Kiss’s Gene Simmons spoke in a recent interview with Consequence Of Sound about the rock music today, saying:
“The point is, yeah, rock is dead because if we play the game from 1958 until 1988, which is 30 years, you had Elvis [Presley], The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and on and on and on. And you can go to the heavy part of it, which is Metallica, Iron Maiden, if you want to put KISS in there, that’s fine. AC/DC, on and on and on. Even U2, Prince, [David] Bowie, Eagles. And then you get to disco stuff, and Madonna, and that stuff, and Motown, of course. And then from 1988 until today, who’s the new Beatles? I’ve heard a reaction of Foo Fighters, one of my favorite bands, but you’re kidding yourself. There’s also the boy bands: NSYNC, One Direction, BTS, and [sarcastically] XYZ, PTA, and good for them that they’ve got success.
”Don’t kid yourself. As soon as those girls are gonna grow a little bit older, that’s going to go away. It’s like sugar: you taste it, it gives you that little energy boost, and then it’s gone forever and you don’t care. But don’t kid yourself, it ain’t The Beatles. They don’t write songs, they don’t play instruments, it ain’t that. And we all love Elvis; [he] never wrote a song in his life. There’s just nothing that compares to The Beatles. The reason for that is not because there’s a lack of talent, but because young folks, that kid living in his mom’s basement, decided one day that he didn’t want to pay for music. He wanted to download and file share. And that’s what killed the chances for the next generation of great bands. The fact that the music was for free. So nowadays new bands don’t have a chance.
“It’s like flowers — people water them and make sure there’s enough sun and all that stuff. And as soon as you take your eyes off and you don’t water the flowers, they will die. And people wonder why there aren’t beautiful flowers. Well, because you don’t water them. You get what you pay for. So nowadays, if you download a song, the artist will get 1/100th of one cent. Even Spotify … the artist sees very little of that. So you get what you pay for.
“Rock is dead — you bet your a** it is — not because the talent isn’t there, but because the business model just doesn’t work. And so that leaves live performances. And I really hope once this vaccine takes hold — you better get shot up twice — that people go out to the local clubs and see all the new bands and support new bands. Like a baby that’s on the floor, go up there, pick that baby up and coddle it, give it love, because those new bands need your love.”