Gene Simmons: 'Rock Is Finally Dead'

[xNiMiNx]

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.

I dont believe the universe is endless. Just because a male mosquito only lives 3 days, and can never travel nor see across USA, doesnt make it endless.

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. 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".

I in no way ment to sound as if all music being released today is a pile of crap with just 1 good song. Most of the 'oldies' i listen to, theyre fairly uniform as far as albums go. IMO the record industry has (had) changed in their tactics. For example, Filter released Title of Record in 1999, the industry decided to make Take a Picture one of the singles. Today i own 2 copies of that CD, cause a friend got suckered into buying it. She wasnt looking for an angry-growl-industrial album, but a softcore Take a Picture-like album.

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.

The feeling ripped off for a pile of crap, i believe, comes more so with the people who are listening to the radio a lot. Ive seen people treating CD's with little reguard to scratching them and i say something, its usually something like 'its ok, it sucks and they still play TrackName on the radio all the time'.

LOL @ posting a Rainbow song. [edit] the lol is because Rainbow was the name, before Lesterwhatever, turned into KISS. [/edit]

[RunBeerRun]

Who's Gene Simber?

[Hink]

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.

I dont believe the universe is endless. Just because a male mosquito only lives 3 days, and can never travel nor see across USA, doesnt make it endless.

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. 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".

I in no way ment to sound as if all music being released today is a pile of crap with just 1 good song. Most of the 'oldies' i listen to, theyre fairly uniform as far as albums go. IMO the record industry has (had) changed in their tactics. For example, Filter released Title of Record in 1999, the industry decided to make Take a Picture one of the singles. Today i own 2 copies of that CD, cause a friend got suckered into buying it. She wasnt looking for an angry-growl-industrial album, but a softcore Take a Picture-like album.

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.

The feeling ripped off for a pile of crap, i believe, comes more so with the people who are listening to the radio a lot. Ive seen people treating CD's with little reguard to scratching them and i say something, its usually something like 'its ok, it sucks and they still play TrackName on the radio all the time'.

LOL @ posting a Rainbow song. [edit] the lol is because Rainbow was the name, before Lesterwhatever, turned into KISS. [/edit]

we have one Filter song thanx to my wife2b, Take a Picture TBH I haven't listened to any other stuff by them.

I wasn't suggesting you were saying all other songs on an LP sucked, sorry if it seemed that way. What I meant was I often found that to be a good way to get exposed to more tunes I liked, true you can listen to pieces of every song online but there was something especially fun about hearing other songs on an album for the first time. The good ol' days, you buy 2 albums and a 90 minute Maxell UDXLII so you can record them virgin vinyl

[hibidy]

Attention whore is in need of attention.

He should be in a band with ted nugent.

[cryophonik]

Attention whore is in need of attention.

He should be in a band with ted nugent.

They could call themselves the Motor City Mad Old Men.

[Turello]

Ted Nugent is a nazi\fascist, Simmons is an hebrew= ???

[hibidy]

Attention whore is in need of attention.

He should be in a band with ted nugent.

They could call themselves the Motor City Mad Old Men.

Correctamundo!

[hibidy]

Ted Nugent is a nazi\fascist, Simmons is an hebrew= ???

Uh oh......pull up......(alarm sounding) pull up.......(alarm sounding)

[Turello]

Why alarm hibidy??? I am not anti-Semitic or racist... is the simple statement of fact

[D.H. Miltz]

I assume the alarm is to indicate that that post is HPC material (or an invitation to it). Better left there.

[xNiMiNx]

Heres an interesting watch/listen:

Why Radio & Music Industry Sucks Nowadays

[cryophonik]

Dee Snider's (Twisted Sister) retort:

Recently, my esteemed colleague, Gene Simmons of Kiss declared that “Rock ‘n’ Roll is finally dead”. Really?

While I have nothing but respect for Gene, he couldn’t be further off the mark. Yes, the rock ‘n’ roll “business model” that helped Kiss (and my band for that matter) achieve fame and fortune is most certainly long dead and buried, but rock ‘n’ roll is alive and well and thriving on social media, in the streets, and in clubs and concert halls all over the world. And the bands playing it are more genuine and heartfelt than ever because they are in it for one reason: the love of rock ‘n’ roll.

Spend some time seeing and listening to these incredible young bands and their rabid fans and you will know that rock ‘n’ roll couldn’t be more alive. Yes, it’s not the same as it was for the first 50 years of rock’s existence, but the fire definitely still burns.

And it wasn’t some 15 year old kid in Saint Paul, Minnesota (to paraphrase Mr. Simmons) who killed the rock ‘n’ roll goose that laid the platinum egg…it was greedy, big city, record company moguls who made their own velvet noose to hang themselves with. It was they who took advantage of the consumer (and the artist for that matter) and drove them to use an alternative source of music presented to them.

For example, take the bill of goods the record industry sold the mainstream public when introducing the CD format. “We have to charge more for it, because it’s a new technology and there’s a cost to setting up the infrastructure to produce them.” The consumer believed them–it made sense–so they paid a $18.98 list price for a product they had been paying $7.99 list for previously. After all “you can’t break a CD with a hammer!” (Remember that?)

But when the infrastructure was in place and paid for in full, and the cost of producing a CD dropped to less than a dollar, did the record companies roll back the list price in kind? Not on your life. They weren’t about to do the right thing and cut their increased revenue stream. Those fat cats were enjoying their ill-gotten gains way too much.

So when the general public finally realized they were being had, and the opportunity arose for them to stick it to the man, what did they do? The same thing their Woodstock Nation, baby boomer parents had done when they had their chance…they stuck it and they stuck it good. Does anyone remember Abbey Hoffman’s “Steal this Book”, the massive selling, early 70’s hippy guide “focused on ways to fight the government, and against corporations in any way possible.” Multiply that by a googolplex.

Is it hard to make it rock ‘n’ roll? You bet. Always was, always will be. Will rockers make as much money as they did “back in the day”? Probably not. But that won’t stop them, and they’ll be motivated by a much more genuine love of the art, and great rock will continue to be produced, played and embraced by rock fans.

So in conclusion: Record company executives killed the old rock ‘n’ roll business model…and Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Dead!

http://loudwire.com/twisted-sister-dee- ... ead-claim/

[xNiMiNx]

Thank you for posting that Cryo! Mr Snider gained a lot of respect from me when he went to capitol hill, and moreso after reading that.

[ghettosynth]

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?".

Even Simmons isn't talking about himself, per se, although I agree with some posters that the decline in kiss royalties might be prompting his thoughts. Still, in the article, he's really talking about bands like the Beatles, or, in his words, Nirvana. He has a rather simplistic perspective on what he thinks killed it, IMO, the file copying bogeyman is a distraction. I'm not sure though, what's going to bring back mass consumption of music on the scale that it was when it didn't have to compete with so many sources trying to grab our attention.

It's 9PM here. I'm listening to Jazz. It's streaming, I haven't paid a nickel for it. I'm busy working and since I have a deadline tomorrow, I'll probably have to work into the night. Just a few (well more than a few) years ago, this same scene would have me listening to the local public radio station. Jazz would have ended about 11PM and the station might have even gone off the air at 2PM. If I wanted to listen to Jazz until four in the morning I would have had to reach for a CD. One's not enough, you'll get bored. I have probably a dozen or so Jazz CDs that I used for exactly the purpose. I paid for all of them, they were a utility, there wasn't an alternative. Does that make sense, I'm not an avid jazz fan, I like it to work to. I didn't buy jazz CDs because I was really in love with jazz, I bought them like you might buy a few different measuring cups for the kitchen. That kind of consumption isn't necessary any more.

My point, and I've made this point before, but this is an obvious example that actually demonstrates the difference between my consumption of about $200 or so then, and zero today, is that the availability of free alternatives to owning music cause many people to change their purchasing habits without resorting to anything illegal.

[hibidy]

Well, simmons is stuck on himself, just a way to vent

I don't think rock n roll is dead. I think that rapacrappa/poppy/autotuney/deadrodentsdjOMG is WAY more popular. Then again, that would be connecting the dots to the obvious.