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Rock and roll never really dies.
It flowers, and it withers.
In its fertile periods, rock is fuel feeding cultural change.
Punk rock anthropomorphized 70s fatalism in guttural tunes that raced to explosive climaxes.
This year, rock and roll seems bored with itself.
Where Imagine Dragons went, a generation of veteran rock outfits has followed.
Vegas emo outfit Panic!
1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Eventually, tastes became more expansive.
Open borders bred new and unusual hybridizations.
Lead singer Matty Healy doesnt even like to hear the 1975 referred to as a rock band.
If youre bred through the internet, youre bred with zero tribalism.
This fall, director Bryan Singer and actor Rami Maleks Freddie Mercury biopicBohemian Rhapsodysurpassed 2015s N.W.A.
(Queen classics currently account for a third of the Hot Rock Songs chart.)
Some 80,000 of the 87,000 equivalent units the album pushed in its first week to claim the No.
3 spot on the Billboard 200 chart were pure sales.
Gretas Spotify play counts are good but not gobstopping.
The band doesnt appear anywhere in Billboards list of the years top 50 most streamed rock songs at all.
In that respect, digital musics new boss is just the same as the old boss.
Twenty eighteen was a great year for all the guitar-based musical traditions.
How does rock find its future if the artists doing the brightest, weirdest work remain in the margins?
Can algorithms be benevolent?
Is the tide already turning again?
