Gene Simmons: Rock Is Finally Dead

[rahock]

One more  anti-Gene Simmons  fan here
Rick

[westen44]

Maybe rock was dead way before anyone ever heard of Gene Simmons.

I remember some guy saying years ago that Sgt Pepper was the death of rock & roll. Didn't understand that statement at the time but now I do.

I lament the death of live music in general more than any file sharing issue.

Everything in the world seems to be more & more form over function. Kiss was a shinning example. Remember their brief experiment with not looking like circus clowns?

Whoever made the statement about Sgt. Pepper may have had some insight.  Although I wouldn't say it was the death of rock & roll, the Beatles had reached their peak as a creative and cohesive unit with "Revolver."  They still came out with some really good stuff, but the consistency they had been maintaining ended after "Revolver."  I have to agree with George Harrison that "Sgt. Pepper" was a bit boring and tiring, although my perspective naturally has to be that of an outsider and not that of someone who spent countless hours in a studio. 

[Blackbird]

Well, when you look at how the world views "hits" on youtube....and that when we (or other local acts) play 40 people is a good night (and no we're not bad)..well, parts of rock/live music are dead.  And people feel entitled to download music for free, so yah...Simmons has a point...and I don't like him either.

[amptech]

The article has nothing to do with rock being dead. it's about Simmons lamenting that he can't make money from record sales like he used to. Screw him.

That's a point. He should sell guitars, a much more positive trade.

Oh, wait - he does that too....

[Dave W]

That's a point. He should sell guitars, a much more positive trade.

Oh, wait - he does that too....

Considering the price he asks for basses supposedly made in Korea, he ought to get together with Gibson.

[lowend1]

Funny thing here is that everybody, for once, is right - to some degree. As a Kiss fan, I must give Gene his due for helping to create what was an iconic band. Nobody can take that away from him, or the other three original members - who have all been derided for various reasons over the years. If you read interviews with them from the 70s, you will find that the aim was always to put together the best elements of all the loud, visual rock bands they had seen, and increase it tenfold. There has never been any doubt that Gene was all about the business end, though, and he sees things through that prism way now  than in 1975. Still, much of what he says re the rock n roll business is on point. The instant gratification mentality that exists within those who don't want to save their money to buy the new album by whoever (as most of us did) also permeates the creative end - where many can't be bothered to actually learn to play, or spend endless hours in a garage, making the mistakes that we all need to make. So naturally, they don't want to really work to "own" anything either - be it a CD, a car or a house - unless somebody is giving it to them.

Dee is also right, in that corporations have taken the soul of not only the artists but of the listeners and fans as well. But why should it be any different than in any other industry? Another argument for another day... I've always wondered, though, why I have to pay for digital versions of albums that I bought on vinyl in the 70s. I'm pretty sure that neither Gene nor Dee would stand up to fight that one.

Dave is right, Gary is right, Kenny is right, Rick is right - isn't that from a Cheap Trick song?

[gweimer]

Funny thing here is that everybody, for once, is right - to some degree. As a Kiss fan, I must give Gene his due for helping to create what was an iconic band. Nobody can take that away from him, or the other three original members - who have all been derided for various reasons over the years. If you read interviews with them from the 70s, you will find that the aim was always to put together the best elements of all the loud, visual rock bands they had seen, and increase it tenfold. There has never been any doubt that Gene was all about the business end, though, and he sees things through that prism way now  than in 1975. Still, much of what he says re the rock n roll business is on point. The instant gratification mentality that exists within those who don't want to save their money to buy the new album by whoever (as most of us did) also permeates the creative end - where many can't be bothered to actually learn to play, or spend endless hours in a garage, making the mistakes that we all need to make. So naturally, they don't want to really work to "own" anything either - be it a CD, a car or a house - unless somebody is giving it to them.

Dee is also right, in that corporations have taken the soul of not only the artists but of the listeners and fans as well. But why should it be any different than in any other industry? Another argument for another day... I've always wondered, though, why I have to pay for digital versions of albums that I bought on vinyl in the 70s. I'm pretty sure that neither Gene nor Dee would stand up to fight that one.

Dave is right, Gary is right, Kenny is right, Rick is right - isn't that from a Cheap Trick song?

We're all alright...

[uwe]

I like Gene Simmons. There I said it. And while I don't side with most of his political convictions, I find his obervations often perceptive. He's a smart man who intentionally sometimes dumbs down his statements for maximum provocative effect. If you have worn leather bat wings for most of your professional life you are allowed to do that me thinks.

The interview he gave to his son (since when is he a journalist?) contains some points I would agree on. The much derided "record company moguls behemoth" of the sixties, seventies and eighties wasn't a welfare operation and is probably responsible for ruining enough careers. But it also financed enough people that today wouldn't have a chance. I don't believe that in this day and age a band would meet the patience, say, DP did who recorded four albums within two years until the fifth one  - In Rock - finally cracked the market. I don't believe that a young Bruce Springsteen would receive the budget to record Born to Run today after two failed albums that went nowhere. Judast Priest needed two albums from Gull and another two to three from CBS before making it. That type of "getting behind someone" (and I'm open to the argument that decisions on who the record companies of old got behind were often arbitrary, unfair and not always based on musical merit), albeit to cash in eventually, I just don't see in today's market.

And all those people moaning about CD prices: Cost of living-wise, a CD today is cheaper than LPs were in the sixties. And provides a greater longevity of music media storage than vinyl ever did.

But the worst thing about the decline of the CD (or any similar media) as a media for music is the end of the album culture as we know it. And I was always an album (I want to hear Sgt. Pepper, Machine Head, Sad Wings of Destiny, Wish You Were Here or Destroyer from the beginning to end, not just individual songs from those albums), not an individual songs or singles man. But that is exactly what we are back to today, the single (piggyback with the video) which took a backseat to the album by the end of the sixties has basically returned and dominates everything. That devalues music as an art form IMHO. Everyone's I-Pod these days seems to be what a K-Tel International hit sampler was in the seventies, yuck!

Now you can all slaughter me. Come on, I deserve it. I'll crawl back underneath my CD rack (it's probably fair to say that I buy 10 CDs or more every week, I'm not to blame for the downfall of a business model with vast cultural implications!!!).

[amptech]

Now you can all slaughter me.

I heard somewhere that all simmons fans should be 'hung'

[uwe]

I'm a glutton for punishers!

[gearHed289]

I totally agree with Uwe. I think a lot of the "feedback" Gene has gotten on his comment is directed toward the headline only - "Rock is dead". I think his real point is, rock as we grew up knowing it is dead. The industry is dead. There are no more big deals being cut, enabling artists to be able to survive while they focus on their craft. There's no development anymore. To continue what Uwe was saying - a band like Rush - it took them 4 albums (2112) to even begin to "make it", and a few more to get to the point of regular rotation on radio (Permanent Waves). That would NEVER happen today. One or two strikes, and you're out. And I have to laugh when I see guys like Dee Snider or whoever contesting what Gene had to say. Guys who established themselves 20-30-40 years ago - WTF do they know about what it takes to start at square 1 in the year 2014? And that's not to say it's not a debatable topic, but I'd prefer people read other points of the interview besides the "rock is dead" tag line.

Having said all that, there is some good to come out of the current situation, and that is, it keeps young artists in it for the art, not for the "big payout", or the ability to do Bon Jovi-style videos. That's my hope at least.

Regarding CD sales and the album format - I hope it can all stay alive. I'm an album person, as I think most of us here are. I like physical product. I like albums played in a certain sequence. I like artwork, lyrics, and credits. Vinyl is a hot ticket now, and I hope that is a sign of good things ahead.

[Basvarken]

Since when has the definition of Rock become "the music that is commercially successful"?
Sure enough Rock music sales have come to staggering all time low.
But that is not what it's about, as far as I'm concerned.
To me Rock is a music genre. Not some economical standard that bands need to live up to.

I saw Five Horse Johnson in Paradiso, Amsterdam perform in front of a handful of die hard fans. Black Berry Smoke performing in a club venue the size of our living room.  Swimming upstream because that is what you want to do. That is what Rock is all about.

Gene Simmons is confusing commercial stadium pop with Rock.
The music industry that Herr Simmons represents (or is a part of) is flat on it's back and still has no clue where they went wrong.

As long as boys and girls go pick up a guitar and crank it up to eleven to create music with their bandmates, Rock is alive and kicking. As far as I'm concerned.

[westen44]

George Berkeley said "to be is to be perceived."  If there are obscure bands out that that are never going to move beyond a very limited level of being heard, I have to question how much good that's going to do.  Whether he is personally liked or not is not the real issue:  I think much of what Gene Simmons is saying is correct.  Also, from my own observations it seems to me that quite a number of people aren't very curious about rock music anymore.  That's their choice.  But it is going to change things and it already does seem to be changing things--not in a good way, either.  Jazz moved to a niche market and the same seems to be happening to rock.  It's seriously doubtful that is ever going to change.  I'm all for playing music for yourself, being in a band because you love it, etc.  But I think it was just way better when bands at least had a chance to make it.  Now it doesn't even matter at all how good you are.  You may be ten times better than the best band that has ever existed.  But if almost nobody will ever know, that's like inventing a cure for an illness that only a few people will ever get to use.  It would be great that those few got treated, but still a shame that so many more could have also benefited. 

[uwe]

Maybe the article should have more fittingly been called "the rock industry is finally dead". And the rock industry as it existed in the sixties, seventies and eighties (and even early nineties) which pushed rock music (some good, some bad, some average) into households as a cultural force is indeed dead.

Rob holds a romantic grassroots approach against it "as long as a couple of kids can get together and make music ...". True, that even then there will still be rock music, but there will be no platform for the long-term success of specific artists. It's a bit like saying that if the auto industry of the world came to an end, that would have no effect as long as there are people out there that ocassionally build a non-brand car for themselves. Or if Fender and Gibson disappeared overnight that would be of no consequence either, people could still build their own guitars.

Rob, in your grassroots world there would have been no lavish US tours with Thin Lizzy as opening act trying to enlarge their audience, there would have been no Tony Visconti anybody could have paid and there would have been no spectacular "Live and Dangerous" rolled out ever in full page advertisements in the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker. Thin Lizzy would have played in some English pub before 20 people and someone would have said: "They're very good, aren't they, too bad they are not going anywhere." (One of) Your favorite band(s) relied almost exclusively on the corporate infrastructure the seventies still provided.

The Beatles at the Ed Sullivan Show was not "swimnming upstream", it was shoving an English cultural phenomenon down the (eager) throats of tens of millions of Americans. And you could then rush out to a record store and buy the Beatles album (if they printed enough for the demand that is) and Capitol/EMI would then finance a Beatles US tour (hoping to profit in the medium to long course from further LP sales). All that is gone now. I'm not saying it could have been preserved, but I sure don't see anything that has effectively replaced it. Rock is going into a direction where it has the same relevance to the majority of people that authentic blues had to most listeners in the late fifties and early sixties, it's turning into a niche product. That is what happens in capitalism if something cannot be turned into (big) money.

There is hardly a band here that more than a few people in this forum like that doesn't deserve the term "corporate" in one way or another.

[Basvarken]

You're only emphasising what I'm saying. The pop music industry is flat on it's back. Great bands got great sales way back when. And I'm happy they did. It was another era.
But the music industry has changed. (For the worse). It is sick to the core.
But there are still many great Rock bands out there today that record their music and share it online.
Spotify, Deezer, Bandcamp, YouTube. All great ways to globally reach an audience.
Does it pay? Hardly.
But today a band doesn't need a hundred thousand dollar budget to record a great album. That to has changed (For the better). Bands don't need to sell a whole lot of albums to reach break even.

I can't remember when I last listened to the radio to discover new bands. I think it must have been half way in the nineties. Ever since the Internet came along, I've been browsing for great Rock bands. A few years ago you had MySpace. Found a bunch of really great independent Rock bands there. YouTube has been a great source, Pandora, Lastfm. As well as the aforementioned Spotify, Deezer, Bandcamp, etc

And it doesn't mean Rock bands can't tour anymore. For sure, the stadium fillers are a dying breed. To be honest; I never enjoyed going to Rock concerts in a huge stadium. Never a good sound, watching the entire show on a rough grit screen because the musicians on stage are too far away.
I've always preferred smaller venues, where you can actually see and hear what is being played.
And if you're lucky, afterwards drink a beer with the band. ;-)

I like the way Rock bands get creative when circumstances change. For example Gov't Mule; they record each show they play and offer the mixed tracks with updated artwork a few days later on a special website they have.
Sure enough they won't sell millions. But they keep the fans of their music connected to what they're doing.
And they appear quite relentless doing so.

Rock took a left turn. And Gene Simmons missed it.