94.5 WZJO

[Lester]

Nirvana sucked. Their albums were huge pieces of shit with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and they were one of the worst live bands I ever saw. I had to sit through that shit twice. I turned down and/or avoided all other opportunities to see them.

Foo Fighters is an honest to goodness significant band. I only personally like maybe 7 or 8 of their songs, but their talent, songcraft, and musicianship are exceptional.

Fuckin' A.

[Bob Campbell]

Nirvana sucked. Their albums were huge pieces of shit with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and they were one of the worst live bands I ever saw. I had to sit through that shit twice. I turned down and/or avoided all other opportunities to see them.

Foo Fighters is an honest to goodness significant band. I only personally like maybe 7 or 8 of their songs, but their talent, songcraft, and musicianship are exceptional.

Fuckin' A.

Double Fuckin' A.

[Swing'n Dick]

Dave Grohl should be inducted to the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame three times, but he'll only be inducted "twiced". Once due to the martyrdom of Nirvanna. A second time because the Foo Fighters have made a significant imprint on Rock music for the last 15 years and they still have two to three big albums left in the future. The third time won't happen but it should. Dave Grohl should be inducted to the Hall of Fame for his work as general musician. Dave has filled in for a number of bands in a pinch. He's recorded albums as a silent member, sat-in for performances, guest vocals and guitar work too, not only as a drummer. Dave Grohl should be inducted because he is "Dave Grohl". We need ten more guys just like him.

[AmpedNow]

Another problem with rock in the post-Nirvana era is that it has fragmented into so many subgenres that it's harder for any artist or band to become mainstream popular. Like the nighttime AM band, the noise floor has increased substantially in the last two decades.

During the first 2-3 decades of rock, there was literally nothing else quite like it. But now that rock n roll is over 50 years old, everyone's doing it, if that makes any sense. I can't quite put it to words...

This is why an argument can be made that it's quite an achievement when a band like the FF can still sell so many albums.

[Swing'n Dick]

Dave Grohl isn't the next Tom Petty. He is the Tom Petty now. We'll realize this over the next 10 years.

[Jay Nunley]

Dave Grohl isn't the next Tom Petty. He is the Tom Petty now. We'll realize this over the next 10 years.

That is astute. In fact, I think it qualifies as "astuter than a motherfucker" which is the most astute one can be.

[Hoosier Daddy]

"astuter than a motherfucker"

ROFLMAO

[Mike]

The problem is the music is less than half assed. Rock radio pretty much is rock radio, it's formula hasn't changed in decades. The problem is the content isn't there like it used to be. There hasn't been a great rock album released in almost 20 years. Without albums, the traditional album rock format just, well, won't work. Fact of the matter is, rock is dead, it's been "living" off the remnant body heat of the corpse for 15 years, and simply isn't ever going to be a popular mass format again without new artists and content. Country music has been fading as a format in recent years for much the same reasons, the same played out style and formula being repeated, no artist innovation, etc.

Actually, you can say that about every music genre. The record labels, dying from an obsolete revenue model from the last century, simply aren't producing talent like it used to.

You're extrapolating from your personal taste onto the greater population.

The difference between myself and the greater population is I HAVE taste.

listening to so called "modern" rock for 10 minutes is worse than a diet of nothing but stuff from Wal-Mart's deli. Bland, generic, BLAHH!

I'm sorry, you cannot compare rock of 2010 to that of 1966-1993. Indeed, I'd imagine that there are a lot of kids today who listen to "rock" stations who would literally sit with their mouths open in awe if they were exposed to deep cuts from classic rock albums...

No teenager today has even heard a guitar solo unless from a classic rock song...

Pathetic.

[Schaffer]

It's not just teenagers listening to new rock. You would be amazed at the older male demos. I am APD/Morning guy on an Active rocker, and no other rock/classic hits format in the market comes close to us. This format works, and it works well. Unlike Z-Rock, you have to be on the streets all the time. We did that when we first launched Z-Rock, but I guess those days didn't last too long with an ever shrinking staff and no $$. I have support from ownership, sales, promotions, etc. If we would have had that at BBC for Z-Rock, I have no doubt that station would have been a success. Sadly, it was just Bristol's bastard little stepchild.

Mike, I respect your opinion, but it's been a long time since albums and radio had much to do with each other.

[AmpedNow]

I'm sorry, you cannot compare rock of 2010 to that of 1966-1993.

This is like that politician back in the early 1900s who wanted to shut down the patent office because "everything that could possibly be invented has already been invented". Boy, ain't we glad that nobody listened to him...

Instead of running out of possibilities, we have found that ideas grow exponentially. Music is no different.

Taking this logic to the extreme, we might as well shut down music stores and stop teaching music all together, because we're out of possibilities. All the good stuff has already been made.

To the people who think that all the good music somehow ceased to be after a certain year: It's far more likely that popular music didn't dramatically change all that much, but rather your tastes changed. The new stuff no longer resonated with you. But that certainly doesn't mean that music just stopped being good all at once.

As for "good taste", the only people who can rightfully claim this is classical music aficionados. The rest of us listen to garbage.

[Bob Campbell]

Everything runs in cycles. Rock is in a shitty down period now for sure, but that doesn't mean it won't come back. It usually does. Some semi-insane kid will put a new twist on something, add in a dash of real genius, a dollop of serious creativity and a generous helping of mindless energy (why God invented coke) and we'll have something seriously good.
At least I hope so.

[ashton]

I don't believe the nature of music is cyclical - if so, I'm sure we'd be back in a big band period. A stagediving Ricky Ricardo is not what we need... Rather than thinking of the music as cyclical, think of it as a progression. This means that Rock as you know it probably won't ever return. Luckily we have our albums.

Nunley - I dug Nirvana, but I agree with Mike that the musicianship wasn't quite what you might have heard in the 70s and 80s. Power chords... I'm glad that groups like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones didn't resort to using something like that. (I need the Sarc mark here.)

[AmpedNow]

Pop music is cyclical. The popular stuff today echoes the stuff from the mid to late 80s in a lot of ways... In a couple years, the "sound" will cycle into something else.

But I also agree that music is an overall progression. This includes "borrowing" the sounds from the past, yet not completely copying it.

This in no way diminishes the greatness of a lot of the older stuff. But it's as unreasonable to think that the sound of modern music should never change as it is to think that we are out of possibilities for great new music.

[Mike]

I'm sorry, you cannot compare rock of 2010 to that of 1966-1993.

This is like that politician back in the early 1900s who wanted to shut down the patent office because "everything that could possibly be invented has already been invented". Boy, ain't we glad that nobody listened to him...

Instead of running out of possibilities, we have found that ideas grow exponentially. Music is no different.

Taking this logic to the extreme, we might as well shut down music stores and stop teaching music all together, because we're out of possibilities. All the good stuff has already been made.

To the people who think that all the good music somehow ceased to be after a certain year: It's far more likely that popular music didn't dramatically change all that much, but rather your tastes changed. The new stuff no longer resonated with you. But that certainly doesn't mean that music just stopped being good all at once.

As for "good taste", the only people who can rightfully claim this is classical music aficionados. The rest of us listen to garbage.

Van Halen will be as revered when it's 300 years old as Mozart is today, as will other classic bands.

As far as the rock sound, nothing has been invented since Nirvana in the 1990's. Everything since is a flavor of that. The genre is dead because it's lost everything of what made it. Rock isn't fun anymore. There no longer is a "wow" factor. No more scorching solos. No more clever riffs. It's the same 4 power chords played in slightly differing sequences, with the same Eddie Vedder sound alike whining about something emo, or some generic "screamer" screaming about something emo.

[Mike]

It's not just teenagers listening to new rock. You would be amazed at the older male demos. I am APD/Morning guy on an Active rocker, and no other rock/classic hits format in the market comes close to us. This format works, and it works well. Unlike Z-Rock, you have to be on the streets all the time. We did that when we first launched Z-Rock, but I guess those days didn't last too long with an ever shrinking staff and no $$. I have support from ownership, sales, promotions, etc. If we would have had that at BBC for Z-Rock, I have no doubt that station would have been a success. Sadly, it was just Bristol's bastard little stepchild.

Mike, I respect your opinion, but it's been a long time since albums and radio had much to do with each other.

That's why the genre is dead.

Rock=Albums.

The music industry quit even trying to put together great albums for more than 10 years. It instead tries to put 1-3 quality tracks on an "album" with 8 filler tracks and expect people to buy it. Which they aren't anymore. The days of an act putting out a "killer" album that you will listen to from first to last were gone 15 years ago.

This is why iTunes works (and why the industry hates it), people buy the 1-2 decent tracks and forget the filler. Instead of fixing the problem (ie: start making quality music again in album quantities) the industry has fought to maintain an obsolete business model.

Rock shows this worse than pop because rock has always been an ALBUM AND BAND driven format. It fares poorly otherwise. And it is faring poorly today.

There are still hidden gems out there from the classic rock albums of the late 60's to the early 90's that non hardcore fans of the individual bands have never heard. Why not program some of that?

[Jay Nunley]

It fares poorly otherwise. And it is faring poorly today.

No it isn't.

Why not program some of that?

Because no one likes those songs.

[Bob Campbell]

I don't believe the nature of music is cyclical - if so, I'm sure we'd be back in a big band period. A stagediving Ricky Ricardo is not what we need... Rather than thinking of the music as cyclical, think of it as a progression. This means that Rock as you know it probably won't ever return. Luckily we have our albums.

Nunley - I dug Nirvana, but I agree with Mike that the musicianship wasn't quite what you might have heard in the 70s and 80s. Power chords... I'm glad that groups like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones didn't resort to using something like that. (I need the Sarc mark here.)

When describing music as cyclical, I'm not saying genres repeat (though they often do). I'm saying quality is cyclical. Right now we're in a down cycle. Ordrinarily, 99% of everything sucks. Right now it's more like 99.9% of everything sucks.

And to agree with Nunley, painful as it may be, he's right. We don't program songs because they're good, we program songs people like. We're not in this for art, we're here to get ratings that sales can transfer into dollars.