Where Is Rock Music in 2016? A New Compilation May Hold the Answer
Here are the five rock albums that cracked the Top 50 of the Billboard 200 this week: Coldplay, who made a pop album with Rihanna’s producers; the Beatles greatest hits album from 2000; and three albums by David Bowie, an icon whose biggest hits came out before Adele was born. What is the sound of rock music in 2016, anyway?
This question may be answered by the team behind Now That’s What I Call Music!, the iconic, zeitgeist-mining pop music compilations that have sold millions since their American debut in 1998. The very first Now That’s What I Call Rock! album is being released today, and its wide-reaching, “big tent” attitude could change the way music listeners think about a genre that, in its 65th year, is still beloved by millions but currently in the commercial doldrums. Over 18 tracks, Now That’s What I Call Rock! makes room for bands with future-minded EDM textures (Bring Me the Horizon, Fall Out Boy), summer festival blues-rock chug (Royal Blood, Cage the Elephant), arena alternative (Walk the Moon, Imagine Dragons, X Ambassadors), post-Tool hard rock (Seether, Breaking Benjamin), triumphant psych-pop (Florence and the Machine, Børns) and cosmopolitan retro experiments (Elle King, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats). In short, completely different bands marketed to completely different audiences, all under one roof to celebrate a shared love of electric guitars and high energy performance.
Jeff Moskow, Now head of A&R since 2000, and co-producer Cliff Chenfeld talked to Rolling Stone about the ambitious project that successfully fits the mess of contemporary rock music into a neat package.
What was the genesis of this project?
Moskow: Rock has played a significant role in Now over the years. Probably a bit more so in the beginning, and then there was obviously a pretty significant lull. As we sort of noticed things coming back in rock, we looked at things culturally and we said, you know, this could really be a good moment to tell the story of what’s happening. … It seems to be escalating and increasing in its popularity again. … Frankly, I missed it, you know? I missed having rock represented.
The other thing we really wanted to do is sort of create a big tent for rock. The fact that we’ve got things on this record — artists like Børns and Elle King and Walk the Moon on the same record as Bring Me the Horizon and Shinedown and Royal Blood and Fall Out Boy and Seether — is because we really want to show that rock is a big tent. … There’s so much going on with rock, you know, “alternative rock” and “active rock” is still “rock.” And, you know, that message I think comes through loud and clear on this project.
Chenfeld: This genre that we are now calling “rock” in 2016 is really almost counter-programming on some level to what’s going on in mainstream pop. It’s still bands that are, you know, slightly less produced and slightly more guitar-centric, so you got a situation where people are kind of working in a genre that has been around for awhile, taking it to new places, but still maintaining some connection with what’s always made rock great for 50 years. … There are heavier rock bands, there’s alternative rock bands, there’s bands that are called rock that are more singer/songwriter; and part of what we were trying to do was use this collection to kind of bring rock up to date in terms of what people think rock is, as opposed to using a term for rock that might have defined what rock was in 1994 [or] 1979.