So, my Release Day playlist on Spotify one week was packed with tracks like “Who Said Rock N Roll Is Dead” by Crazy Lixx, “Rock N Roll Survivors” by Bonfire, and “Gods Of Rock N Roll” by Billy Morrison, Ozzy Osbourne, and Steve Stevens.

Then the next week it had “Rock And Roll Party Cowboy” from The Darkness. And my train of thought moves to “Rock And Roll Deserves To Die”, one of my favorite songs from em.

Naturally, it got me thinking about the ever-recurring debate:

Is rock actually dead?

Lenny Kravitz released a song titled “Rock and Roll Is Dead” on his 1995 album “Circus”, a cynical take on the state of rock music at the time.

Marilyn Manson, has a song “Rock Is Dead” from the 1998 album “Mechanical Animals” which is critical of the commercialization and his perceived decline of rock’s rebellious spirit.

L.A. Guns released a song titled “Rock and Roll Is Dead” on their 2005 album “Tales from the Strip”, about the genre’s struggles in the modern era.

Even The Doors’ had a track “Rock Is Dead” (recorded in 1969, released posthumously).

Gene Simmons is the guy most often quoted on this. In a 2022 statement, he told “Metal Hammer”, “I stand by my words, rock is dead and the fans killed it,” blaming file-sharing and the decline of record industry support for new rock talent. He also elaborated on this in a 2014 “Esquire” interview, pointing to the lack of new iconic bands since the Beatles era and the economic challenges for emerging artists.

However plenty of legacy artists share a similar sentiment.

Jay Jay French fromTwisted Sister had made a few forays into this. You can read his latest here.

He makes a good argument about rock’s decline in cultural relevance, essentially claiming that rock is “dead” because it no longer produces massive young stars like it did in the late ’60s and ’70s.

He also points out that rock doesn’t define youth identity in the way hip-hop, pop, and country do today. It’s a compelling argument, but it’s not the full picture.

So where does Jay Jay have a point.

Rock isn’t the dominant force in youth culture anymore. Streaming, social media, and internet-driven virality have helped hip-hop and pop thrive while rock has struggled to keep up.

Since exact weekly numbers aren’t available, I’ll estimate based on monthly listener counts and annual streams, dividing by 52 for a rough weekly average, adjusted for current trends.

The top 50 metal and rock artists generate 70-100M weekly streams. This is a fraction of the broader streaming landscape, where total weekly streams across all genres exceed 4-5 billion (based on Spotify’s 2023 global totals of 200B+ annual streams).

Pop/Hip-Hop genres account for 50-60% of streams. Their top 50 artists alone could hit 400-500M weekly, 4-5x higher than metal/rock.

Metal and rock, despite passionate fanbases, remain a smaller player in the streaming game, punching above their weight culturally but not numerically.

The days of four kids in a garage forming a band and becoming icons by 25 is way harder to pull off now. Labels and streaming platforms push polished, solo acts over traditional bands.

Just like jazz and big band had their golden eras before becoming niche genres, rock’s mainstream heyday as a youth movement may simply be over.

So where does Jay Jay’s argument fall short?

Sure, rock isn’t a monoculture anymore, but it’s alive and well in subgenres like metal, indie, punk, and prog. Just because it’s not topping the Billboard Hot 100 doesn’t mean it’s dead.

Even in those subgenres, there are further subgenres and even more splintering.

In Latin America, Japan, and Scandinavia, rock and metal are huge. Just because the major markets aren’t as tuned in doesn’t mean the genre is extinct.

Back in the day, you were either a rock and metal fan or a hip-hop fan.

Now?

A single playlist might have Metallica, Bon Jovi, Kendrick Lamar, Whitesnake, Shinedown, Taylor Swift, and Bring Me The Horizon. Genre loyalty is weaker than ever.

As much as the internet was meant to level the playing field and remove the gatekeepers, streaming algorithms and major labels still push what’s easy to market.

Rock isn’t dying; it’s just not the industry’s priority.

French isn’t wrong. Rock doesn’t dominate pop culture like it used to, and we’re unlikely to see another Beatles-level rock phenomenon.

But calling it “dead” is an oversimplification.

The genre is evolving, diversifying, and thriving in different ways. It might never reclaim its past mainstream dominance, but it’s far from irrelevant.