Which is fine, because Radiohead is still excellent. But it's a very fascinating phenomenon. My favorite band is The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones are behind them. And Pink Floyd, The Clash, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Steely Dan, AC/DC, Creedence, Bowie, Springsteen, Bob Dylan, et. al. were all, at one point or another, in constant rotation on my CD player (and then iPod). All of them were big hits in their respective eras, selling out venues left and right and attracting obsessively devoted fanbases. But more to the point, these guys--John Lennon, Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Bon Scott, Roger Waters--were fucking stars. The subject of public adoration beyond belief, the fantasy of every teenage boy and (for different reasons) teenage girl; the only way to describe their fame is to invoke Dave Chappelle--"It's hard to imagine what it's like to be that famous... Imagine, someone can suck your dick, and then they're famous."
But who do I listen to these days? Okkervil River, TV on the Radio, Wolf Parade, MGMT, The Decemberists, The Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Iron & Wine, Grizzly Bear, Wilco, The White Stripes, and so on and so forth. The White Stripes is a glaring exception, commanding both tremendous credibility among people who know what they're talking about, but also remaining famous within the mainstream, showing up on Grammy and MTV Video Music Award lists constantly. But Jack White's standing is only equivalent to Robert Plant's if you think Reservoir Dogs is equivalent to Pulp Fiction. It's just not a serious contest. Good rock music these days, for the most part, requires effort to unearth; it isn't going to be slamming through every radio station or pumping out of your TV 24/7. The bands that have replaced Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Nirvana, and Oasis as top-dog rock and roll sensations have been nearly uniform in their production of utterly terrible music.
The Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album in the past decade have gone to Foo Fighters twice, Santana, Coldplay, U2 twice, Springsteen, Green Day, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Santana and Springsteen have been around for 40 years. U2, 30. Green Day, over 20. Red Hot Chili Peppers, nearing 30. I would say that calling Coldplay "rock" is a perfect example of how things have changed; Coldplay are certainly stars, and they are about as ubiquitous as a band can be these days, and I thought Viva la Vida... was actually a pretty good album, but nobody looks at Chris Martin like people did Mick Jagger. Chris Martin isn't cool. Mick Jagger personified cool. Foo Fighters are a reasonable exception to my thinking, and they may very well be an A-level rock band with widespread appeal and decent star power. But if Foo Fighters is the best our generation can come up with, that says a lot.
Here's a good chart of MTV Awards for Best Rock Video that perfectly serves the general point here:
In almost linear fashion, the "Rock Star" factor has gone down as time has worn on. Aerosmith and Guns 'n' Roses are on one plane. Metallica, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, all very popular in their own niches, but representative of growing trends in the disaggregation of rock music. Korn, Linkin Park, and Limp Bizkit obviously represent the beginnings of a rap-rock era that held court over much of popular rock in the past decade and continues to be influential. But is anyone going to compare Fred Durst to Axl Rose?
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. In fact, the result of this trend has been more bands that I can get my arms around, and new, great albums are being pumped out at a weekly rate. As the corporatization of pop music has taken full root and the barriers to entry for budding artists have been significantly lessened because of technology, two musical worlds have been created: Billboard and Pitchfork. Nearly all the music I listened to in middle school was available on MTV; indeed, the way I found out about these bands was courtesy of MTV. Now, virtually none of the bands I like are "mainstream"; you won't see them headlining Madison Square Garden, your forty-year-old uncle will have never heard of them, and they'll never be on the cover of Rolling Stone.
And yet today is probably the best time in history to be a fan of rock music. So maybe this is all for the better.
