Rock & Roll: Dead?

Yeah, The Black Keys are definitely a rock band.

 

Well, shows you how much I listen to new music. They played at the Concert for Valor on the National Mall and whatever songs they played sounded very synthesized.

 

Rock has never been the same since vinyl went away. Parents and politicians could no longer complain about backward Satanic lyrics.

 

He may be thinking of some of their more swirling psychedelic/soulful stuff, though. They definitely mellow it easy on occasion.

Yeah, I was just going to post that I bet you had heard some of their swirling psychedelic/soul-influenced material. I can see where you'd think that, hearing that. They definitely rock out 95 percent of the time. Very Zeppelin-esque sound.

 

One song was called "Fever," I think. The other was "Howling," or some such. Didn't watch the rest of that set.

 

Good points all around. I think fragmentation is a key. There may be too much going on to actually create mass support, and the record industry doesn't want to hype a good rock band as opposed to a boy band.

Again, I am not sure if you can correlate, but i am sure back in 1972 when the Who, Zeppelin and Floyd were in their primes, and radio was jamming on power pop, and Rolling Stone was masturbating waiting for the next CNSY album or what have you, there were a small handful of fuckers going "why won't you buy the new Ry Cooder? You're are all insane." (That rant bought you by the fact that picked up Cooder's 1972 "Into the Purple Valley" last night on vinyl.) The fact is the industry mainly decides what gets big and once in awhile some sneaks through

 

and per The Black Keys:

The first time I heard this song at the gym last fall, I was really wondering why I had never heard this BTO song before.

 

Kind of reminds me of Matthew Sweet. Not bad.

 

Where I grew up, Free-Form FM was in full effect in the late 60s.

Yes, there were options for Top 40 on the dial, but the groups you mention and more could also be found.

The syndicated radio show "Beaker Street" was fantastic.

And yeah, I'm old.

 

Now I know why Jack White hates Dan Auerbach.

 

The lyrics are much too masculine to be mistaken for Sweet.

 

Rock and roll as a genre has long been a nebulous category.
Successive generations have bent the parameters to fit almost anything that falls into popular music.
What does 'Hound Dog" have to do with 'Tomorrow Never Knows'? What does 'Kid Charlemagne' have to do with 'God Save the Queen'?
'Rock and roll' as a label has been meaningless much longer than it was ever meaningful.