Is “hard rock” gone forever from the mainstream?

[tekkenguy]

Is hard rock music gone forever as a mainstream genre? It’s been over a decade since a hard rock song became a crossover hit.

[House Lannister]

It's not dead. But it's going to take years for top 40 radio to readjust to the rock scene today.

[marcyiam]

Jun 22, 2020 18:36:31 GMT -5 House Lannister said:

It's not dead. But it's going to take years for top 40 radio to readjust to the rock scene today.

I wish it would.

[garrettlen]

I hope not.

[lazer]

It might come back but it has to be in a new form and not like ripping off from older bands like Greta Van Fleet does.

[tanooki]

Zombie was a minor hit two years ago, Popular Monster is doing very well on YouTube (and it could blow up as a TikTok song or something, I could definitely see that happening). But more than likely the next wave of hard rock will come in the form of trap metal artists like Zillakami. The next wave of hard rock will take a lot of hip hop influence (Popular Monster is already doing that lol)

[Deleted]

Post Malone is hard rock

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

As long as the fans stay stuck in the past and continue to refuse any new artist that comes along that isn't a rehash of some 60s-80s style rock, probably not.

[leonagwen]

The problem is that the billboard chart formula weighs heavy on streaming,which favors Rap songs and Tik Tok songs.

[M1tchD]

I don’t even want hard rock to come back, I want stuff like Daughtry and The Fray to chart again. But even that’s too much to ask nowadays.

[nickd]

The hard rock demo mostly listens to hip hop now, so it would probably be hip hop artists integrating hard rock into their music, the result of which would still be relatively different from the hard rock of the past.

[Joe1240]

The only rock bands that chart anymore is Imagine Dragons and 21 Pilots but as for a old school band that is past their prime charting like The Rolling Stones,Bon Jovi etc. that won't happen at all as the new Generation is focused on the every changing landscape of Hip Hop,Pop and EDM as those Genres don't stick to the same old acts for too many years.

[Trilogy]

maybe but if we can make black midi mainstream that would be great

[Harx]

Probably. By the way things are going, Imagine Dragons will be considered "hard" rock in about 20 years

[Deleted]

Just as country morphed into pop, and country radio plays mostly pop, then I guess that like Raycon said, stuff that is tame now (I do love Imagine Dragons btw) like Imagine Dragons, will eventually be considered hard rock and at that point, yes, hard rock will be back.

[Bolt Cutter]

We're only a decade ahead of the explosion of garage rockers (The Black Keys, White Stripes, Interpol) and post-punk revivalists (The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys) in the so-called 'aughts' of 2000–2010. These bands are seen as the continuation of the 'hard rock' of yesteryear. Many of them are still active, and there are a few 'hard rock' bands like The Vaccines and White Reaper that crashed into mainstream consciousness during the last decade.

I think 'hard rock' as a genre seemingly waned because pop and electronic music in the mode of the '80s and, to a lesser extent, the '90s have become more pervasive. 'Hard rock' isn't gone—it lives on through the acts I mentioned—but it's no longer the most popular genre today. I would probably attribute its state to nothing more than just the tides of music changing. As one trend ebbs, another trend flows.

[Dreams]

I don't think so. Everything is cyclical in music. EVENTUALLY hard rock will return to mainstream. If you ask me, I'd prefer the 80's-reminiscent AOR/Hard Rock ideally to start making a comeback. We've seen it happen with tropical and disco sounds being prevalent in recent years, so why not hard rock at some point?

[thirddegree50123]

Jun 23, 2020 1:12:24 GMT -5 M1tchD said:

I don’t even want hard rock to come back, I want stuff like Daughtry and The Fray to chart again. But even that’s too much to ask nowadays.

Preach. I remember at the end of 2011 when Daughtry, Nickelback and the Fray all put singles out and they all underperformed...even on Hot AC. Then the same thing happened to Lifehouse and Matchbox the next year. It was crazy how a generation of Hot AC legends just got phased out pretty much all at once. Maroon 5 has stuck around for obvious reasons but I will never understand how Train was the survivor out of that group of bands.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I don't think Rock will really come back to the mainstream...at least not anytime soon. Rock is generally a very masculine style of music and often very aggressive. This attitude/image/whatever you want to call it just isn't cool in today's more sensitive society. Plus, when it comes to music specifically, we seem to be much more interested these days in what an artist can do with a computer than actual instruments. Kids don't care if someone plays guitar anymore. Unless someone can start successfully blending those modern production elements with the classic distorted guitar sound, there won't be any interest. Rock radio's staple artists haven't shown any ability to evolve and the fans they still have left don't seem to mind. You're not going to be recruiting any new fans continuing down that path

[tekkenguy]

Bumping this thread because I remembered this song existed. If an active rock hit by two of the biggest names on pop radio couldn’t cross over back to CHR, then what else could?

[Deleted]

Jul 5, 2020 16:57:56 GMT -5 thirddegree50123 said:

Jun 23, 2020 1:12:24 GMT -5 M1tchD said:

I don’t even want hard rock to come back, I want stuff like Daughtry and The Fray to chart again. But even that’s too much to ask nowadays.

Preach. I remember at the end of 2011 when Daughtry, Nickelback and the Fray all put singles out and they all underperformed...even on Hot AC. Then the same thing happened to Lifehouse and Matchbox the next year. It was crazy how a generation of Hot AC legends just got phased out pretty much all at once. Maroon 5 has stuck around for obvious reasons but I will never understand how Train was the survivor out of that group of bands.

My dad and I talk about music sometimes, and he's said that he thinks the death of rock in the mainstream was an industry decision. Maybe it was just because the 2000s Mainstream Rock bands were going out of fashion by the Early 2010s (Nickelback jokes were already becoming a thing by that point), but it is awfully suspicious that ALL of the big Rock bands of the 2000s flopped around 2011 and 2012 (aside from Maroon 5 and Train, M5 sold out to trend-chasing and Train's luck ran out fast). While we did get the Indie boom in 2012/13, that wasn't entirely Rock, and the stuff that does qualify as Rock was much more on the Soft/Pop Rock side of things. After that, the mainstream wouldn't take any more Rock music (sans the occasional commercial-driven One-Hit Wonder, Pop artists like Ed Sheeran or Shawn Mendes dabbling in rock-tinged material and Imagine Dragons, who are barely even Rock). Can Rock make a comeback? Maybe, but it would probably be more of a Rap-Rock fusion than straight-ahead Rock, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

[Deleted]

Jul 5, 2020 16:57:56 GMT -5 thirddegree50123 said:

Jun 23, 2020 1:12:24 GMT -5 M1tchD said:

I'll separate this into three sections.
1: About society being more sensitive or soft nowadays, a lot of Hip-Hop is very masculine and aggressive as well, and that hasn't stopped it from succeeding. 6ix9ine for example was about as aggressive and (hyper)masculine as you can get, and yet he still succeeded in the music world (as well as being a total scumbag).
2: I think the old-fashioned guitar sound is starting to be blended more into Hip-Hop. 2020's major Hip-Hop hits had a lot more organic instrumentation than in a lot of other recent years (Mood for example features an electric guitar lick as a prominent feature), Machine Gun Kelly went full Pop-Punk on his last album and someone like Post Malone has been incorporating a lot of Rock elements into his output in recent years (Circles is a standard Pop-Rock song, and Take What You Want has Ozzy Ozbourne as a feature and a kickass, shredding guitar solo).
3: I think that's one of the biggest reasons why Rock has died out in the mainstream. Bands like FFDP don't even try for mainstream crossover appeal (I mean, they're doing fine enough as is, so trying to crossover might cause more problems than it's worth), and radio rock in 2021 doesn't sound all that different from how it did 15 or 20 years ago. Rock needs a major shot in the arm as a genre, it can't go on sounding the same forever.

[tekkenguy]

Apr 14, 2021 20:22:49 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Jul 5, 2020 16:57:56 GMT -5 thirddegree50123 said:

Preach. I remember at the end of 2011 when Daughtry, Nickelback and the Fray all put singles out and they all underperformed...even on Hot AC. Then the same thing happened to Lifehouse and Matchbox the next year. It was crazy how a generation of Hot AC legends just got phased out pretty much all at once. Maroon 5 has stuck around for obvious reasons but I will never understand how Train was the survivor out of that group of bands.

My dad and I talk about music sometimes, and he's said that he thinks the death of rock in the mainstream was an industry decision. Maybe it was just because the 2000s Mainstream Rock bands were going out of fashion by the Early 2010s (Nickelback jokes were already becoming a thing by that point), but it is awfully suspicious that ALL of the big Rock bands of the 2000s flopped around 2011 and 2012 (aside from Maroon 5 and Train, M5 sold out to trend-chasing and Train's luck ran out fast). While we did get the Indie boom in 2012/13, that wasn't entirely Rock, and the stuff that does qualify as Rock was much more on the Soft/Pop Rock side of things. After that, the mainstream wouldn't take any more Rock music (sans the occasional commercial-driven One-Hit Wonder, Pop artists like Ed Sheeran or Shawn Mendes dabbling in rock-tinged material and Imagine Dragons, who are barely even Rock). Can Rock make a comeback? Maybe, but it would probably be more of a Rap-Rock fusion than straight-ahead Rock, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Anyone else thinking demographic shifts may have had something to do with it? Rock is a very white and masculine genre of music, which means it's out of place in a cultural zeitgeist that emphasizes racial and gender diversity.

The people who ate up Nickelback, Matchbox 20, etc. were older white moms. Once they aged out of the demographic around 2010 or so, all that was left was a highly racially diverse, pro-feminist, and pro-LGBTQ generation who liked music that appealed to all those demographics. "Angry white dude" music wasn't going to cut it with them.

[tekkenguy]

Apr 14, 2021 20:34:51 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Jul 5, 2020 16:57:56 GMT -5 thirddegree50123 said:

I'll separate this into three sections.
1: About society being more sensitive or soft nowadays, a lot of Hip-Hop is very masculine and aggressive as well, and that hasn't stopped it from succeeding. 6ix9ine for example was about as aggressive and (hyper)masculine as you can get, and yet he still succeeded in the music world (as well as being a total scumbag).
2: I think the old-fashioned guitar sound is starting to be blended more into Hip-Hop. 2020's major Hip-Hop hits had a lot more organic instrumentation than in a lot of other recent years (Mood for example features an electric guitar lick as a prominent feature), Machine Gun Kelly went full Pop-Punk on his last album and someone like Post Malone has been incorporating a lot of Rock elements into his output in recent years (Circles is a standard Pop-Rock song, and Take What You Want has Ozzy Ozbourne as a feature and a kickass, shredding guitar solo).
3: I think that's one of the biggest reasons why Rock has died out in the mainstream. Bands like FFDP don't even try for mainstream crossover appeal (I mean, they're doing fine enough as is, so trying to crossover might cause more problems than it's worth), and radio rock in 2021 doesn't sound all that different from how it did 15 or 20 years ago. Rock needs a major shot in the arm as a genre, it can't go on sounding the same forever.

Re: Hip-hop. The racial component seems to be what is helping hip hop thrive. Rock's whiteness seems to be just as much a part of its problem as its masculinity.

Honestly, I think people are really understating how much rock has evolved. I mean there's definitely more EDM and synth influence in a lot of popular rock songs. 

Also Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars had a hit on Active Rock Radio back in 2019, called "Blow". Why couldn't that have been the song that brought the genre back from the dead?

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2021 20:51:37 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Apr 14, 2021 20:22:49 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

My dad and I talk about music sometimes, and he's said that he thinks the death of rock in the mainstream was an industry decision. Maybe it was just because the 2000s Mainstream Rock bands were going out of fashion by the Early 2010s (Nickelback jokes were already becoming a thing by that point), but it is awfully suspicious that ALL of the big Rock bands of the 2000s flopped around 2011 and 2012 (aside from Maroon 5 and Train, M5 sold out to trend-chasing and Train's luck ran out fast). While we did get the Indie boom in 2012/13, that wasn't entirely Rock, and the stuff that does qualify as Rock was much more on the Soft/Pop Rock side of things. After that, the mainstream wouldn't take any more Rock music (sans the occasional commercial-driven One-Hit Wonder, Pop artists like Ed Sheeran or Shawn Mendes dabbling in rock-tinged material and Imagine Dragons, who are barely even Rock). Can Rock make a comeback? Maybe, but it would probably be more of a Rap-Rock fusion than straight-ahead Rock, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Anyone else thinking demographic shifts may have had something to do with it? Rock is a very white and masculine genre of music, which means it's out of place in a cultural zeitgeist that emphasizes racial and gender diversity.

The people who ate up Nickelback, Matchbox 20, etc. were older white moms. Once they aged out of the demographic around 2010 or so, all that was left was a highly racially diverse, pro-feminist, and pro-LGBTQ generation who liked music that appealed to all those demographics. "Angry white dude" music wasn't going to cut it with them.

Wouldn't those demographic shifts also cause a decline in Country music's success? Demographics might've played a part, but Country's continued success throws a bit of a wrench in that explanation.

[tekkenguy]

Apr 14, 2021 21:11:18 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Apr 14, 2021 20:51:37 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Anyone else thinking demographic shifts may have had something to do with it? Rock is a very white and masculine genre of music, which means it's out of place in a cultural zeitgeist that emphasizes racial and gender diversity.

The people who ate up Nickelback, Matchbox 20, etc. were older white moms. Once they aged out of the demographic around 2010 or so, all that was left was a highly racially diverse, pro-feminist, and pro-LGBTQ generation who liked music that appealed to all those demographics. "Angry white dude" music wasn't going to cut it with them.

Wouldn't those demographic shifts also cause a decline in Country music's success? Demographics might've played a part, but Country's continued success throws a bit of a wrench in that explanation.

Country isn't as heavily masculine as rock is.

Also, the genre had a huge ambassador to CHR's target audience with Taylor Swift, so that probably helped.

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2021 21:14:00 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Apr 14, 2021 21:11:18 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Wouldn't those demographic shifts also cause a decline in Country music's success? Demographics might've played a part, but Country's continued success throws a bit of a wrench in that explanation.

Country isn't as heavily masculine as rock is.

It became heavily masculine during the Bro Country era of the Mid 2010s, and female artists are only now starting to see a resurgence in success.

[tekkenguy]

Apr 14, 2021 21:15:14 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Apr 14, 2021 21:14:00 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Country isn't as heavily masculine as rock is.

It became heavily masculine during the Bro Country era of the Mid 2010s, and female artists are only now starting to see a resurgence in success.

Oh, you must have missed my add-on:

"Also, the genre had a huge ambassador to CHR's target audience with Taylor Swift, so that probably helped."

Also, country didn't really have many CHR crossover hits. Those "bro country" songs sold well on iTunes, but that was mostly with its built-in fanbase rather than with crossover support, and they got almost zero play on other formats. Country does pretty poorly on Spotify, relatively speaking.

Regardless, country's production has always been very soft and poppy compared to active rock's.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Apr 14, 2021 21:14:00 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Apr 14, 2021 21:11:18 GMT -5 @gabingston said:

Wouldn't those demographic shifts also cause a decline in Country music's success? Demographics might've played a part, but Country's continued success throws a bit of a wrench in that explanation.

Country isn't as heavily masculine as rock is.

Also, the genre had a huge ambassador to CHR's target audience with Taylor Swift, so that probably helped.

Except country has always existed separately from the rest of mainstream music, for the most part. Where most genres have shifted more toward progressive values, country still remains relatively conservative and religious to an extend. It’s still male, white and straight dominated. Rock music has always existed alongside pop and hip-hip - as the dominant genre up until the 80s or 90s and then gradually taking a backseat into the 2000s.

I think the changing demographic has pushed it back, both the masculinity and whiteness of the genre. With women’s issues and race being such major drivers of much of the conversation now, bands made up of aggressive white dudes isn’t really that interesting for people who aren’t also aggressive white dudes. As a genre, it might become what country is now, which is a genre for people who care and not much else, only on a much smaller scale.

Rock-centric radio formats are trying to hold on to life by expanding their playlists to less rocky music, which I think might influence the genre going forward. It’s something rock artists themselves haven’t been willing to do, which is my other theory for why rock has slowly vanished. Rock fans (and musicians) are such purists to the genre. Most remain living in the 70s and refuse to allow the genre to evolve, looking down at any and every attempt by a band or artist younger than 40 to make it in rock. Just go to the rock forum and read some of the comments. I find rock fans the most critical and hardest to please and I believe it’s because they’re stuck in the past.

[tekkenguy]

Apr 14, 2021 23:05:09 GMT -5 Devil Marlena Nylund said:

Apr 14, 2021 21:14:00 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Country isn't as heavily masculine as rock is.

Also, the genre had a huge ambassador to CHR's target audience with Taylor Swift, so that probably helped.

Except country has always existed separately from the rest of mainstream music, for the most part. Where most genres have shifted more toward progressive values, country still remains relatively conservative and religious to an extend. It’s still male, white and straight dominated. Rock music has always existed alongside pop and hip-hip - as the dominant genre up until the 80s or 90s and then gradually taking a backseat into the 2000s.

I think the changing demographic has pushed it back, both the masculinity and whiteness of the genre. With women’s issues and race being such major drivers of much of the conversation now, bands made up of aggressive white dudes isn’t really that interesting for people who aren’t also aggressive white dudes. As a genre, it might become what country is now, which is a genre for people who care and not much else, only on a much smaller scale.

Rock-centric radio formats are trying to hold on to life by expanding their playlists to less rocky music, which I think might influence the genre going forward. It’s something rock artists themselves haven’t been willing to do, which is my other theory for why rock has slowly vanished. Rock fans (and musicians) are such purists to the genre. Most remain living in the 70s and refuse to allow the genre to evolve, looking down at any and every attempt by a band or artist younger than 40 to make it in rock. Just go to the rock forum and read some of the comments. I find rock fans the most critical and hardest to please and I believe it’s because they’re stuck in the past.

One thing I noticed was that the last real rock radio crossover hits (I.e. “Second Chance” and “Use Somebody”) were from 2009, shortly after Obama took office. Maybe CHR went “post-Racial” and ditched most of music that only appeals to white men.

[lyhom]

not to invalidate the arguments here or anything but I feel like some of you are overthinking this when the answer is mostly the fact that most hard rock acts don't care that much about crossing over to the pop world or being mainstream tabloid fodder or whatever lol

(I also wonder if we've just exhausted most mainstream-friendly "reinventions" of hard rock anyways)