Now You Can Ride It High
And You Can Light The Way
Lift Up Your Hands In Praise
You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll
Twisted Sister
I think it’s time. Time to get rock back on track and in the forefront where it belongs. We have been sitting idly by as it meets its demise. At least it seems that way. You have all heard that “rock is dead” and it’s not worth starting a band, etc. I even did an article on it. But what did we do about it? There are those who say that it’s not dead and just as many that say it is – rock stars included. No matter your opinion, it seems that rock music – and you can pick your type of Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Punk Rock, Alternative and so on – isn’t gaining a foothold but losing it. Taylor Swift can sell over a million CDs (actually purchased) and downloads of her album. She is selling out back to back nights in stadiums. Meanwhile, Slash is playing clubs, legacy acts like KISS, Styx, Motley Crue and so on have to co-headline or in some cases have three or more of them on the same bill. Or does anyone remember Journey, Def Leppard, or Foreigner, just as examples. Yet they still don’t sell enough tickets because they give them away on Groupon. Sad really. Very few bands, Foo Fighters and U2 aside, that can hold their own, on their own.
Nevermind the live show, bands get excited for a top ten album, which sounds nice and all, but they sold 10,000 copies and they weren’t up against anyone. Did you read what I said about Swift? Yeah, she does that all on her own. It amazes me that bands have sunk down to that level, oh look we sold 80,000 copies of our new album. It’s our highest charting record and debut at number 7. That should worry you as a fan and what it means to the industry. They used to move that many in a week, some bands in a day. They used to sell multi platinum albums and now they are happy just to sell a minimum amount. So that brings me to why I am writing this piece.
We as fans need to step up our support. How, you may ask? It’s easier than you may think. I would start off small. I would say buy a CD of your top five bands when they come out. Just them. I assume as a fan, you can afford $50-$60 a year on your passion, right? I would say buy the actual CD itself, but I will be just as pleased if you did the digital version on iTunes or Amazon so it can be tracked. That’s the point here, the numbers need to be seen in order to be heard. When I say digital, I don’t mean the sites that discount it, you know what I mean. No bittorrent sites, etc. Legitimate sites, like I stated. Help the cause, you could do more, but I will start with top five. Sebastian Bach summed it up pretty good last year when he released his album, Give’m Hell. He basically said that I have over 800,000 fans on Facebook and I sold 5,000 copies. Bach went on to say, 75,000-80,000 fans talking about the record every day on the site. Why are they there? What do they want? Pictures? I think you get the point, I know it’s Sebastian Bach, but it makes sense. How many of your fave bands don’t want to go into the studio because no one is buying the music? It cost money to make an album. I think it’s strange to see a band ask for money to record a CD, you know Pledgemusic.com, Kickstarter and Fundme.com to name a few. We want crowdfunding to be our source of getting new material from our favorite artists? I think not! If we can prove there is a demand for rock artists, record labels would look into investing in them again. Right now, I believe the “rock stars” of today have no confidence that their fans will support them when it comes to new music or past catalogs. This may be okay with legacy bands but upstarts won’t have a chance without our support.
Now this is no simple call to action, there are a few things we have to do. We are trying to save rock music here. So let’s continue. Once you purchase the CD, you need to share it with your friends so they can buy it. Better yet, you get them to join the call of action to save rock and roll as we know it. This is the foundation of what we are trying to do. The next phase of this call to action is to see them live. You need to see as many bands as you can afford. Look, most play clubs now. You should be able to handle it. I know I think it’s scary when you see tickets on sale in Groupon because a band can’t sell them. We need to change that. See, we need to make rock in demand again. If you’re fortunate a lot of times, the bands you love will do a meet and greet at the show and you can buy their CDs and other stuff and they will sign it for you right there. Now that’s pretty cool. Trust me when I tell you that rock isn’t dead, it’s just not out front like it used to be. You just need to do your part and support it. I know it’s easy to watch YouTube and download the music for free. But while I won’t say don’t do that, I will say that you should pay for a few each year so we can keep it alive. It’s the least we can do. Buy CDs. See them live, share it with people you know and have them do the same. Call the radio station and get them to play the band. Bring your passion back to life. Otherwise, we will be listening to all that stuff they call music, but it’s autotuned and computerized with no soul. We need to pass this on for others to pick up the torch. As Ozzy Osbourne once sang: You Can’t Kill Rock And Roll. My question to you is it like he said, is it your religion and your law? I know it is for me, so don’t be a bystander. Let’s make a difference and support the one thing that’s always there for us. Let’s make AC/DC’s word come true in Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution, Rock And Roll will never die. Let’s prove it! Are you in?
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