DJing isn't what it use to be.

Rock music doesn't get played much over here on commercial radio although Absolute do play it sometimes but there are loads of Rock nights (there is one near me) about and loads of Rock music fans it's just we have the likes of the xfactor and dross like that that gets shoved in our faces and the music scene has been flooded with Cowell's puppets. I got my friends at school liking Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper (they reminded me of that last year), when they were listening to Kylie and Jason I was listeing to the likes of Guns n Roses and Alice Cooper. Rock music seems to have gone back underground there was a point in the 90's when you would hear it in the charts Iron maiden were at number 1.

I did get a warm welcome there when I last went

The question is though is it better to listen to a radio station which only plays one genre of music hour in, hour out or to a station which plays an eclectic mix from across the board? Which one is more likely to open your ears to something new?

I think most people prefer the style they like, and discover snippets of other styles as time goes by.

My era was the classic rock era of the late 60s, and the 70s, and I still prefer that music to anything I hear now. I suppose every generation does the same.

I'm a Highway Star

Unfortunately, the majority of people who actually attend Download know that Def Leppard shouldn't have been headlining either of those two festivals as they are a sorry state of a band who only ever undertake tours now where the other bands on the tour bring in the punters, but Def Leppard somehow still manage to have their name at the top of the bill.

If Def Leppard were to tour without another headline act on the same bill the arena tours would become City hall tours at best - Sheffield Arena might still welcome them rather than Sheffield City Hall, but Birmingham NEC would become Birmingham NIA, Manchester Evening News Arena would become Manchester Apollo and Nottingham Ice Rink would become Nottingham City Hall (or maybe even Rock City).

When they toured four years ago with Whitesnake and Thunder, everybody knew that Whitesnake should have been headlining and the number of people (except in Sheffield) who moved away from the front of the stage once Coverdale left the stage and Joe Elliott took his place was embarrassing. Same this year with Motley Crue and Steel Panther - both Crue and Panther put on fantastic sets which had the crowd eating out of their hands, then Leppard took to the stage and everyone went for a beer.

Leppard aren't a real rock band - they fall somewhere between pop and dullsville, REO Speedwagon are heavier than Def Leppard. And the arrogance of Joe Elliott to think that he can mention himself and his band in the same league as Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Led Zeppelin or even his favourties Mott the Hoople, Queen and David Bowie is staggering. They were big in the mid-eighties in America with Pyromania, they became big in the UK in the late eighties with Hysteria, but have been on a steady decline ever since.

Seem to be a lot of people who equate rock music with heavy metal?

Heavy metal is a sub genre of rock. It's such a broad area. The rolling stones are rock. So are Slayer. They're just different kinds of rock band.

Quite right too - rock music is music centered around the electric guitar, and the majority of bands today who use electric guitars in their music rather than just being dance acts are of the heavier persuasion.

Although rock music covers a much wider spectrum than just heavy metal, the majority of rock radio stations (Planet Rock, Arrow Rock, Real XS) do play a far greater percentage of heavy bands than the lighter end of the scale (U2, Queen, Bryan Adams, Oasis, Blur, Kasabian, Kings of Leon, Radiohead, Stereophonics, Travis and Coldplay).

I am glad my outlook on rock music is not so blinkered.

Me too.

Just thinking about it and if I could only listen to one artist for the rest of my life it would have to be Neil Young.

Rock is more popular in the US of A., if it's a numbers game.
But our rock is superior. But our rock is now dated.

Rock music is bigger in the US, yes. It gets played more on mainstream radio (not much mind, but still more than in the UK), and you do see a rock song in the charts once in a while in the US, while it NEVER happens in the UK now.

US radio stations are more varied than in the UK. You can get the same station playing pop, RnB, rock, dance, country, hip hop, electronica. All on the same station. And kids there get exposed to that variety of music.

In the UK, that just doesn't happen. All the mainstream stations only play dance and pop at the moment.

I have often said on these forums that I don't thnik the current Rock scene is either dated or stalled.

What has happened is that Rock music has gone underground but, as a genre has probably never been as vibrant, or as popular, as it is now.

Sure, you don't hear Rock music on mainstream radio or read about it in the press, that is because the mainstream media are only interested in reporting on mainstream music these days.

For the media these days, Adele or Lady Gaga changing the colour of their nail polish is considered one of the major stories of the day, Download or Sonisphere selling out isn't even worthy of a mention even in passing.

But rock music itself moves on, when I went to my first Rock Festival, Reading '80, that was pretty much the only Rock Festival. Today there is Download, Sonisphere, Bloodstock, and many other smaller festivals. If rock was in such a terminal decline those Festivals would be the first casualty.

I went to see the American Rock band Shinedown a couple of weeks ago @ O2 Academy in Bristol. Shinedown have had no commercial success in the UK but the gig was sold out, that is one example but it shows a genre that can hardly be considered as dying.

For some reason Rock music is still alive but the media are less interested in it.

It's more too do with them who having sex with who now than great rock music.

And I blame Simon Cowell for all that MTV Rock hardly plays music I consider as Rock music.

There is no MTV 120 min and Headbanger Ball anymore and I know there is people just wan'ting for that show's to come back and connet with rock people again.But Foo Fighters are still a great band in my view and are still playing music to this day.I just feel there is a lack of exposer for guitar music now and things alternative like it use to be in my time and kids don't know real music anymore becuase there feed the same crap day in day out,there force feed crap and that's what the media love.Or it's the same people doing the same style of music trying hard too be the next Take That or Spice Girls and it get's boring and one way mostly karoke style X Factor music and NME are not as good to listening to there people anymore and turned them to look at Mojo and Classic Rock instead as they loss more sales.Plus going to a gig use to be people jumping about and moshing not anymore i'st sit and be nice and behave.

It's been acknowledged in a recent BBC doc that British band Cream originally started the whole guitar driven rock band craze in the US in 1966. Led Zep, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple etc soon followed in their wake. The whole San Francisco scene in 1967 produced the birth of American rock with bands like Jefferson Airplane, Doors, Grateful Dead etc.

Since punk and new wave arrived in the late '70s, interest in rock music in the UK has dramatically declined over the years. Whereas in the US although there's been a decline in interest it hasn't been anything like as marked as here. Today the remnants of rock are the American heavy metal bands like Foo Fighters, Metallica, Queens Of The Stone Age etc, and Bruce Springsteen is enjoying a bit of a revival. But there are very few genuine Brit rock bands left here. Muse is one good example though.

Deleted

Bands such as AlterBridge are bringing rock back.

I must admit, Def Leppard aren't what they used to be. They went/ have been going downhill since Steve Clark died.

I agree, as well as bands like Black Stone Cherry, Shinedown, Black Country Communion, etc.

Even in the UK there are plenty of young, up-and-coming bands who are starting to make a name for themselves such as Black Spiders, The Treatment, Furyon, Exit Ten, etc.

I like that band Black Spiders and The Treatment it sad there not on mainstream radio or MTV if it was the 80's or 90's they would.

Shinedown - great example of the thread title.

'Second Chance' was huge in America. A massive hit. In the UK? Never played, never heard, never mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H25ORRgLxdA&ob=av2n

I suggest everyone listen to that if they haven't heard it before. Now tell me - what about that song makes it unsuitable for UK radio? It ticks all the right boxes. Melodic, singable, soaring chorus...

The only reason it was ignored was because of the ignorance about rock music in the UK media.

If you think the charts are bad now they were awful in the 70s. Although some of the bands that have defined rock were at their height the charts were still full of some pretty awful stuff. Boney M, Showaddywaddy and Bay City Rollers being prime examples.

Rock was never mainstream pop as some people would have you believe. You had to stay up late to hear it on the radio and buy music papers to even have a clue as to what was happening. Now with the internet none of this is any longer an issue and music genres are far more varied these days.

Also saying the mainstream radio stations only play pop and dance music isn't true. Recently I have heard Led Zep, AC/DC and Black Sabbath on Radio 2 during the day.

My point was, they were still big, whether they are bilge or not! Personally I don't like them, they're the reason I decided NOT to spend £50 on a ticket to see Crüe & Panther (though the reviews I read said that it was Mötley Crüe that were a bit of a letdown, and steel panther were the outstanding band time after time).

Anyway, I was just saying that def leppard did have plenty of success with number one albums and a number one song.