Is the anti-rock movement a result of conditioning or taste and is it mainly an American phenomenon?

Question

When people have distaste for rock, are they really speaking out of their own minds, or have they been conditioned to think that way since their childhood, or have their musical choices been limited due to social conditioning?

Also, why pick on rock? I mean, the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll thing is partly historical, yet also partly mythical. Way before rock was born, blues and jazz and country musicians were living the wildest lifestyles, filled with every imaginable vice.

Jazz and country are well respected now. And hip-hop and pop (I’m just referring to the bad apples) get away with promoting unfair sexism, raunchiness and greed etc.

But which genre gets the bad rap – rock. Back to my question: conditioning, or taste, or conspiracy? Is it chiefly American? No offence to the hip-hop crew, nor America itself.

Answer 1

I've worked within the music industry for 25 years, so my musical tastes are very broad-based. I can listen to just about anything with an open mind (but nobody's perfect). I have to say though, that looking at the U.S. charts these days, there's not a lot there that would get radio airplay here in Australia. Most of the hip hop stuff means nothing to us lyrically, and the constant mention of their women, is a little tiresome. Having said that, I think Eminem is brilliant. Sure, he's rude, crass and vulgar, but he's also fun, and reminds me in some ways of Alice Cooper, in that it's all an act, its "entertainment" not meant to be taken seriously.
Australian/New Zealand hip hop is at the moment forging ahead in leaps and bounds, because lyrically they actually have a message in their songs. Try and find stuff by Hilltop Hoods, Scribe, Fast Crew or Butterfingers to see what I mean.

Answer 2

This is an extremely unfortunate phenomenon. Rolling Stones has been replaced with Fifdee Cent. I don't get it.

I'm seeing the UK, AZ, NZ, even SA keeping rock alive thank goodness.

Seriously, it's getting hard to GIVE AWAY excellent Rock nowadays. Here... take $5.00 FREE and buy some London Egg, BeOmega, or Electric Doormat tunes on www.ChemistrySetRecords.com

Tune in to CSR Radio (SHOUTcast.com or live365.com) for great unsigned rockers 24/7

Peace!

Answer 3

We all fight about music. We argue, discuss, rant and definitely rage. We love our music. Discussions from different points of view have led to (sometimes anyway), new genres springing up and coming to the fore. But, when healthy music discussion turns to personal attack there is a problem.

Quarreling means trying to show that the other person is in the wrong. Moreover, there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and that person had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong music forms are. This means appealing to some kind of standard of behavior, which you expect the other person to know about.

Blind faith and following of an idea, regardless of whether it is right or wrong, always leads the practitioner of the aforementioned into believing it is a universal truth. In some cases, it is just that, a universal truth but, in other cases, it is not a truth but an opinion and, opinions will differ from person to person. Taste and opinion are things, which change all the time as we as human beings have constant changes in taste across the board – throughout our lives.

Now hating a different genre of music is common practice amongst us all. I understand this, after all, there are quite a few genres floating around which I am not fond of at all. I don’t think this is behaviour we should be practicing unless the said person has done something personal and morally reprehensible to you – like sleeping with your girlfriend or killing your dog. But if we practice this behaviour merely because someone does something artistically different from you and your tastes it doesn’t make sense and goes against the foundation of freedom the artistic music movement was initially based upon. Now some of you might argue that you do so for the love of this movement – a concept I very well understand but some of you do so merely to succor your ego. If you are doing so for the former reason, it is understandable and even acceptable to a point but, unfortunately, not many of us can separate our egos from the equation. That is how someone who plays music we do not like all of a sudden becomes hated – as if the music he plays is somehow a description of his character and that the said person is somehow devoid of integrity.

You might not like the music someone plays – fair point, we all have different tastes. However, because someone plays music you don’t like does that make him a bad person? After all, the music spectrum is made up of numerous genres (with more being invented along the way) - not just one. A considerable danger to the wellbeing of the arts and music movement is when people take up their own personal opinions regarding genres and set it up as a thing/genre everybody ought to follow at all costs and that everything that differs from what they like is therefore wrong purely because it does not conform to what they like.

This is not mathematics – there is no right or wrong, only varying opinions. Anything of an artistic nature has never been subjected to the rules and rigors of exact science purely because, in most cases, it’s a very personal thing and springs from the artist’s own experiences and influences and interpretation thereof – things which will always differ from person to person. No one’s influences will always be identical to another’s. If there were exacting unbending rules and regulations laid down in the fabric of the universe governing “right” and “wrong” forms of music that stated these are the only forms of music allowed to exist then you would have an excuse for saying someone is playing the wrong music but, this is not so.

Answer 4

is there and anti rock movement? or is it just that much like the seventies theres just not a lot of good rock n roll coming out these days,of course now looking back on the seventies there were some good rock bands and the emergence of punk and funk,but the popular music was disco

Answer 5

gangster rap music also writes about hating other ethnicities like asians

Answer 6

Maybe the kids are bored with it for who knows why and however many reasons.