Gene Simmons: 'Rock Is Finally Dead'

[Turello]

@robojam: Sad but true= I was grown with Kiss but now they are a PAST AMERICAN DREAM PHENOMENA... I have some albums, some mp3 but never listen on the italians radio, perhaps only "i was made for loving you"...

[PatchAdamz]

What an idiot - if Rock was dead, he'd be one of the guys who killed it

True, Les Paul never needed face paint.

[annode]

I`m surprised how many ppl in this post are stuck on Simmons and Kiss.
The OP is asking whether Simmon`s statement that "rock is finally dead?" is true.
The subject is not about Simmons, it`s about the rock genre!
I should ask the question: "Is intelligence finally dead?".

I get the feeling many people commenting didn't even bother to read the article... instead read the subject line and decided to weigh in.

Yes, I can agree with that VitaminD, as well as the idea that members are coming into this thread who have had experience with Simmons and/or Kiss. They see the subject revolving around Simmons as the subject....since this is their area of expertise.

Blueman`s subject reads: 'Gene Simmons: 'Rock Is Finally Dead' Then in the thread asks "Is this true?"
I might compare this to;
Smokey The Bear: "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires"
Then I ask: "Is this True?"
I wouldn`t expect people to come into my thread with comments concerned with the quality of a Smokey The Bear and why the bear is not capable of organizing a good enough representation of reality and of the nature of fire and forestry in order to form such a statement with particular emphasis on truth. That would be ludicrous, no?

Well, not for the closeted Kiss fans it isn`t.
------------------
Oh, I did want to address the Zappa statement on the nature of jazz (at that time when he said it) "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny" How I interpreted that was to mean that jazz was not dead yet, but in a state of rotting or decay. The same could be true for rock and many of it`s sub-genres as well as music forms and qualities in general.

I later gave the question "is rock dead" more thought and I decided
it is a complex question to prove one way or the other...so i`m opting out.

[blueman]

Thanks, annode, for understanding my intent. In any case, I know what to expect from our KVR family; I wouldn't have it any other way

[jancivil]

Well, I addressed 'is this true' in verbose mode. I know f**k all about Gene Simmons beyond the fact of the existence of KISS which to me is strictly from commercial and has nothing to do with what I received as the ethos of 'rock 'n roll'; and he was interviewed for the same book Scott Thunes was - In Cold Sweat, Thomas something, Wictor - where he discusses the mutiny of Zappa's final stage band and his part in it. I remember nothing about Gene Simmons' bit, I couldn't be less interested in his thoughts about the bass guitar. For me KISS is as compelling as The Archies.

I inferred a lot from context, and that it's about sales for Gene Simmons basically and then I read what there was to read. I think my reading of context was accurate enough. Yes, sales are down for some music because 'file sharing'. Yes, there are white people that feel they are owed their shite pop music experience for free.

I'm not a big rock 'n roll person, I started with the impulse to rock drums but 'rock 'n roll' as a lifestyle and ethos is something I understand like I understand anything from a distance but able to empathize with. I do understand the attitude of say the people on the Foo Fighters Facebook page that say, the kids in their room with rock music that speaks to what they have been through are not defined by the money coming in for this or that act, so rock is not even dead.

For me, 35-40 years ago I saw that 'behind the scenes' was where a lot of people should focus on rather than faith in their future with a record on tour; with the exception of the people that were temperamentally suited to joining an Eddie Money onstage for weeks on end. Sometimes that sort of road-worthy person eventually finds a Bela Fleck with a viable touring life. That is a tiny minority today and it was always a tiny minority. If you're not that person, talking about 'the scene' like you have a truism comes across to me as a bit fatuous.

Yeah, we have John McLaughlin saying he's happy to break even on a self-made record today. He misses the days of Miles Davis and major record company marketing and cash flow, if not Mahavishnu on a big rock tour, why not. Is jazz dead? I can show you through McLaughlin and a myriad of things I discover on a regular basis without even doing searches its vitality, so this must not be a very true statement, so it doesn't seem that good a rhetorical question.
It smelled funny when Kenny G got a record deal I guess.

"Blueman`s subject reads: 'Gene Simmons: 'Rock Is Finally Dead' Then in the thread asks "Is this true?"
I might compare this to;
Smokey The Bear: "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires"
Then I ask: "Is this True?"

But you actually discussed the statement as having meaning and stated agreement with it as a thesis. What is this supposed to even do, other than try to make people with a different take than yours or found your post disagreeable to seem clueless? You seem confused as to what you did in the first place.

smells funny/in a state of rotting or decay. The same could be true for rock and many of it`s sub-genres as well as music forms and qualities in general.

I think jazz smelled funny to my father as my mother preferred Glenn Miller to Stan Kenton.
I don't think you are saying anything much.

[robogone]

Blueman`s subject reads: 'Gene Simmons: 'Rock Is Finally Dead' Then in the thread asks "Is this true?"
I might compare this to;
Smokey The Bear: "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires"
Then I ask: "Is this True?"

That's a pretty obvious straw man though.

For a start, Smokey the Bear is stating something that is pretty much a universally accepted truth.

Gene Simmons on the other hand is stating his uninformed opinion.

That one is nowhere near apples to apples.

[foosnark]

Nevermind who said it, is the statement true?

Take a look at that music genre popularity timeline again... not true in that sense. (Most of "Alternative/Indie" is really just another kind of rock or pop anyway, no?)

He claims "the record industry barely exists", but that's bullshit.

Rock is still several thousand times more popular than the kind of music I like and make. Cry me a freaking river.

[cryophonik]

The statement was f'ing stupid and that's the reason people are laying into Simmons. Rock is not dead. Dead means dead. Gone. No longer in existence. Rock may not be as popular as it was in KISS' heyday, the huge mega-labels no longer have all the power to choose which crappy bands to shove down our throats, there are no longer just a handful of radio stations feeding us their manufactured music, and the profit margins are much smaller, but rock (and every other style of music) is even more accessible today than it ever was.

There's also a huge generation gap. For better or for worse, many of the mega rockstars (e.g., KISS) are still trying to remain relevant, but they're missing one major point: rock and roll has always been for the young, hip, and cool. The younger generations don't see these fat, ugly geezers as idols anymore. Their idols are young, hip, cool, and have a fresh sound, not the same tired sound that bands like KISS have been perpetuating for four decades. It's evolution. Deal with it, Simmons.

[robogone]

The weird thing is that Kiss continue to sell records. Just out of interest, has anyone here listened to any of their material in the last 20 years? All those albums have gone gold or better, yet they are utter dross.

It's interesting that their success is primarily in the US. If they were a British band I'm sure they would have been doing the Butlins nostalgia circuit for the past 20 years.

[cryophonik]

The weird thing is that Kiss continue to sell records.

They still have a following, but it's dwindling as their fan base dies off, loses their hearing, falls and can't up, etc.



I probably shouldn't laugh...I'm almost part of that demographic.

[xNiMiNx]

Religion says: Earth is the center of the universe. Is it true?

Is the earth at the center of the universe?

These two questions, IMO, wont (and shouldnt) receive the exact same answers. The source must be considered, to evaluate where the question and conclusion stem from.

Has anyone in this thread said they liked the last albums from KISS, even the fans of the early stuff? You dont think shit music has an effect on sales? The same 'white kids' hes complaining about pirate games too, so how are games like GTA breaking records, on games that are pirated near same day of release?

The days of suckering people into buying a shitty album with 1 decent 'radio single' and a flashy cover are gone. Amazon, GooglePlay, they let you sample the audio before you buy now.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Is rock dead? Not in Austin.. not in Tulsa.. not in San Jose.. uhm, not anywhere I've lived in the past 10 years.

Is the age of the multi-platinum mega-millions global touring rich and famous rock star over? Oh, long dead.

Notwithstanding illegal downloads. with market fragmentation I suspect unless you play in a popular genre, you can't make enough money to support a lot of publicity and a big tour. We are in the Age of the Niche, I can hit YouTube, or Amazon, or iTunes and find *exactly* what I want at any one time, and *guilty as charged* I own very few large collections of any single artist. It's not 10 albums from one artist, more like 20 artists with 3-4 songs each.

Full disclosure - I've settled into ambient/soundscape/electronic music, and I think the sum total potential audience for that comes in at around 10,000 WORLDWIDE..

[robogone]

The weird thing is that Kiss continue to sell records.

They still have a following, but it's dwindling as their fan base dies off, loses their hearing, falls and can't up, etc.

Won't be long now before we see Gene Simmons on commercials advertising Life Alert...

[Hink]

Religion says: Earth is the center of the universe. Is it true?

Is the earth at the center of the universe?

These two questions, IMO, wont (and shouldnt) receive the exact same answers. The source must be considered, to evaluate where the question and conclusion stem from.

Has anyone in this thread said they liked the last albums from KISS, even the fans of the early stuff? You dont think shit music has an effect on sales? The same 'white kids' hes complaining about pirate games too, so how are games like GTA breaking records, on games that are pirated near same day of release?

The days of suckering people into buying a shitty album with 1 decent 'radio single' and a flashy cover are gone. Amazon, GooglePlay, they let you sample the audio before you buy now.

if you define the center being an equal distance to all sides, boundaries or edges and the universe is endless then everyone and everything is an equal distance to all sides meaning all things in the universe could be considered the center.

As for suckering people into buying an album, I guess I am way different than some people because you are not the first to say this. First, I have never been a fan of Kiss...I dont hold anything against them, I have covered some Kiss songs in bands that I have been in but I wont be running out to buy any Kiss albums for myself. However I grew up buying either 45's or LPs, more often than not I found the 'B' side on 45's to be as good or better than the single released and when buying LPs based on a single I liked had a great benefit. Again way more often than not I would hear songs I never heard before and liked better than the single, it was cool when going home with a new LP thinking "what else will I find".

So I'm sorry, buying an entire LP was not getting suckered in to buying a shitty album (well maybe once or twice I didn't care for the rest of the album but not often) and instead I was treated to more of what I was looking for. Today I still buy the same way, I buy some singles but often I just buy the whole album. One interesting thing is back in the day I would buy corner cuts (LP's) for 5 dollars and under and typically back then I payed 79 cents for a 45 (regular LP's were 7-8 dollars) I can buy many CDs I like these days for under ten dollars or download the album and I still do for the same reason as when I was young. Back then like today I didn't listen to the radio much and back in the A.M. radio days you rarely heard other songs on the albums, in fact often you didn't even hear the full version of the song on A.M. radio. Today I dont listen to the radio and still buy my music the same way and singles are now still around a dollar.

Another interesting thing is back then and really even more during the heyday of FM radio (for my generation) they would play album sides non stop (here in my area WGIR Rock 101 in NH would do this on Sunday night at midnite) and they would even tell you when to hit pause on your tape deck for the best recording. It was not called pirating, nor was it pirating when we went and bought albums and recorded them for friends, in fact both were encouraged by the industry with tape decks and quality tape for doing just that.

If you ask me the difference between now and then has very little to do with listening to music, the difference is for folk like us. Back then if I wanted to record a 45 of my own it was going to cost me close to 1000 dollars and most of that was because you had to commit to buying "x" number of 45's. Studio time was expensive and only those with money or those lucky enough to get a contract could get studio time and then everything was rushed because you were on the clock. When 4-track cassette studios came out things changed some, but not much for years because of the lacking of other gear.

Today anyone can own a world class studio, hell you can go far with just your phone. Not that it affects just stars because I actually see it here and other places online all the time but it seems to me that many artists are jealous because they are not special anymore, they are not privileged anymore and truth be told I dont think many of them would make it today with the marketplace the way it is. Back then we heard amazing albums by average musicians, but were they all that amazing? What were we comparing them to? Other hand picked albums and artists that the record companies and radio stations let us hear.

So when I hear a star whining like Gene Simmons is here I am all because aint karma a bitch? I am sure for Gene Simmons rock is dead, but for me it has never been as alive as it is today and it's getting better for me. I have yet to peak in my life and as I age and look around at those I grew up with and see how many of them feel they are over the hill and I think "who's the lucky one now" and it's the same with bands/artists from back in the day. I am thankful those pipe dreams never came true because I still love palying, I love creating and I love learning new ways to create. Maybe at the end of the day being a wannabe is better than being a has been, who knows...but I wont be shedding any tears for Gene Simmons or anyone else because musically there has never been a better time for me than now and it keeps getting better

[robogone]

Rainbow wrote songs that were a hell of a lot better than the majority of Kiss songs! And their predecessors like Elf and Deep Purple were DEFINITELY better bands than Kiss!

Personally I think Simmons fails to see beyond his money bags, and for him he says rock music is dead because he sees his personal income affected. Most of his observations are without merit and his arrogance is usually the source of his 'facts' about anything.

I'm quite happy to live without Kiss's music (although I did like their first few albums), and I'm sure that rock music will be around longer than Kiss will be.