I wanted to separated this from the Grunge thread and focus on this topic because I felt it asked a more legitimate question.
Studying the musical climate of today, I've begun noticing very eerie similarities with its pre-grunge explosion counterpart. But there is one thing that exists today that didn't back then- in 1990/1991, hard rock was still amazingly popular and sometimes would achieve pop radio success. Today, you can't find a hard rock song on hard rock radio. The clear victor on the charts is pop/dance. This means that even hip hop has been dethroned.
This begs the question- what is happening in rock and roll? And more importantly, what is about to happen?

ARE WE HEADING FOR A NEW "GRUNGE" MOMENT? In other words- a new wave of rock bands that make that leap to the top 10 and open up record companies to the idea of signing guitar-driven bands. Where a song doesn't have to be about dancing or having sex in a dance club while dancing- while also featuring that evil and olde-tymey "guitar" instrument- can become popular.
We can't know. I'm positively certain that few people in 1990 knew that, in two years, popular rock would be simple, angsty, and feature a hardcore down-to-earth mentality, let alone that this mentality would remain and exist for nearly 2 decades afterwards.
And similar prophecies were made years ago. I recall some thinking that grunge- the genre/scene, not the term as I've used it- would return in 2001.

At the end of the day- would we really want rock bands back on pop radio? Away from the underground and their true selves? I would. It would beget new ones, at the very least.

FROM THE GRUNGE THREAD.

I still here the same shitty "modern rock" on the radio I've been hearing for at least the last decade.

I don't think grunge is ever going make a big comeback, at least not without radical stylistic changes that will alienate current fans. There are already bands making music in the same style, they just stay underground (like most metal bands) and I don't see that changing without better production values or an increased focus on melody. There's some Australian band (I can't recall their name) that does a really good job straddling that line with their melodic grunge, and they've garnered a decent amount of success. I don't see that happening on a larger scale.

There was a resurgence of lo-fi, "punk" ethos in popular rock, it was called Wavves and it fucking sucks.*

*I actually really like Times New Viking and Psychedelic Horseshit.

Same could be said during 1990. To a rock fan then, all they've heard since 1980 was the same blues-influenced, complexity-first, macho over-the-top style of rock, only except that, thanks to Hair Metal, it was even more so.



I don't mean 'grunge' grunge. Grunge, in this context, refers to some form of new and sweeping invasion of music. I.e., the British Invasion was a "grunge" moment, in the context.

I'm about to cut-and-post "Nu-Grunge" here.


That was Nu Grunge, and, in my eyes, I feel that it's the only thing that can replace modern rock in any sort of sweeping manner. We already have sixteenth generation 'grunge' in the form of whatever pop punk emo altcore band is currently on rock radio. Losing My Religion or Mountain Song can't really replace Smells Like Teen Spirit- not that any modern song comes close to SLTS. But a song like, say, Whole Lotta Love or Highway Star, just maybe.
Whether the younger generation would like it, I don't find too hard to believe. It's whether the older ones who accept what they might see as classic hard rock rehashed that I somewhat fear.

Looks like I totally misread the OP, sorry.

I actually still don't think something like that will happen though--digital distribution fragments the audience too much for something like that to happen again. Every one can easily insulate themselves within their own niche, making "catch all" phenomena less common and much harder to pull off because people have more access to media in general.

Basically this. You won't see mainstream music with big upheavals like what happened with grunge or punk rock again. It just isn't possible at this stage. You could argue that electronic music's rise to popularity in the US is comparable, but it had been knocking at the door for almost two decades before breaking through.

do you mean "movement" ?

Hey SHM, I don't get what is this new grunge is all about and what the hell are you talking about. Seriously man, what makes you say all these crap and why are you going nuts about this "new grunge" which is a matter of fact coined by you. Never heard of this term anywhere.

"Nu grunge" is entirely theoretical. It's not a term that actually exists.
(Well actually, http://www.topix.com/forum/music/grunge ... L7R0REF7OO
www.last.fm/tag/nu-grunge)
It's just an on-the-spot umbrella term I made up to describe what I think is one direction rock could go in, a bluesy-back to classic style of rock. Not meant to be taken seriously.
And I'm "going nuts" over 'new grunge' just to ask whether anyone else thinks a new wave of some sort of microscene could erupt, especially since so many people seem to be fed up with electro hip-pop. This thread is actually meant to be entirely separate from the other one. I could've called it 'new invasion' or 'new wave of rock'. New grunge just rolled off the tongue best at the time.

I still don't get this shit. That generated tag on last.fm shows two bands e.g. Bush and Cold who are associated with the post-grunge label. So how do we differentiate post-grunge and neo grunge then?

I think dubstep might be the future.

I think it's unlikely. People have already accepted that there will never be huge rock bands again, which is just the curl of the burl now. With the internet, streaming, downloading, the multitude of bands etc... I don't imagine it ever happening again. Now lets further adress the other issue you brought up in you're first post. The real problem is that the whole medium of rock music, even gutiar music in general, isn't half as popular as it used to be. And I know to most people on a metal forum, that might sound ridiculous, but the cold truth is, we are more oblivious to what the masses listen to. Only last year, I was a senior in high school, and I was listening to what other kids listened to, whether I wanted to or not. The stuff they played on the radio, and the stuff that got popular promotion on youtube was/is total garbage: Lame and washed up rap artists who sell out by writing dance hits or crap songs with dumbed down lyrics, and an increasingly electronic form of instrumentation and production. Then there was dubstep and electronic music as a whole. Don't even get me started on the top 40 B.S.. Rock music is pretty much dead, there haven't been any developments in it in a long time, not any that made it very big anyways. The small percentage of kids I knew who did listen to rock, listened to bands that were prominent in the early-to-mid 2000's, few of whom are left writing music today. And even still, we're talking about lame stuff like Weezer and Slipknot and My Chemical Romance or something. The prospects of a real rock band making an impact is unthinkable to me, which is the first obstacle in seeing another "phase" or "movement" like hair metal or grunge becoming a big deal all over again. As far as the underground goes, more people who are into rock music or feel like pushing the boundaries have picked a particularly metal approach to doing things. It's almost like rock music is too wussy and not col anymore. I know a handful of kids who now listen to Decapitation and Deicide, or Periphery and Dream Theater, or Vektor and Slayer, home never familiarized themselves with the classics. Bands like Led Zeppelin and Boston and Lynyrd Skynyrd mean nothing to them, and "classic" to them is like Iron Maiden. Finally, the last and smallest portion of people who really are into writing just plain rock music, are copying other people's ideas and not really trying to d anything innovative. If I have to give the most credit to any of them, it would be most of the desert rock bands. It seems there have been at least a couple new bands in the last few years who started writing some cool stuff in that genre. But I digress, maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I'm a sucker for things that sound old.

Loved the Yuck album. Was like a tribute to a mixtape from 1993.

Now, you have to realise that grunge was a music style made up by certain record labels to hype up certain bands that got signed. The actual styles the bands played ranged from post-punk, garage, metal to rock. The only common thread was distorted guitars and being from Seattle.

I am afraid if the music industry comes up with something like this again it will be much, and I mean much more cheesier and a lot worse in many ways. They may come up with something that combines electronics and live instruments, which in itself can be a good idea, but it will be done in the wrong way and sound horrible (not that it hasn't already been done, and mostly in poor taste with a few exceptions). Really, all they need is a city with a bunch of stupid bands.

Or it could be some utter garbage like combining stoner/doom with pop-punk.

I doubt they would try to re-hash totally retro stuff (which sounds exactly like it was done 20 or 40 years ago, for example) as a new style again. But who knows.


* By the way, I totally hate those new folk acts that sound like Simon and Garfunkel mixed with pop-punk, but I love the actual Simon and Garfunkel albums from the late 1960s.

Actually i think the internet makes it more likely that a rock band will make it big again. People these days now are much more likely to listen to a variety of bands than in the past. I've seen this people listening to random songs by random artists which i did not expect them to listen to.

What i also know is that metal had a bump in popularity with the rise of internet but it has been seemingly fairly stable since.

As for a new counter movement... In many ways dubstep is something close to that. Its a lot more musically complex than most music trends in the recent past. It also attracts a lot of negative comments which also gives it more of a counter movement feel. The difference however though is that now an electronic form of music manages to get a new wave going on while it used to usually rock that did that in the past in most countries. Sure over here in the netherlands we had our hardcore dance etc things in the past but the rest of the world is not the netherlands.
I have to say also that dubstep has had a few waves in its evolution already. From underground, to the fart wars of rising popularity and recently the breakthrough of skrillex. Yet at the same time while everybody seems to listen to dubstep its not plastered over the TV. Its there sure but considering its popularity you would expect it to be on much more.

Also if we look at metal/rock music itself i think the evolution of that always has come in waves. I dont really know what deathcore and metalcore are doing but they seem to be past their peak but metal in general seems to get more mainstream attention again not just the bands being part of new movements. The whole baroness/mastodon thing still seemingly is growing aswell. Pretty much everytime a movement dies down in rock/metal it gets replaced by a new movement. We had emo that got usurped by metalcore and deathcore. We had groove that got replaced with nu metal. We get folk metal that replaces nu metal here in europe. Is folk metal as popular as nu metal. Hell no but is folk metal the biggest new wave of popular metal since melodic death in the 90s? id say yes.
The future will have a other trend with different popularity as what is now popular and that will be replaced again.

A big new wave of rock music like what happened with grunge? don't think it's likely, and that's largely due to the internet, for reasons that have already been stated multiple times in this thread. And yeah, electronic based stuff seems to be what's big now, and I expect that to last for at least a couple more years. Grunge seemed to be the last original mainstream movement in rock. Too bad it spawned all this "post-gurnge" garbage, but I suppose that's what always happens. There's a huge wave of great psychedelic rock lately, but to be honest the bands are generally much bigger on the psychedelic than the rock and it's hardly a mainstream movement anymore and none of the bands are really getting exposure to a broader audience. The whole bluesy rock thing has been big lately, but that revival seems to be at it's tail end. Mainstream music seems to be more about entertainment, image and the "artists" than the actual art and music innovation. Oh well, there's still lot's of good stuff that isn't as famous.

In other words- the Internet's existence means that, from now till infinity, the only genres that will ever be 'popular' is electro-dance-hip hop-R n B-dubstep- fist-pump techno; power-ballad country; and post-grunge, emo-whino, pop punk? Are we really at the end of musical evolution?
I don't know. I just feel that something in rock is going to make a comeback. This generation- the ones maturing '04-'12ers'- are done in. They're probably modern pop for life. But the next generation doesn't have to be. I can't get with it that, when the new generation of kids start growing up and listening to/getting into music, it will be the exact same thing this generation likes. Whether it's rock/rap or not, I strongly don't agree that pop, rock, and hip hop radio in 2022 will sound the same as it does today. I just don't know why, but I don't believe the musical climate today is as stable as Disney/CNN/MTV/AXS tries saying it is.
At some point, the fact that "image" is the only thing moving artists (because I'm stuck trying to differentiate Justin Bieber from Maroon 5 right now) will collapse just as it did so long ago. Something has to give, in some form or another.

Radiohead might be the one to offer us what the Millennial Generation would call a 'grunge' moment- I know that the band is very progressive in their ways, including how they market themselves. They're also very much "pro-street level artist", meaning just about anyone can take their songs and remix them for their own profit. The concept of "you" making an album might be the music of tomorrow.

I'm not as pessimistic as some around here. First of all, things come in cycles. Not only does every new generation want new (and sometimes recycled) music older generations always make a comeback in their 40s and 50s once they have more spending income and they have settled with jobs and family. And they have no problem spending a huge amount of cash on their favorite artists.

I know it seems the fad is dying but games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band also introduced a shitload of kids to actual rock and metal and really classic songs. A lot of these people have moved on to real instruments and lessons are not 18 yet. They have developed intriguing tastes thanks to listening to classics for years.

There's always been two general sides to popular music and they coexist well. The "light" side is generally happier and more accessible while there's always a "darker" side that is more introspective and rebellious. Pop music (yes motherfuckers, metal is part of that) is an industry driven by income. In the older days and up to the 70s, things were kept simple. Music would be made and people would buy it based on their social status, income, education and views on social issues and politics. But there was only one problem: all this music was aimed squarely at white folks. Sure, people from other ethnic backgrounds would partake in the creation of such music and they would also buy, but the whole entertainment and music industry was kind of pretending these people didn't really exist even though there had been important gains by these folks, notably in the 60s. And they were slowly taking their place since then.

By the 80s, this revolution hit the music industry fully. Michael Jackson overtook Elvis has the #1 icon. And new styles of music were marketed. Rap and hip-hop changed things because all of a sudden, it wasn't just about bourgeois VS rebels, poor and rich... at last, people were also fully recognizing issues that non-whites were having. And these artists had an audience that was finally working class and able to support them financially. And it became wildly successful.

I'm talking about this part of history because it's important for people to understand that rap and hip hop weren't simple music fads. They were part of a very important cultural revolution with a deeply felt impact of western societies. That's why this thing has morphed but is still going strong today. Pop music is more fragmented than ever because different groups can have their voices heard and have the means to support artists they can actually identify with. But things are getting bigger on that front, I think. For the younger generations, these barriers are not what they used to be and it's gonna keep on progressing until color isn't even an issue anymore. And rock, whatever form it takes, will have its rightful place there. Just don't expect it to meet the approval of current rock fans anymore than Beatles fans approved of Metallica.

I think people already underestimate the younger generation ability to listen to a wide variety of music. My goddaughter promotes hip hop and dubstep events (earning enough to make it her student job) here but has traveled to Germany and France in part to attend pure metal festivals with badass bands I can't even dream of seeing on this side of the Atlantic.

Kids are open-minded and curious. There will be big rock icons again. There will also probably be metal icons if metal artists can ever figure out the music needs quality vocalists, something that's been neglected since the 90s.

If you take the early 90's - mind you I was like 10 years old at the most and the only music I was listening to was Toto and some early Deep Purple. I dont know how radio stations were back then - were they playing REM and Mariah Carey through the same hour at 4 in the afternoon. Do we want rock songs on pop radio - its not a question of do we want it or not but is it going to stick and satisfy the audience.

I feel that back in the 90's there was way less diversity than it is today as far as what stations play. The further we go into the future the more stations we would have. Back in early 90's what sort of idea would you have for the electronic music scene. We can say that there is Chicago house, Detroit techno, Rave scene, Prodigy is creeping in through the MTV scene, Euro starts to gather hype, trance.

Today if we classify electronic music - DAMN! I can have 25 stations that wont cover the different tastes and genres which people love and want just that and nothing else. I think the same thing is happening with Rock music. We will see less and less mixing as we go along so I dont think we would have rock playing on pop stations. I feel its so much harder to satisfy a listener and know exactly what is it they like and sneak in Kanye West, Gangnam Style and Tenacious D or Foo fighters in the same hour. I dont know if its possible. Was it like that in the 90's - I dont know. I was too little to observe.

As far as the question - are we going to get a New Grunge era ? (I wont call it Nu Grunge). Hair/glam rock isnt back, heavy rock isnt really back, new wave maybe is making an appearance from the 70's in a form of indie myabe. We had the bands like the Darkness trying but they are farm from sticking around. If we look at the rock music today - RHCP, Black Keys, Japandroids, Linkin Park, Passion Pit. Its all over the map yet is played on the same station. Now you might say - well you contradict what you just said about electronic music. That there would be more stations playing various stuff yet we have a mix of everything on one station (I talk Toronto rock station Edge 102.1). Rock is trying to stick together I think just because its being pushed around by more pop/electro/hip-hop. So I dont think we would see a mix between rock and pop as far as air time play.

I had a discussion with my friend about Nu Metal - we loved it to our bones, its dead now and will not come back probably ever again. Nu Metal for us was heaviest form of music that isnt metal. We loved it. It died around 2003ish when metalcore started to creep in. People who were Nu Metalists grew old and became 25+ and the Nu Metal scene was pretty much what Metalcore scene is today - 16-24 year olds. There was a disconnection.

How can grunge make a connection to the 16 year olds - you need to look into them and write music about them I guess. But then again it would come in a different form - a new form of rock mixed with whatever.

I can see the likes of Baroness, Red Fang and Torche leading a wave of catchy rock orientated metal that brings back guitar driven music for a lot of people. I doubt it though.

Well if there's gonna be a resurgance of guitar music, it's probably going to be blues rock, but its more likely going to be Latin rock. Most of white and black America knows the grunge, the punk, the metal, the bluesy stuff, right? But rock with Latin influences, especially strong Latin influences like Cumbia or Bolero or even Salsa, that hasn't hit the mainstream. If a band did that right, without sounding like a Green Day version of Ricky Martin or a cheesy Spacegoat, and definitely not nu metal Septultra, then we might see a 'new grunge' moment like you say. I really believe that we are on the cusp of this and, if CD sales and MTV won't help, YouTube will. And I agree that there's no reason another guitar based movement in music can't happen. The only reason dubstep and electrodance got popular was because it really was a long time coming. 1997 opened the door, but the industry didn't take the first step in until about 2006. Rap was exploding and came at the right time (I say all power to it. I'd rather Neyo or Soulja Boy doing electro dance flo' gangsta rap than Led Zeppelin or Danzig doing electro dance flo' blues rock). This generation grew up with rap like the last grew up with rock. But the fact the last grew up with rock may have sealed the industry's fate, because there's no doubt that grunge also played a role in the simplification of music. I know Radiohead and a few others have been trying to keep the complexity but for as long as we get things like Ke$ha and LMFAO- still a grunge influence. Simple=better. True, this has always been the case, like Van Morrison, but in the days of California Rock, guess what came next? British invasion. With a fury, too.
When such simple music becomes devoid of all talent, and is made for the purpose of being made (I know there's some pop song playing right now in the top 40 that has the exact same structure as some song in 2007) then it's inevitable that something's gotta give. Rock for the first time in its life, at least since the 1960s, is the underdog, and people LOVE the underdog. And there is an influx of Latino immigrants in America, and this is finally becoming more noticed by the industry (rather than just calling them illegal, or grouping them with some white kid, black kid, asian, and paraplegic in some five-token cartoon/Disney show). I believe that sometime in the next decade, there definitely will be an explosion of music of some sort and I hope it's down and dirty rock, but I also believe that there's a strong chance it will be influenced by Latin American music too. If not that, then some sort of foreign music. Probably blues rock styles too. THat, I agree with the OP it's gonna be bluesy and very much like the older days pre-nwobhm, but not purely white-man style rock by far. If Led zeppelin was going to make another breakthrough, we would've seen-and heard- it by now, probably from wolfmother or High on fire or Radio moscow. It didn't happen because we've been there, done that in pop music.

The way I see it pop music is becoming more accessible as deathcore/metalcore bands are doing top 40s covers and what not and adding synths and pop song structures. Bands like Skip the Foreplay are blending the lines in what is pop and what is -core. I think there will be a rebellion and music will go back to the four man band, guitar bass drums and vocals but not for a few more years. It's hard to predict what will be the next trend.

I think rock music is as popular as it should be.
You got artists like Chris Daughtry who sells mllions of albums in the US alone,
New bands like :Saving Abel, 10 years, 12 Stones, Red and many more which produce high quality rock music AND sells a lot of albums.
Can't agree with the complaining at all.

Related to the first post.

OP: dude, who gives a fuck about what's going on in the charts? or about grunge, or dance? Seriously? Grunge comeback? Who gives a shit?

Do some of you lack reading comprehension skills? The OP didn't say anything about grunge coming back - he clearly states a movement of rock bands akin to what happened in the early 90s with grunge bands.

I thought the modern rock movement was all this indi rock. That's what I see hyped everywhere. Like Momford and Sons and others. Hipsters playing nearly-acoustic rock that's basically coldplay with earthier, organic, DIY tones and sappy vocals.

OT: I've been wanting to start a band for years that basically apes the first Alice in Chains album. Sadly, I'm a talentless hack. Weird how these things pan out sometimes.

I think it's entirely possible. Not sure how likely it is.

For pre-90s music, you basically had hair metal and new wave/synthpop as the dominant genres. Before hair metal became a "thing" (I'd put that generally around '83) It was almost all the latter. In any event, you had a decade supersaturated with lots of melody and lots of very synthetic instruments, and fake sounding songwriting. The grunge movement popped through with a far more real and genuine sound, with a lot more grit to it.

It'd be cool if this time could parallel the late '80s and we could be due for a heavier mainstream music culture. One that doesn't include shitty ass Nickelback Creed pseudo hard rock bullshit.

Probably wishful thinking, though.