Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Remember. Keep a tight sphincter.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

I don't know why people are noticing this now. Teens have no idea who Black Sabbath, the Beatles or Led Zeppelin are. Their parents aren't taking them to see live music. Guitar is like a recorder to them- something archaic that they can't relate to. We have no true guitar heroes making iconic music.

maybe it goes the other way around. My daughter grew among electric guitars, not caring about guitar, I tried to put her into Piano lessons, she has very good voice, choir didn't work either, now listens to rap music and tries to mimic the accent of the USA ghetto ppl. So maybe young kids regard guitar-music as archaic as Mozart sounds to us.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

My youngster loves guitar music. (and other music also, but not as much as gaming lol)
He even knows many of the lyrics to many rock/metal classics. (just from the car-riding, mostly local FM radio)
Jukebox Hero, We Will Rock You (which btw I contend is now the world's most instantly recognizable rock song/groove/beat), We're Not Gonna Take It,,,ect.
Def Leppard Hysteria and Pyromania are two of his favorites in that genre,,,,,,,,,,,,we both just looove stagefright!!!
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Electric guitar didn't play a major role if any, in pop music, in the 70s (Donna Summers, Girogio Moroder, Kraftwerk), 80s (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney, Duran Duran, A-ha, Rick Astley, Debbie Gibson), 90s (boy bands), but I don't see anyone complainin'.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Seriously, though, finding pop music with hot guitar work in it in the 70s and 80s is very easy. 90s until now? My guess is that it would show a steady decline in use over time.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

maybe it goes the other way around. My daughter grew among electric guitars, not caring about guitar, I tried to put her into Piano lessons, she has very good voice, choir didn't work either, now listens to rap music and tries to mimic the accent of the USA ghetto ppl. So maybe young kids regard guitar-music as archaic as Mozart sounds to us.
Mozart sounds archaic?

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Problem is that the media consistently shovels artists like Drake, Beyonce and Jay-z down the throats of our youth. Compounded by the fact that there aren't any new guitar hero's for the younger generation to aspire to like they had in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Problem is that the media consistently shovels artists like Drake, Beyonce and Jay-z down the throats of our youth.

Do acts like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Prince, and Lenny Kravitz seem to have any impact?
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

As mentioned, none of this is new, but it's been such a slow process, and in the last ten years we went from kids still listening to rock music (that "we" thought sucked,) to not even having any to listen to, to not knowing what it really is. It's been how long now since Guitar Hero? That was the last social phenomenon that really made Rock acceptable.

There will always be hold-outs; I still see black metal kids and "hardcore" kids, kids who find fashion in listening to Pink Floyd and Zeppelin, they are of course not the majority.

If it's any comfort to show we're not singled out, we could say it's not just guitar music dying, but music with an actual melodic structure and any sort of complex harmony dying in whole? My brother's family takes their ten to sixteen year old kids to see rock acts (The Offspring and other 90s bands, nothing new,) my niece has a passing interest in learning guitar (for the sake of... Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.) I guess overall if there's a way for rock music and guitar to come back, it needs to retreat into the depths of sub-culture first, which is where it has been known to thrive anyway.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?


Yeah I knew some dope would come up with that beat-up 'Beat It' video to prove me wrong. Guess what, it's old. By the way, you do realize that the almighty Greg Howe also played in his tour right?

Definitely my point has lost in translation. I said 'guitar didn't play a major role if any' in pop music. You can do away with it and that pop music wouldn't even lose its identity. I can't hear piano in metal music but no piano players complain about it (sooner or later some dope is gonna pop up a Mesuggah video with a Mozart snippet in it...ha..ha).

You want guitar, go listen to rock music. You want saxophone, listen to jazz. Problem solved.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Rock music was still huge in the 80s and 90s.. You might not hear a ton of guitar in pure pop music, but they were still using organic instruments and it inspired people to learn to sing, play piano, or other actual instruments. There was a battle between rock music and pop music back then- now, current rock music isn't even on the radar for a lot of people.
So, it is up to use to change it, right? So, get a band together, and release some music out there.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Yeah I knew some dope would come up with that beat-up 'Beat It' video to prove me wrong. Guess what, it's old.

Huh? Your original statement was

Electric guitar didn't play a major role if any, in pop music, in the … 80s (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney, Duran Duran, A-ha, Rick Astley, Debbie Gibson) … but I don't see anyone complainin'.

so when you now brush off one of the most famous examples to the contrary as being "old" I must honestly say that I have no idea what you were looking for.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

I can't hear piano in metal music but no piano players complain about it (sooner or later some dope is gonna pop up a Mesuggah video with a Mozart snippet in it...ha..ha).

It depends on your definition of "metal", of course, but if you consider it an exclusive genre with a history going as far back as the term itself as applied to music, then I surely remember hearing it in a UFO song or two. ;)
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Electric guitar didn't play a major role if any, in pop music, in the 70s (Donna Summers, Girogio Moroder, Kraftwerk), 80s (Madonna, Michael Jackson, Whitney, Duran Duran, A-ha, Rick Astley, Debbie Gibson), 90s (boy bands), but I don't see anyone complainin'.

I complain every darned time I hear that crap! lol
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

So, it is up to use to change it, right? So, get a band together, and release some music out there.

We're too busy watching scratchy YouTube videos/reading about gear online and arguing about it. Can't save rock if you use the wrong magnet in your Full Shred/Super Distortion hybrid.
 
Re: Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

The focus on sales and production costs over for supporting and developing new artists making new music is a process that started in the early '80s, when lawyers and accountants took over the management at the top all the major labels. The results was to push all artists that their "production costs" have been paid for, perpetuating many artists which came out in the mid-'60s to late '70s. It's all about the ROI.

Also the contracts new musicians sign today, make'em pay themselves for all the costs the labels generate, when in the past the label paid their fair share. So today, after all astronomic costs of every single aspect of creating, promoting, recording and releasing the product are paid for, in many cases the artist that generated say, 5 million in sales, in many cases they've been left with less than $100,000 in their pockets when everything went well, to a million in debt, so the artist had to take another mortgage on their properties, just to be able to survive.

Greed and its consequential economic power over the people is what makes the world go round today, and even make many complot theories more than plausible. As it's not going to change anytime soon, better get used to it.

"You come into this world screaming, life sucks, then you die. That's going to be your story and it's nothing you can do to change it."
- anonimous quote

That's quite bleak way to see it. Music industry is not just a global market or billboard list. Big companies spend millions on marketing, that does give them huge sales, and boost artists. But also means that they'll stuck with what could tap on largest possible audience.

On the otherside of this are the small, more regionalized companies that actually focus on music. It's cheaper to market, costs are minimal compared to big companies. And when done well, music pretty much sells itself. It doesn't matter if audience is small, when costs are not too high. There are plenty of examples of that kind of companies, that produce good music with success.

Electric guitar is not going to die obviously. But it's never going to get as big as it was in 80's, because PC and keyboards have taken it's place as general "multi-sound" instrument.
 
Are Electric Guitars Dying A Slow Death?

Definitely my point has lost in translation. I said 'guitar didn't play a major role if any' in pop music. You can do away with it and that pop music wouldn't even lose its identity.

Perhaps I'm not thinking along the same lines here, but I've never considered "pop" to be a genre... but rather a shortened version of the word "popular." Compare the pop of the 60s,70s, 80s, 90s, etc. and you see many faces to it. So many, in fact, that you can't really classify them together as a genre... it's too fluid.

When you go by popularity, however, you can see different genres coming in and out of pop. I'm talking Billboard Top 40 here, arguably the best example of a "pop list" at any given time for the past 50 years or so.

In the eighties, guitar was VERY MUCH a major roleplayer in pop music because rock was still very much a player as a genre in pop.

Rock used to cover a pretty wide range of bands back then. We all think right away of hard rock bands of the eighties like Def Leppard, Ozzy, Van Halen, Scorps... you all know that the list goes on and on. But we forget about the great guitar-centered rock/pop acts that were rampant in the eighties WITHOUT being hard rock bands. Consider Huey Lewis, Bryan Adams, Chicago, John Cougar-Mellencamp... hell, even Duran Duran!

Pop is different now, and rock's (as the biggest guitar genre) influence on it has become almost nil. There are no light-to-mid rock bands today... just heavy ones. Country (the other guitar-driven genre) is now closer to being the rock of the 70s/80s than the hip hop/dance music that is so prevalent in today's top 40, but it seems that none of the popular music of today is generating guitar heroes to emulate (or bassists, drummers, keyboardists, etc. for that matter).

And why would anyone in this generation of youth have any interest in learning to actually play ANY instrument? It takes YEARS to become good, and you arguably NEVER master it. A computer/pad/phone with the right software is all anyone needs to be able to make listenable music, and you can start making cool stuff in MINUTES! What we all see as a lifelong gift/passion/challenge in playing our guitars and learning about them is seen as tedium and wasted time by this generation.

I'd be interested to see if other instruments are suffering the same downward sales trend... I really think it's because of this lazy new I-don't-give-a-$#!+-about-anything generation.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top