Rock And Roll Is Dead
Herbert Midgley, the last Rock and Roller (2015)
I have been a rock and roller since I picked up my first guitar many years ago. Playing classic rock songs, blues and current music of the time, helped me learn the craft of Rock and Roll. Over the years I can hear and feel the rock beat, it is a sense of time, a spirit, the soul of many voices that makes you scream for joy, it music that makes you want to move and dance, and it is just plain fun!
Rock and Roll came on the scene in the mid 1950's. and 65 years later, Rock and Roll music is now in retirement. Many would say that Rock and Roll music is dead. It is hard to think that Rock and Roll music is gone, it will be missed by me.
What happen to Rock and Roll? What went wrong? How did the greatest music that mankind ever developed, died?
There is a lot of music out in 2015. With the internet, streaming services, video sites and social media, today's music audience have more options for music than ever before! Now you can listen to any genre of music, from any time period with just a few clicks on a keyboard or now by talking to your search engine. There is so much music it is hard to pick only one song to listen and rock out with.
Few artist today sell any major number of records. Historic bands like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Motown groups can sell CD's, others and most of today's music groups can't. Music is not seen as worth buying. Paying for music is as ridiculous as paying to breathe the air. Today music has no perceive value other than to have play in the background as you multitask your life.
Is it that the music isn't any good any more? There has always been bad music out there, today everyone thinks the 80's had the greatest music, however there are many songs that are just plain awful. The same in the 70's, 60's and in the heyday of Rock and Roll in the 50's. Do you remember some of the great awful tunes in the 90's and 2000's?
So today's music isn't any more awful than other periods. Perhaps Rock and Roll is dead because we can't go more than a few minutes without looking at a smartphone. When I talk with the younger generation, their eyes can't wait to get back to what is important, their cell phone. Look around when you go out to eat, go to the store, at Thanksgiving a few days ago, most of this generation is glued to their technology devices.
Don't worry, my generation and the past generations are catching up, everyone loves their cell phones. I even made a feature length sci-fi film with the bad robots that are controlling everyone with their cell phones. In THE RISE OF THE ROBOTS, you can see what has happened to the music, everyone is so tied up with the internet on their cell phones they don't have time to interact with other people much less listen to music as a group or as an individual.
For the most part, everyone listens to music with inferior speakers, on tiny ear buds, or slightly better, headphones. No one listens to music as a collective. Even if you are at a live concert, half of the audience is on their cell phones texting or taking photos of the event with those that are not there in cyberspace.
That is the difference, before 1999 when I first started to see cellphones or cell phone bags, and 2005 when I notice that texting became more important than calling someone, technology helped us to enjoy music. Now technology only distracts us from the music. Rock and Roll music has been multitasked away!
The way to change the current music that is so boring and predicable that the only way to listen to it is with the distraction of a cell phone. Could you imagine if cell phones were out when Sgt. Pepper came out, would most of the listeners of this classic Rock and Roll album be texting? Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon be engaging enough to keep you from checking your social media page? Michael Jackson's Thriller album have the musical merit to keep your cell phone turned off as you listened?
Maybe Rock and Roll music isn't really dead, but it is only in a coma waiting for the another future generation that has time to listen to music. To move to music. To be amazed by the music. To be challenged by the music. To change the world with the music. Rock and Roll music, the greatest genre of music that could have only developed in this country will hopefully have a come back. People have been knocking Rock and Roll since the day it came out. Now no one has time to focus on Rock and Roll. I have been out when a rock band is slamming, and not one person under thirty is moving to the music! Only the old can rock out! The young don't hear the music or the beat because they have to reply to that text they just got or make a comment on someone's post. The pioneers of Rock and Roll would shake their heads and couldn't believe their eyes.
If Rock and Roll music is being played in the forest and if every person in the forest are so engrossed with their cell phones, does Rock and Roll music make a sound?
Only you can answer that one. Will you bring back great Rock and Roll music or are you happy with the current music that is being played on the pop radio? Will you find artists with great talent and soul that will move you to listen instead of being distracted on your phones? Will you challenge yourself to truly listen to music without other distractions?
Find a record that you love, put away your cell phone, play the record and listen with all of the other distractions gone from your mind. Feels and sounds good, huh? Now invite your friends over and have them leave their cells in the car, and sit and listen to that record together. Now talk about the music. Better than social media, right? Do this a few times and you won't even think about your cell phone. Social media will wait for Rock and Roll!
This is how we can save Rock and Roll music. One record, one task, one group at a time.
Rock and Roll!
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