Andrew Chase
Equinox Staff
When I visited this years Rocktoberfest I noticed that there were very few people attending the event. I was unsure if the low number of attendees was because of the fact that people were busy or if it was because people just don’t enjoy listening to rock songs anymore.
In my opinion, rock’s origins can be traced back to when the Beatles put out their first album on March 22, 1963. The Beatles helped put the rock genre into the mainstream market. However, I feel that the band Led Zeppelin’s album “Led Zeppelin IV” was the one to launch rock into what it is today. “Led Zeppelin IV” had one of the most famous rock songs: “Stairway To Heaven.”
The origins of metal as a genre can be traced back to the band Black Sabbath’s first album: “Black Sabbath.” I consider the band Black Sabbath’s second album “Paranoid” to be the album that made hard rock a popular sub-genre of rock. On the album “Paranoid,” there are hard rock classics such as the songs “Paranoid,” “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots
.” On that same album, there is a song which I consider to be the first popular metal song, “War Pigs.”
I find that there are l amazing rock and metal bands still out there today, but you just have to find them. Yes, the genres of rock and metal are not as popular as they used to be, but as my life-long friend Caleb Foss said to me when talking about this subject, “A good example of my issue is Greta Van Fleet. Not a bad band by any means, but not innovative in any way. Yet they are one of the newest to really break into the mainstream media. People are clinging so much to the past of rock that I’m worried it might really start to fade away.” The issue of why rock isn’t staying as mainstream anymore is exactly as my friend stated: rock music just isn’t evolving and is sticking to its roots instead. Rock songs are still present in today’s culture but they are more or less depicted as a remnant of an older and different time.
A few examples of rock songs that are still popular today are “Rock You Like A Hurricane,” “Thunderstruck” and “Welcome To The Jungle.” These are all great songs, but they all have the same basic layout of a rock song. The basic layout includes a cranked-out, distorted guitar, a fast-pace drummer, a non-existent bassist and a high- pitched voiced singer. This basic layout has been used to the point of where the genre is not evolving any further when there is still huge potential for change with newer bands.
The main problem is that not many people want to hear a distorted guitar in their song about sex, drugs, and murder. They want to hear about this stuff in rap music but with a ton of bass instead.
Andrew Chase can be reached
at achase@kscequinox.com
