Why I Will Always Rock ’n’ Roll

“Bohemian Rhapsody.” “Sweet Home Alabama.” “Stairway to Heaven.” “Johnny B. Goode.”

These are iconic songs that everybody knows, and for good reason. That’s because all of these are rock songs.

Why is rock the best, you ask. There is so much great stuff in the top of the charts today. Why is rock still a thing if it’s so old and no one listens to it anymore?

This is a question that brings many different answers and points of view, depending on who you ask.

For me, several genres have led me throughout the years, from pop and rap to country and movie soundtracks, but if I had to pick one genre I say completely blows others out of the water and will always remain through all time, it’d be rock.

Let me give you a few reasons why you should believe rock will always be the best.

Rock bands write their own music

One of the best things about bands like Queen, Led Zeppelin, or AC/DC is that you know bands like these write their own tunes.

No one had to go to Ryan Tedder, Ed Sheeran, Andrew Watts, or Benny Blanco for lyrics or a melody. Rock bands will invent their own work, giving it a more personal, labored, and hand-crafted feel.

Freddie Mercury kept insisting on recording music long after his AIDs diagnosis because of his love for the craft and the band.

Nowadays, guys like Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin are the producers of music, with modern musicians serving as the voices, resembling a very stripped down, barebones version of how rock bands produce(d) their music.

You can count on recognizing the craft and hard work that rock bands put into their music because of doing this work themselves.

Rock bands use real instruments

Piggybacking off my previous point, it’s rare to hear legitimate instruments used in today’s popular music. Pop and R&B are two examples of genres created on a musical conveyor belt.

With rock music, these musicians will not only write their own tunes, they don’t rely on a computer to make a beat match a melody for them. They will go out of their way to form and shape music themselves.

According to 3 reasons why rock music is so popular even today, instruments and their high-pitched rhythms have continued to captivate audiences in a way that artists not using instruments just cannot do in the same way. The instruments help speak a beat and a flow into rock audiences that distinctively stands out from other genres.

Rock bands are more talented

Let’s just face it, these guys were selling out show after show and blowing up TV and radio stations everywhere, long before Autotune, personal computers, and editing software came around.

Listen to any modern popular music and you’ll likely hear effects carrying the faltering voice of kids with editing software and who know “DJs” that can make a song in a day, compensating for the lack of talent with technology and efficiency.

Technology should be what aids music production, not doing the job for you entirely.

Rock singers like Freddie Mercury, Bon Scott, Brian Johnson, Robert Plant, Roger Waters, Axl Rose, Kurt Cobain, Elvis, and John Lennon had/have killer vocals that put all modern musicians to shame.

These bands grew up working hard at their musical skills and auditioned, put out newspaper ads, saw each other in other bands, and eventually combined together to form some of the most iconic names in music history.

These bands simply blasted lyrics into unfiltered microphones and made their instruments have a voice of their own in a way that defined music in a whole new approach, one that modern musicians only wish they could accomplish.

Rock bands let the music speak for them, not brand names, outfits, or reputation

Most pop, rap, and trap rely on shouting off brand names, fancy cars, and designer clothes in order to make what they call music. Sex, violence, and foul language pervade what were once wholesome genres, relying on redundant hooks and guest rappers in order to make a Top 40 hit in this modern musical world.

Rock music, oppositely, is very raw and personal. Rock bands write about war, protest for their personal causes, and write about love and its pursuits in a way that lets the songs and albums talk for themselves.

Listening to a Metallica song might sound as if you’re listening to three or four different tunes in a single track. Brian May’s guitar solos on “Bohemian Rhapsody” become so elaborate and eclectic that you have no wonder on how it became the iconic tune it still is recognized for today.

The ways a rock band dresses doesn’t focus on having a brand name or trying to sell clothes to the audience.

When you think of KISS’s iconic makeup or Guns’n’Roses Slash’s top hat, AC/DC’s Angus Young’s schoolboy and shorts costume, or Freddie Mercury’s yellow military jacket, you see a signature piece(s) that complements the music and the band, rather than trying to cram in the power of brand names or reputation associated with certain ones.

The band doesn’t care about their reputation a lot of times, see also Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ 1980s single “Bad Reputation.”

They care nothing about starting stupid and pointless feuds with each other, trying to kill each other, or what brand or social media following they’re promoting that month.

Rock bands care about one thing: making music, and the enjoyment that comes with it.

Most rock musicians grew up with a passion for the craft and spent years training and breaking themselves into a lifetime of powerfully influencing music. They dedicate decades to evolving their sound and nodding back to older bands that inspired them to create and to experiment.

Rock bands’ music has captured a more centered and focused tone than most modern lookalike artists. Rock bands didn’t need the brand name in order to blow up the charts, but brands still increase their sales and name years later.

That being said, the brands these bands created still dominate even today, even as simply as people wearing band tees and dressing like their favorite rockers for Halloween.

If you want musicians who truly care more about their craft than themselves and are truly dedicated to it, look no further than rock music.

Rock music is iconic

Let’s just face it, when you’re watching a movie or you’re at the football game, when you hear songs like “We Will Rock You,” “Enter Sandman,” or “Back in Black”, you’re bound to have a fairly universal reaction from the audience.

Songs like these and others are so iconic that we can’t stop using them over and over again.

They may be as old as your parents or even grandparents, but songs like these are some of the best examples of music of all time.

They won’t age poorly like disco or trap music, genres that while popular for a time, sooner or later will meet an end.

Rock music, on the other hand, will always roll, bound to soundtrack the epic, the somber, and the energetic in our lives, remaining icons for generations to come.