What Happened To Rock Music?

Bobby Owsinski goes over the fascinating moments in history that have marked the decline of rock music’s dominance, and the surprising genres that took its place. Is rock truly dead, or is it just waiting for a comeback?

What Happened To Rock Music?

by Bobby Owsinski via Music 3.0

Anyone who’s an aficionado of rock music knows that it’s no longer the dominant music genre, having been supplanted as the top dog over time by a combination of pop, rap/hip-hop, and country. It’s a natural thing for tastes to change and when that happens hardly anything in sociology is left unscathed. So the question then becomes, “When exactly did tastes change enough for rock to be replaced?” As you might suspect, there have been studies on this that might not pinpoint the exact time that it happened, but get closer than you think. 

Extinction Events

First of all, according to the analytically plugged-in Daniel Parris (I highly recommend his newsletter), there have been 5 so-called “extinction events” where people at the time claimed that music would be changed forever. They were:

• 1959: The plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson (Rock and Roll dies)
• 1970: The Beatles break up. (Rock dies)
• 1980: John Lennon’s death. (Rock again dies)
• 1994: Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death. (Grunge dies)
• 2012: The Lumineers “Ho Hey” is released. (Folk music is revived)

While it’s true that the most popular music of the time reached a demarcation point of sorts, it was hardly the end or beginning of a genre (I music admit I don’t get the The Lumineers at all as they were never all that popular).

The Major Periods

That said, a team of British researches at the Royal Society found that there were actually three major periods of modern music (the study only looks at music between 1960 and 2010):

• 1964 – Rock and the British Invasion: New songwriting styles and recording methods brought about a major shift in the music business.

• 1983 – The Synth Generation: The evolution of music technology brought on by synthesizers and drum machines with a shift towards electronic music.

• 1991 – Rap and Hip-Hop’s Rise: Even though rap had been growing through the 1980s, by 1991 these styles dominated the charts.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that. In the early 80s, MTV caused a shift towards artists that were more visually appealing and formulaic, with Grunge becoming the counterbalance. 

Pop music has never gone away but became more prominent in the early 2000s, while country music has become the new SoCal rock (what goes around comes around), although the DataFace graphic at the top of the page shows that hit a popularity wall in around 2012.

It’s worth noting that trends in music happen regularly and most happen when we don’t even notice them. Every 10 to 20 years we’re onto something new, or something old becomes popular again.

The most interesting point here is that while “classic” rock music seems to have hit a popularity wall during the 1980s, it’s still the most favorite music genre of U.S. adults, according to a 2023 survey by YouGov. That may be hard to believe, but stats don’t lie. Or do they?

Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on music production, music, the music business, music AI, and social media.