In the Shadow of Hip-Hop

For decades, Hollywood and the Sunset Strip served as a symbol of the interlocking ties between rock ‘n’ roll and young America. It was in clubs and concert halls here that such influential bands as the Byrds, Doors, the Eagles, Van Halen and Guns ‘N Roses honed their craft.

Now, the sound you are most likely to hear on the Strip and the streets of Hollywood is from passing motorists: the hip-hop of Master P, DMX, Wyclef Jean or Busta Rhymes.

Yes, rock ‘n’ roll has died (again).

The writing was on the pop charts in 1998, and the news echoed across the airwaves.

And this time the music may not recover, because for the first time in its four-decade history, rock ‘n’ roll has lost the allegiance of its young target audience--as well as virtually all meaningful contact with the over-30 constituency that championed it for years.

Completing a trend that had been building through the ‘90s, rock was reduced during the last 12 months to the fringes of the youth scene. It still generated millions of dollars in sales this year, but mostly through tired, dead-end sounds--the aimless novelty of Sugar Ray, the uninspired mainstream stylings of Matchbox 20, the cartoonish swing of the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and the generic rage of Korn.

There is little about these 1998 bestsellers that liberates and inspires the way the best bands, from the Beatles to U2, have done over the years. That essential role has shifted to hip-hop, whose cultural revolution, like rock in the ‘50s and the ‘60s, has engulfed everything from TV commercials to fashion.

Rock continues to be the biggest seller by genre. According to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, rock accounted for 32.5% of the industry’s $12.3 billion in sales during 1997.

But that figure is down from 46.2% a decade ago--and it includes huge chunks of reissues and new releases by groups, such as the Dave Matthews Band and Barenaked Ladies, that lean more on the tamer pop side of the pop-rock equation than the challenging rock side. The market share for new alternative-rock releases--the most creative area of rock over the last two decades--is believed to be under 5%.

Meanwhile, rap’s share of U.S. pop has increased 150% over the last 10 years to 10%, and that figure is believed to be still rising.

Even if you want to make a case that rock and hip-hop merely shared the pop spotlight during 1998, it was clearly a one-sided battle. Hip-hop is where the cultural excitement rests. Where rock generally seemed devoid of fresh ideas and sounds, hip-hop was is filled with attitude and energy--a point underscored by its dominant presence on MTV and in such former rock citadels as Rolling Stone and Spin magazines.

When rock had slumps in the past, there was always confidence in the field that the next surge of creative energy was just around the corner.

And some argue that all it will take for rock to rebound is for someone to come along with great songs and compelling ideas--just as Kurt Cobain did when Nirvana ignited the grunge movement in the early ‘90s.

But who says the next great songwriter won’t be someone who applies his ideas to hip-hop?

The fact that that question can be seriously raised at the start of the new year underscores the changing of the guard in pop.

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When rock ‘n’ roll was pronounced dead the first time, it was by parents in the early ‘60s who had never believed in the rebellious music anyway. Most of the stars who defined rock in the ‘50s were missing in action: Elvis in the Army, Chuck Berry in prison, Buddy Holly dead in a plane crash, Jerry Lee Lewis disgraced after the news of his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin.

Even as the obituary was being written, however, a new generation of future stars was already working on songs that would not only return rock to the top of the charts, but also infuse it with an ambition and commentary that would take it farther than even its staunchest fans in the ‘50s would have imagined.

By the mid-’70s, however, the music was again under attack--this time by young fans who felt it had become bloated and out of touch with the spirit of the times. In an assault on the vast pop machinery that was defined by the term “corporate rock,” the punk movement set out not to kill rock but to reinvent it--and another group of great artists, from the Clash and Elvis Costello to Talking Heads and eventually R.E.M. and U2, came into prominence.

In the late ‘80s, it was the media that began to chant that the music was dead. These were the early days of the rock video era and everything seemed sanitized and polished. Daring artists were in woefully short supply.

But rock got a reprieve in the early ‘90s when a group of Seattle bands, led by Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, emerged with grunge--a hard, raw, angry style whose dark, unsettling themes expressed the anger of those growing up in what they felt was an age of lowered expectations and ideals. Rather than criticize authorities and institutions for society’s problems, they generally blamed their parents’ generation for failing to live up to the ideals outlined in their ‘60s rock.

To the parents who had grown up on the Beatles and Dylan, the new music seemed unreasonably negative and whiny.

Adults who had been slowly drifting away from rock, because fewer and fewer artists addressed their emotional needs, became so isolated from the music that they they didn’t even reconnect when a wave of post-grunge bands, including the Verve and the Smashing Pumpkins, came on the scene in recent years and conveyed the kind of thoughtful idealism and musical craft that had marked the most prized rock in earlier generations.

Not only did these challenging bands suffer commercially during 1998 because they couldn’t reach a post-30 audience, but they also found it hard to build a solid connection with the young rock audience because rock radio had become dominated by novelty-based pop-rock. It was startling during the year to watch one quality rock act after another turn in disappointing sales performances: the Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., Hole, Marilyn Manson. It felt at times like the virtual last rites for rock as the main voice of young America.

This void has contributed to the spread of hip-hop, which adults may still see as a passing fad, but which has been building a bond with young admirers since the mid-’80s.

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It has been a dozen years since rap invaded the pop-rock mainstream with Run-DMC’s version of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” a record that showed how easily rap could absorb the personality and purpose of rock.

At first, rock audiences treated rap with no more respect than they had shown for disco. Both styles were widely dismissed as essentially party-minded music at first--just as rock had been by adults in the ‘50s.

But rap quickly proved it was not the next step in disco. More than any style since punk, it expressed the aspirations and frustrations of a new generation.

In Chuck D, KRS-One and Ice Cube, rap gave us new young artists who articulated the feelings of young black America with much of the power and depth that Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Bob Marley had shown in reflecting earlier audiences. Ice Cube and his group N.W.A largely defined rap’s most flamboyant and misunderstood strain: gangsta rap.

It’s the raw, aggressive style that captured the attention of two elements of the rock audience: the taste-maker crowd, which responded to the genuine artistic impulses of such artists as 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G., and the headbanger audience, which was enthralled by the outlaw nature of the music’s violent imagery.

Unfortunately, rap has become so caught up in relentless thug-life themes that much of the music is now as predictable as conventional heavy metal. Its main lure often rests in the always dazzling beats and other production touches.

The remarkable aspect of hip-hop’s growth is that its creative and commercial peak may be ahead.

Rap is in its infancy in terms of touring, and mainstream radio has yet to fully embrace the sound, meaning there is lots of airplay waiting if hip-hop develops more artists with the pop sensibilities of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. There are also encouraging signs in the work of those artists and others, such as OutKast, that rappers can venture beyond the thug life and still sell millions of records.

The music could also make dramatic leaps commercially if tomorrow’s equivalent of Cobain or U2’s Bono or R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe channels his or her experiences into hip-hop.

If there is a rock-rap coalition, both scenes have much to gain. For rock, it could mean a much-needed creative spark, especially in the area of production techniques and sound textures. For rap, it could introduce another whole layer of popularity--a bridge to that segment of the rock audience that finds it hard to identify with the urban commentaries of many of today’s hard-core rappers.

And there is much in pop history to suggest a merger of styles is possible. Rock has shown a great instinct over the years for absorbing outside influences, from country and funk to reggae and soul.

The promise of this rock-rap fusion is already being underscored by the success of Beck, the Beastie Boys and, most recently, Everlast.

Could there still be time for one more rock resurrection . . . perhaps a last, hip-hop hurrah?