Sunday morning as I was listening to Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson, my four-year-old came up to me and asked: "Is this band dead?" The day before he had asked the same thing while I was playing R.E.M.
It's been a blast to share my collection with him over the past couple of years. He's well-versed on the Beatles, Bon-Scott-era AC/DC, Queen, Wilco, with splashes of the Isley Brothers, David Bowie, and Belle & Sebastian. Some of these artists are favorites of mine, while others I was just spinning on a whim and he instantly became a bigger fan than me. But I digress.
His question got me thinking about a recurring (and boring) theme in pop music discourse since at least the late 1990s: the "Is-Rock-Dead?" discussion. I think most of us who follow music would generally agree that no, rock is not "dead" because plenty of people still play and listen to rock music, but clearly rock is not the relevant cultural force it once was. I don't think that makes me sad, even though rock or rock-adjacent music makes up about 2/3 of my record collection.
What did make me sad was Googling lists of the "top rock albums of the 2010s." I perused those lists, looking for albums that would be fun to get into, with the goal of exposing my child to contemporary rock music so that I don't feel a constant sense of disappointment every time I have to tell him "sorry, we don't get to see this band live in the future because they already broke up/retired/died." Unfortunately, most of the lists featured either artists/albums that are barely "rock," or dinosaurs decades removed from their primes.
I have plenty of records that came out in the 2000s and 2010s, but most of them do not feature the immediate blast of the "rock era" (let's say 1967ish to 1999ish). Part of it is my own fault. I have little interest in big-tent rock like the Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, or QOTSA. Also, the moodier artists that I prefer apparently don't "click" with little kids (e.g. I love Beach House and Father John Misty, but they do not "rock"; Tame Impala and Real Estate both vibe, but do not "rock"; even The War On Drugs comes up short of scratching that itch).
I'm curious to know what are people's favorite rock albums of the last 10 years. My selfish interest is to get exposure to records by artists who are still active, but obviously that need not be a restriction. I'm purposely leaving 2010 out because that was the unofficial end of the "indie rock boom" (with Arcade Fire winning the AOTY Grammy). Top 3s, Top 5s, Top 10s, unranked lists... what are your top rock (dare I say ROCK) albums of the recent past?
It's been a blast to share my collection with him over the past couple of years. He's well-versed on the Beatles, Bon-Scott-era AC/DC, Queen, Wilco, with splashes of the Isley Brothers, David Bowie, and Belle & Sebastian. Some of these artists are favorites of mine, while others I was just spinning on a whim and he instantly became a bigger fan than me. But I digress.
His question got me thinking about a recurring (and boring) theme in pop music discourse since at least the late 1990s: the "Is-Rock-Dead?" discussion. I think most of us who follow music would generally agree that no, rock is not "dead" because plenty of people still play and listen to rock music, but clearly rock is not the relevant cultural force it once was. I don't think that makes me sad, even though rock or rock-adjacent music makes up about 2/3 of my record collection.
What did make me sad was Googling lists of the "top rock albums of the 2010s." I perused those lists, looking for albums that would be fun to get into, with the goal of exposing my child to contemporary rock music so that I don't feel a constant sense of disappointment every time I have to tell him "sorry, we don't get to see this band live in the future because they already broke up/retired/died." Unfortunately, most of the lists featured either artists/albums that are barely "rock," or dinosaurs decades removed from their primes.
I have plenty of records that came out in the 2000s and 2010s, but most of them do not feature the immediate blast of the "rock era" (let's say 1967ish to 1999ish). Part of it is my own fault. I have little interest in big-tent rock like the Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, or QOTSA. Also, the moodier artists that I prefer apparently don't "click" with little kids (e.g. I love Beach House and Father John Misty, but they do not "rock"; Tame Impala and Real Estate both vibe, but do not "rock"; even The War On Drugs comes up short of scratching that itch).
I'm curious to know what are people's favorite rock albums of the last 10 years. My selfish interest is to get exposure to records by artists who are still active, but obviously that need not be a restriction. I'm purposely leaving 2010 out because that was the unofficial end of the "indie rock boom" (with Arcade Fire winning the AOTY Grammy). Top 3s, Top 5s, Top 10s, unranked lists... what are your top rock (dare I say ROCK) albums of the recent past?
