During a recent interview with Gulf News, KISS‘ Gene Simmons has once again said that rock is dead.
“Rock is dead. And that’s because new bands haven’t taken the time to create glamor, excitement and epic stuff,” Simmons said. “I mean, FOO FIGHTERS is a terrific band, but that’s a 20-year-old band. So you can go back to 1958 until 1988. That’s 30 years. During that time, we had Elvis [Presley], THE BEATLES, Jimi Hendrix, ROLLING STONES, on and on.
“In disco, you had Madonna, and then you had your hard rock, you had AC/DC, maybe us, a few others. Motown, all that great music. From 1988, until today, that’s more than 30 years. Tell me who the new BEATLES is. You can’t. There are popular bands. BTS is very popular. All kinds of bands are very popular. That doesn’t mean iconic and legacy and for all time. It’s different.”
When asked if he thinks time will tell if some acts are going to be iconic in another 30 years, Simmons responded: “I doubt it. Because the singularity that was THE BEATLES is a band that wrote their own songs, arranged it themselves, produced it themselves, mostly played all their own instruments. No backing tracks. No digital enhancement. No vocal correctness. Yeah, not gonna happen again.
“You know, the modern artists rely so much on technology,” he continued. “You may not be able to recognize the artist if they record themselves singing in the shower. You’d be shocked. And none of the rappers play instruments. Don’t write songs. They write words. But chords, melodies, harmonies and stuff. It doesn’t mean that rap isn’t important. It’s very important. But it ain’t THE BEATLES.”
“I think Billie Eilish is fantastic,” Gene added. “She’s interesting because she and her brother actually write the material and are unique to themselves. Lady Gaga is fantastic in the female category. She writes her own material, she can sing like nobody’s business. But she actually is a musician, writes her own songs, plays piano, she can actually do that. The rest of the world reacts to a lot of the pop divas, although mostly they don’t write their own songs and can’t play an instrument. And by the way, that’s okay, too. It doesn’t matter what you like. But it ain’t THE BEATLES.”
