lot more acts can make a decent living instead of a few acts like Kiss wiping their asses with 100 dollar bills. Now that honor goes to hip hop artists, and they earned it by appealing to their own generation instead of pandering to nostalgic boomers.

Kiss wasn't even very good. Yeah they were fun and campy and had a great platform for selling action figures and lunch boxes, but I could rattle of two dozen guitarist with better chops and songwriting skills than Simmons without even thinking about it.

Skill alone has never been a guarantee of superstardom anyway. During the same era Simmons is harkening back to, giant talents like Nick Drake were routinely overlooked.
 

robjvargas

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I may just be having bad luck, but everything I find in indie rock is harsh, growling stuff. A like a bit of that, but all the time? Seether, Disturbed, even Rage Against, they are more along the lines of rock music that I enjoy. How do *you* find more of that? Pandora hasn't proven very helpful of late, either.
 

poetinahat

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I think there may be fewer iconic bands now because there are so many more all up. There aren't four genres anymore; the idea of genre itself is almost quaint now.

I don't think that's bad. To the contrary, it means music is still very much alive.

It's more that rock isn't the music of rebellion anymore; as its audience grew up, it became part of accepted society. It wasn't a sellout, but teens become adults, but they remain rock fans. And their kids need their own voice, part of which is breaking away from, or rebelling against, the older generation: rock is now the establishment, not by design, but because that's life.

Rock isn't dead; it just wants you off its lawn.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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Larry's right: Kiss's marketing was pretty much flawless for the times. I can't fault them there at all.

I may just be having bad luck, but everything I find in indie rock is harsh, growling stuff. A like a bit of that, but all the time? Seether, Disturbed, even Rage Against, they are more along the lines of rock music that I enjoy. How do *you* find more of that? Pandora hasn't proven very helpful of late, either.
That's a good question. I've had the best luck by joining a few groups of discriminating people who have similar musical taste to my own. I don't like everything they suggest, but I have been introduced to a fortune of newer acts I really love.

Another great way to find new music to love is to attend music festivals. Seeing a band live is an incredible way to asses whether their music is a fit for you.

Other than that, I recommend following Paste and Consequence of Sound for what's new.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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I think there may be fewer iconic bands now because there are so many more all up. There aren't four genres anymore; the idea of genre itself is almost quaint now.

I don't think that's bad. To the contrary, it means music is still very much alive.

It's more that rock isn't the music of rebellion anymore; as its audience grew up, it became part of accepted society. It wasn't a sellout, but teens become adults, but they remain rock fans. And their kids need their own voice, part of which is breaking away from, or rebelling against, the older generation: rock is now the establishment, not by design, but because that's life.

Rock isn't dead; it just wants you off its lawn.
This. Every word of it! That's what I meant by rock dying with Gene Simmon's facelift. Is there anything less rock and roll than nostalgia and halls of fame?
 

poetinahat

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There really isn't, is there? It's like a World Championship of Yoga.
 

Xelebes

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A techno hall of fame would also be less techno. Well, outside of Detroit. One of the biggest things of techno in the early days of rave was the absolute namelessness of it all, too many names with too many alike each other. It was bound to fall but there are still producers out there who have three dozen aliases as they release tracks on thirty-six different labels.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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A techno hall of fame would also be less techno. Well, outside of Detroit. One of the biggest things of techno in the early days of rave was the absolute namelessness of it all, too many names with too many alike each other. It was bound to fall but there are still producers out there who have three dozen aliases as they release tracks on thirty-six different labels.
So they're kind of like bestselling superartists but nobody knows it because it's under so many different names? That kind of rocks.
 

Xelebes

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It is an open secret, in that sense. I mean when the artist names have the wink and nudge going on, it adds to the artist's catch. But ultimately it comes down production capacity and the desire for labels to put out singles instead of albums (something that had completely overwhelmed the rock market and consequently watered down the genre of rock.) Bobby Orlando found that he put out almost a hundred records a year back in the heyday of disco and hi-NRG. He released a lot of greats and a lot of doozies and the doozies could be avoided because they were separate from the hits. With that, the democratisation of record labels allowed record labels to foster a sound or a sub-genre and the producers could pick and choose which track fit where.
 
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Chasing the Horizon

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The days of record companies being able to force us all to listen to the same handful of "iconic" (and often crappy) rock bands are indeed over, thank the gods. He's absolutely right that we'll probably never see national phenomenons on the level we have in the past because there's far too much competition and choice. This is a very good thing for everyone except the big record labels and the small percentage of bands they support. Listeners have far more choice than in the past, more artists get to make at least some money off their work, and music gets to evolve into cool new genres that are too niche for a record label to ever take on (steampunk rock, for example).

Frankly that article sounded like a long-winded rant from a privileged dude who's mad privilege doesn't take you as far as it used to. And I had to laugh at his comments on patriotism being corny "now". If you want anti-patriotic music, you'd be hard-pressed to find better than the iconic bands of the 1960s.
 

Jack Asher

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I may just be having bad luck, but everything I find in indie rock is harsh, growling stuff. A like a bit of that, but all the time? Seether, Disturbed, even Rage Against, they are more along the lines of rock music that I enjoy. How do *you* find more of that? Pandora hasn't proven very helpful of late, either.
First of stop Pandora immediately. Pandora has a user base of around 65 million and a collection of not quite a million songs.
Spotify has a user base of 20 million and twenty million songs.

I heart radio is comparable to Spotify is also out there, but I hate Clearchannel, so don't use them.

As far as new bands, I would strongly recommend you look into Puscifer. Or at least some Puscifer, the band doesn't actually have a sound. Sometimes they release a rock album, sometimes rap, sometimes folk. But C is for Insert Sophmoric Genetalia Reference Here and Donkey Punch the Night are both really good rock.

But the nice thing about Spotify is that if you like a particular song you can build a radio station around it, and when you hear something you like again, pivot and listen to everything that band has ever put out.

Lastly, Rage isn't rock, it's rap alternative.

Edited to Add: And try some Dr. Steel. Everyone should listen to Doctor Steel
 
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Shadow_Ferret

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Weird. So what's all that rock music I'm listening to by Max Frost, Riptide, Vance Joy, Cake, AWOLNation, Arctic Monkeys, Fitz and the Tantrums, Kongos, Bastile, Imagine Dragons, Twenty One Pilots, Bleachers, to name a few?

Maybe, unlike many other of his contemporaries, such as Alice Cooper and Ozzy, Gene Simmons is just becoming an old stick in the mud.http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
 

poetinahat

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The thing about the old days is that we remember the greats, and the forgettable acts fade. In the present, we see them all. Time makes a classic.

I have no idea who today's classics in waiting might be (music critics would probably point to Radiohead, for one).

But Simmons' interview makes him sound, to me, like a man who, understandably, misses being on top. He wants every last one of his fifteen minutes, and he's counting the change.

Rock, whatever else it may be, is fine.
 

KTC

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I think it's cute that irrelevant little Genie Simmons takes off his adorable Broadway Musical costume now and then and speaks. I mean, just the cutest little thing. I worked in a record (that's a vinyl disk, for those younger than Jesus) store when KISS first hit the scene. And I will tell you that I was among those who adored the little jeezers. Such frolicking fun...the best thing to happen to rock n roll since syphilis. I dug their wholly forgettable music. Their stomping feet and wanton disregard for talent. I mean, I seriously dug it. I think they have earned their place in the pantheon of rock n roll. They'd sit proudly in the Rarities and Oddities section...right next to Weird Al, maybe. I raised my fist at the odd Kiss concert...I screamed HOT HOT HOTTER THAN HELL!!!! You may say, "Et tu, KTC? Et tu?" It's true...me as well. I boarded the Kiss bus...I board all the fun buses.

But they are about as relevant as Scritti Politti. Yes...you may argue that Scritti is NOTHING in comparison to Kiss and their wild army of social misfits. YES THEY ARE. They are wildly famous, infamous and popular. But that doesn't make the sum of their parts relevant. Even at his height, Gene was a business man in a avant garde costume. He weighed and measured each note for shock-value and hard-rock sellability. He was savvy. They knew rock anthems and the hunger for that type of music at the time of their rise. They scored. But, please...they were an animal of their own. They were cute hug-able icons of rock...entertainers...unquestionably talented, but also questionably sincere. This + This = Money.

I don't want to hear Gene Simmons talk of the tower of song known as rock n roll. That would be silliness. Keep on your make-up, you cute little monster of mayhem. You know not what you speak. OR...you know what you speak of only in terms of the financial machine you created at the most opportunistic time in the history of the pantheon of rock. You won. But you didn't do anything earthshatteringly original. Anyone can get dolled up, sweet Genie baby. Anyone. The rest was confetti well paid for.

ROCK AND ROLL LIVES!