Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)
The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something
something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears. After
all, Bon Scott said it best years ago:<p><pre><code>  In the beginning
  Back in nineteen fifty five
  Man didn&#x27;t know &#x27;bout a rock &#x27;n&#x27; roll show
  And all that jive
  The white man had the schmaltz
  The black man had the blues
  No one knew what they was gonna do
  But Tchaikovsky had the news
</code></pre>
(Although, Tchaikovsky? What the...?)<p>What I want to know is why young black Americans, do not, in their majority, do
rock anymore. I get that the music industry always tries to control what gets
airtime, but who needs the music industry today, and who needed the music
industry in the past? If it was for the music industry, nobody would have heard
of Jimi Hendrix- a black man with a guitar? That&#x27;ll never sell!<p>Look at metal and how it took hold. Growing up in Athens, Greece, it seemed like
every neighbourhood had a metal band and you would never know by looking at
billboards, or even coverage in the metal press (a lackey of the music industry,
if there ever was one). Euro kids took Rock from the Americans and ran with it
and made something new, all ours, and all working class (see the early years of
Sabbath and Priest in Manchester; remember the apocryphal story of Ozzy and Tony
having one pair of good shoes between them and wearing them on alternate days to
go out). Metal quickly became the authentic popular music of entire generations,
without ever any need of mainstream acceptance. Metal grew from below, with no
help from above and despite the disdainful snorts of mainstream music critics.<p>So why didn&#x27;t the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene,
instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit
music that comes from black artists for the last few decades?<p>Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is
Rock &#x27;n&#x27; Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?