He Who Laughs Last . . .

In an earlier post this year, I wrote that current pop stars like Kanye West aren't responsible for the decline of rock and roll. That may be true. But just because West isn't responsible doesn't mean he's not aware of rock's decline and fall, and he's not indifferent to it by any means. Consider this comment he made in a BBC Radio 1 interview in September 2013: "Rap is the new rock and roll. We're the rock stars, and I'm the biggest of all of them."

His comment makes three things clear. First, West is undeniably self-important to an extreme.  Second, rap obviously has the power and cultural influence that rock used to have before MTV ruined everything. Third, I think West is actually happy to see rock and roll decline and fall, because, who listens to it anyway except for a bunch of white dorks in the suburbs?

Recently, northern New Jersey rock station WDHA-FM put a meme on its Facebook page showing a picture of West alongside his comment and a picture of Metallica singer James Hetfield laughing, the inference that rock fans would find West's comments preposterous. But West is having the last laugh, and rock fans aren't doing themselves any favors by refusing to acknowledge this and react accordingly in a constructive manner. I said as much in a comment on the meme. The station deleted my comment.

I should also note that it's hard to receive WDHA the closer you get to New York City.

Rock music has become so insular that its infrastructure - fans, radio - continues to rely on aging artists and fails to do enough to support its newer ones. Recently there has been an attempt to correct that situation; people are talking about bands like Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend in a way that new bands haven't been talked about since the grunge revolt of the early nineties. We're even opening our minds and ears to rock bands from unlikely places; Phoenix, one of the coolest groups around, are from France, of all places. I sometimes wonder, however, if this is all too little, too late. With all the blows rock radio has taken - especially in New York - and with Kanye West himself seemingly having crafted a set at the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert one year ago today to make those who went to see Paul McCartney play with the surviving members of Nirvana squirm in their seats - you have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, rock fans are being ridiculed for being too insular and too smug to realize that their time is up because they didn't take the music seriously enough to keep it going for future generations . . ..

And former radio station WRXP, which switched to the Internet, went off line.

Meanwhile, WFUV-FM, the public radio station in New York, doesn't even want to admit it plays rock.  It now calls its format "music discovery," having called itself "rock and roots" beforehand, as if changing the name of the format but not the format will appeal to kids who listen to neither rock nor roots music.  Not much courage in the convictions of WFUV's new format name, is there? 

I'm still hopeful that rock can overcome its rut and come back to life the way it did when the Beatles first appeared. But rock fans shouldn't laugh at rap, anyone who performs it, or anyone who intellectualizes it for a living (hello again, Michael Eric Dyson!). Because when rock fans dismiss a threat to the music they love, they're just asking to be dismissed themselves.