oped: Never~Never~Never..as long as old farts who grew up during Happy Days/American Graffiti are alive, well and still kicking... passing on this music to our kids and grandkids..Ha it will never die no more than Hanes/Fruit of the Loom tightee whitees...they may 'Fade Away' like the Rolling Stones song from time to time but never ever go away!
Hit it Bob:
By Daniel Kreps
Neil Young once sang "Rock n' roll can never die," but according to Gene Simmons, it's already dead. The Kiss bassist recently made controversial remarks about Donald Sterling, immigration and depression (which he eventually backed off from), and now the Kiss bassist has another enormous statement to make: "Rock is finally dead," Simmons declared in an interview with Esquire. "The death of rock was not a natural death. Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered," he added. But rock's killer wasn't the blurring of musical genres or lack of craftsmanship. Instead, Simmons blames file sharing and the fact that no one values music "enough to pay you for it" for murdering rock n' roll.
"It's very sad for new bands. My
heart goes out to them. They just don't have a chance. If you play
guitar, it's almost impossible," Simmons tell his son Nick, who
interviewed him for Esquire. "You're better off not even learning how to play guitar or write songs, and just singing in the shower and auditioning for The X Factor. And I'm not slamming The X Factor,
or pop singers. But where's the next Bob Dylan? Where's the next
Beatles? Where are the songwriters? Where are the creators? Many of them
now have to work behind the scenes, to prop up pop acts and write their
stuff for them."
Simmons goes on to say that 1958
to 1983 was music's pinnacle as he could name 100s of iconic musicians.
Since then, Simmons lists two bands that have carried on the spirit of
that era: Nirvana and, surprisingly, Tame Impala, which Simmons' son
turned him on to. "The craft is gone, and that is what technology, in
part, has brought us," Simmons said. "What is the next Dark Side of the Moon?
Now that the record industry barely exists, they wouldn't have a chance
to make something like that. There is a reason that, along with the
usual top-40 juggernauts, some of the biggest touring bands are half old
people, like me."
Simmons then points the finger
at who he suspects is guilty for killing rock: "My sense is that file
sharing started in predominantly white, middle- and upper-middle-class
young people who were native-born, who felt they were entitled to have
something for free, because that's what they were used to. If you
believe in capitalism — and I'm a firm believer in free-market
capitalism — then that other model is chaos. It destroys the structure."
Simmons also uses this train of thought to slyly apologize for his
previous statements about immigration by adding, "I find that many of
the more patriotic people are immigrants."
Perhaps upset that they weren't
named among "iconic" acts like Nirvana and Tame Impala, Foo Fighters
shared Simmons' "Rock is finally dead" interview on their Facebook page,
adding "Not so fast, Mr. God of Thunder..." Dave Grohl and company will
attempt to exhume and resuscitate rock with their next album Sonic Highways on November 10th.
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