Reuniting Rock Music One Genre at a time! We’ve Got Work to do!

Reuniting Rock Music One Genre at a time! We’ve Got Work to do!

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Rock Music, Radio, Hip Hop, R & B

Reuniting Rock Music One Genre at a time!
We’ve Got Work to do!

Week 24 | June 14, 2018
By the Forgotten Woman, JoOnna Silberman

As you know, I have been writing about my conversations in my car with the 20 to 30 somethings set about Rock Music…as stated in my previous blog It’s Not Dead! The Resurgence of Rock Music and more out of 400 people (male and female from all over the world, but mostly the USA), approx. 99% (only 2 people preferred Hip Hop genres) in that age group prefer Rock Music to Hip Hop and they wish that there was more played on air, and accessible to the masses. This is important news, but not surprising to me. I have never thought that Rock was not popular. I have felt that the Hip Hop industry has done a better job of marketing and taken over the digital age leaving the public with the perception and misconception that Rock is outdated and no longer the popular and/or relevant…I am happy to say, this is untrue and Rock music is still the preferred genre and as relevant as it ever was (dare I say Same as it ever was!).

That said, how do we combat and/or bring it back up in the ranks through digital media and in the public eye? How do we give artists in an over-saturated market access to all the wonderful Rock Music which is out there, so they can weed out the garbage and how do we give musicians the ability to once again generate revenue in a market that has become impossible to sell music? You will hear people say, it’s in touring and selling merchandise, but the average musician doesn’t have the money to tour or produce merchandise. These are important questions which need to be addressed and where solutions need to be contrived and implemented.  We are attempting to work on those solutions. But we need to fix what is broken first.

In order to do so, we need to break it down and see where the situation started and for me it is two-fold. The first and in my opinion, the most important event that occurred is the segregation of rock music. We have allowed ourselves to be compartmentalized into groups dictated to by the sub-genres. In the late 60’s and 70’s we were a power to be reckoned with, because Rock was under one umbrella. There was one chart and all the Rock Music fell under that chart it was the Hot 100 or Billboard 200. You would find Joni Mitchell with Pink Floyd, and the Rolling Stones with Gordon Lightfoot. There weren’t multiple genre charts only country and pop, which at the time meant popular music, and was not a genre, as it is now.  Now there seems to be a chart for multitude of genres and we do not look at what’s new in rock music, we look at only what our preferences are. Back when we were mighty we were all exposed to all the music, regardless of what genre we preferred and thus it expanded our musical libraries. When we stopped looking at the industry as a whole, and not in parts, that’s when we stopped gaining momentum and losing our power. Our numbers seemed to dwindle, and by the 90’s and the advent of the digital age, we had settled and were not paying attention to the new technologies namely digital marketing and digital recording, and we allowed ourselves to be overtaken. The Hip Hop industry was, took advantage of it, and they changed music and changed the market forever which is a blessing in some ways and a curse in others. The outcome is musicians can no longer generate revenue from music sales and the industry has become oversaturated with garbage. Unless you have the capital to invest in heavy marketing, touring and merchandise it is almost impossible for a musician/band to make money.

The music has become more of a marketing tool to drive people to events and to sell merchandise and if and when a musician has the good fortune to become popular, perhaps their music will start to sell. But they have to become extremely popular for it to make any sort of financial difference. And the ability to make oneself popular today is so difficult, the cards are stacked against us from the onset with an over saturated market, so many different channels and noise.

What is the answer, well as I said, we need to break it down, see what is broken and start to build it back up…much like a car! When you have had a crash, they take the entire car apart and start to put it back together until it is in drivable again. Sometimes it is in better shape than before the accident and others it is totaled, and one has to purchase a new car. In this case, I do not think the industry is totaled I think we can put it back together, better than before. But we have to start where the issue began, and that is where the trouble began, in segregating rock music.  I myself love many genres, but it has become obvious to me, that people have become very personal about what genres they like and what are the best. I challenge people to go out of their comfort zones and start to listen to other rock music, find new artists.  I challenge Radio to start to play a variety of rock music new and old, not genre specific or mainstream (now don’t get me started on the mainstream rock music chart, which is not rock at all and all sounds the same). Take your lead from the BBC who are starting a new Rock Radio Show , which will include new artists, as well as the classics.

And then there are the music consumption ratings. If you do the math, Rock actually wins and Nielsen as well as BuzzAngle  both collect the data in a way that skews the numbers.  Nielsen by putting R & B and Hip Hop together when Hip Hop only has 21% of the market.  And the fact is, if you do the math, Rock comes in at 23%. I think this will call for a blog down the road, because they seem to be segregating genres as well, but in a very different way, the only commonality between Hip Hop and R & B is the roots of the music, not the genre of music. I will leave that there for the moment…

Presently we are attempting to start to bring the genres back together in one place.  We have created groups in Facebook for the time-being which will allow us to collect the music as part of the One Nation Under Rock initiative (https://bit.ly/2JKhXSj). We have created a page for Musicians and Music Industry Professionals which is a place to share resources, as questions and/or get feedback. We have created a Rock Music Fan Collective which will be a place for all rock genres to be posted, and we have created our first Genre focused page which will collect music to be shared on the main fan page, and if the song gets enough likes on the genre page, it will be spotlighted on the Collective page, and if it gets a good number of likes on the Collective page, it will be shared on the Forgotten Man Productions page and shared in other groups. We will build new genre specific pages every two months until we have a complete repository for all the genres.  The hope is eventually we can build a chart, as well as, get radio stations to pay attention and start to participate. At the very least we will gain further visibility for truly great new artists who are getting lost in the weeds.

So what genre are we starting with? Well, the most difficult one of course…it was once said to me by a well-known progressive rock musician that the Prog Rock community are the most stubborn, cerebral, and most snobbish of all of Rock genres…and being that Progressive Rock is one of my favorite genres, I took exception to that comment, but he explained that although I might love the genre in addition to others, for a true Prog Rock fan there is no other… So, we figured we will start with you guys and I say that with the undying respect. We need you, because not only might you be (and notice I said might) the most stubborn, you are the most misunderstood genre, whereby people only listen to the mainstream pop Prog, and not all the beautiful music that is out there by prog artists all over the world. It almost seems like they are scared of it. So, I ask Prog fans and musicians to please lay down your prog on the new ProGject Facebook Page.

In the coming weeks, I will be writing about all the genres, starting with Progressive Rock Music and I hope that you will read, and listen, because to me, it is one of the most beautiful forms of rock music, as well as the most complex and multifaceted. I know you all like your Yes, Genesis, Rush King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Peter Gabriel etc., but have you listened to others…perhaps you don’t realize you are listening to prog when you hear those bands, but you are.

We need to start at the beginning and reunite the rock industry so that we can take back the reins and start to make the music industry great again! The music is there!

I hope you will please join us on this journey and like our pages and read the blogs in the coming weeks.  We are on a mission!!!

Cheers and thanks for reading,

JoOnna Silberman, The Forgotten Woman at Forgotten Man
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