There are a bunch of groovy rock songs that talk about how “rock will never die” or how “you can’t kill rock & roll.” I wanna believe the concept and more than once I’ve screamed, “Fuck, ya!” when I hear those words and the badass guitar riffs that go with them. It turns out it’s not really true. Rock & roll is slowly expiring because the people who dig it and make it are expiring … so bye-bye Miss American Pie.

In point of fact the music, of course, can last forever, but if no one listens to it and no one plays it live and no one records it or tries to give it a new form, then who cares? In 2017, for the first time ever, rock & roll music was surpassed by R&B and hip-hop in terms of the total number of albums, downloads, etc. sold. That means that rock is no longer the dominant musical genre in America, but of course, if you’ve been following along, you knew that. Rock music is all but irrelevant in pop culture and all you have to do is watch ten seconds of the Grammys or pick up the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine to see that the hippety-hoppers have taken over.

Did you know that music today is statistically slower and sadder? It’s scientifically true. Songs in major keys and faster tempos are known to produce happy, uplifting emotions. In the 1960s, eighty-five percent of the hit songs in the top 40 were in major chords, but in the 2000s, only forty-two percent of songs were recorded in the major chords. In the 60s, songs averaged 116 beats per minute, today’s average song only has 100 beats per minute. I guess it’s hard to be upbeat and cheerful when all the songs are about puttin’ a cap in yo’ ass.

Times change. The fact that kids want to be different from their parents has been the standard operating procedure for all of recorded time. People should listen to whatever makes them feel good and I don’t have a problem if everyone but me has on wireless headphones and only listens to digital songs created without instruments.

I know I’m a musical dinosaur, that I’m in no way hip and that I have completely lost my hop. But I also know that God gave rock & roll to me and he put it on vinyl with psychedelic LP covers and liner notes that talk about Stratocasters and Les Pauls. I don’t need to understand today’s music and today’s music doesn’t need to understand me other than one fact, the fact that we both came from the same place, the place that made our parents say, “Turn that shit down!”

A few months ago I heard an incredible song by a band I’d never heard of. I assumed it was new music and I thought, holy fuck, it’s true, rock & roll will never die, man. Turns out the song was released in 1970 by a British hard rock band. I still consider it a rock & roll miracle and I consider myself a rock & roll archeologist – diggin’ rock & roll forever and for always.

My favorite hip-hop song is “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” … They got their music, I got mine.