The End of Rock?

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I was listening to the Sports Guy's podcast the other day and he was interviewing Nathan Hubbard, Ticketmaster's CEO of ticketing.  It was a fascinating podcast, I recommend listening to it if you're interested in the ticketing space or sports marketing in general.

He said a lot of really interesting things through the interview but the most interesting to me was when he talked about the end of rock and roll.  He pointed out that music revolutions happen about every 50 years and the days of dominant bands with just a guitar, bass and drums are beginning to disapear -- rock has been around since the 1940's.

I try to follow new music pretty closely and I have to agree with Hubbard.  Like everything else, computers are taking over -- even music production. 

As evidence of this shift, take a look at the artists with the top ten selling songs in iTunes's "Rock" category right now and the song release dates:

  1. Nickleback - 2011
  2. Ram Jaam - 1995
  3. Trapt - 2002
  4. Ozzy Osbourne - 2003
  5. Goo Goo Dolls - 1998
  6. Disturbed - 2000
  7. Semisonic - 2003
  8. Daughtry - 2011
  9. Kenny Loggins - 1997
  10. Disturbed - 2011

Only three of these songs were produced in the last 8 years.

Conversely, here's the top 10 in the "Electronic" genre:

  1. M83 - 2011
  2. Ellie Goulding - 2011
  3. Skrillex - 2010
  4. Duck Sauce - 2010
  5. Owl City - 2009
  6. Skrillex - 2011
  7. M.I.A. 2007
  8. Parov Stellar - 2010
  9. Bassnectar - 2010
  10. James Blake - 2011

All of these were produced in the last four years.  

I suppose it's no surprise that technology has changed the game for musical sound and production, but it's a bit eye opening to see how far it has come.