11 minute read
Rock Enters a New Age—Again
from October 2021
Rap, hip-hop and pop are dominating the music industry these days, but rockers say their genre is just in a down cycle
By Kendall Polidori
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Back in the '90s when Blink-182 was touring on angsty albums like Cheshire Cat and Dude Ranch, singer and guitarist Tom DeLonge would spend weeks on end in the back of a van, dirty and getting into fights with random people. Today, traveling with his space-rock band Angels & Airwaves, DeLonge noted that it doesn’t look quite the same as it used to for punk-rock bands—for a multitude of reasons that are easier to explain by saying, “We’re in a new era.”
During an interview with Luckbox before his July Lollapalooza performance in Chicago, DeLonge said rock goes through cycles. These days, rap/hip-hop and pop artists dominate the U.S. music industry, with rap/hip-hop the moststreamed genre, according to 2020 MRC data. But rock remains the second most-streamed music genre with 16.3% of on-demand audio streams last year. Pop was behind it with 13.1%.
However, the streaming numbers are driven by golden oldies performers like Queen (929,000 streams), Elton John (743,000), Fleetwood Mac (721,000), Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty (630,000), and Journey (561,000).
For today’s festivals, headliners are undeniably chosen for their streaming numbers and popularity. At Lollapalooza this year, the only obtainable classic rock artist with high streaming numbers was Journey, and they headlined one day of the show.
With rap/hip-hop holding the No. 1 spot for most-streamed music genre, featured made up of artists grounded in alternative rock, industrial music and rap: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, and Ice-T and the Body Count. For a few years, the festival maintained musical acts within those three genres but has gradually expanded to embrace the moment’s most popular music and artists, hence choosing artists with high streaming numbers and the most attention on social media platforms such as TikTok.
But, that’s not to say the festival lineup doesn’t cater to music-discovery lovers looking for smaller indie bands, such as Post Animal, ROOKIE, Mt. Joy, Whitney, Dayglow and Neal Francis. The fest also featured renowned rock bands like the Foo Fighters, Black Pistol Fire, Modest Mouse and Band of Horses.
As a veteran rocker himself, DeLonge said rock has changed because of how it’s recorded. In the days of “classic rock” bands like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, music was recorded to have a raw, live sound. Now, artists pay more attention to how a song sounds digitally.
“Back then, classic rock was recording reel to reel—analog,” DeLonge said. “So you had to write songs together, practice those parts, and then you all come in and record them delicately on analog tape. With computers, I don’t know anybody that writes in a room together and practices it.”
The accessibility of computers and editing software has made it easy for just about anyone to write a catchy song—but DeLonge questions what’s behind much of today’s music: Who the people are, where they’re from, what they’re trying to say or if they even have anything to say.
“It seems to me like everyone is starting to notice that there are a lot of hollow catchy songs out there,” he said. “I feel like this is the beginning of bringing guitars back, bringing angst back, bringing back something that has a soul, that has a reason for existing and a point of view that’s worth listening to. And that’s rock ‘n’ roll—that’s our job, right?”
Angels & Airwaves returned to live music with their first in-person show since before the pandemic when they played the Lake Shore Stage in July at Lollapalooza in Chicago.
DeLonge’s not alone in his nostalgia. All five members of Chicago-based indie psychedelic rock band Post Animal said they would like to see more rock acts at festivals like Lollapalooza, but with the evolution of music comes the evolution of headlining names.
Like DeLonge, the Post boys agree that rock is cyclical—phasing in and out of popularity. Now, with a few years of touring and recording behind them, the members of Post Animal believe rock is making a comeback, but in a new way. The band grew a loyal following by touring in a van across the U.S. playing fast and heavy garage rock—a sound that surely inspired a few mosh pits. But, as with their most recent album Forward Motion Godyssey,
which illuminates experimental synths reminiscent of those on Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon album, they’re willing to evolve.
The band has always appreciated other genres and sounds, and members felt it was time to try something new—as there’s only so much musicians can do before falling into the black hole of psychedelic rock, unable to write anything with range. They consider themselves a live band, though, noting that they don’t make music for streaming but instead make it for people to hear at live shows.
“We embrace the spectrum of modern rock,” the band members agreed. “We really do think there are a lot of people listening to rock music and rock bands, but maybe they’re not using the same platforms to listen to their music.”
According to 2020 MRC data, rock music had 19.2% of total album-equivalent consumption by format for physical albums, or vinyl records, whereas R&B/hip-hop only had 3.7% of total album consumption from physical sales.
Max Loebman, singer and guitarist for Chicago-based rock band ROOKIE, said most rock fans buy vinyl over streaming because that’s the point of rock—getting as close as possible to the imperfect and authentic sound. He doesn’t feel slighted as a rock artist, despite higher demand for rap/hip-hop artists at festivals, because there’s always a space and place for any genre of music.
With bands like The Black Keys, Foo Fighters and Greta Van Fleet playing large arena shows, Loebman said it’s hard to say that rock is dying. Instead, it’s just surviving in a new way.
Angels & Airwaves released LIFE- FORMS in September, seven years after their last full-length album.
For Angels & Airwaves, DeLonge acknowledged that the band’s sound does not plug into the way the market is right now. He said Pearl Jam still operates that way today—they roll into a town on tour and play a stadium show. But hardly anyone is aware they play stadiums.
“No one’s talking about it, it’s not on the radio stations and there’s no posters,” DeLonge said of the band’s stadium gigs. “But everyone that was there is like, ‘That was the best show ever.’ That’s a really cool place to aim for, where you’ve built something that’s on your own terms.”
Chicago-based psych-rock band Post Animal took to the Tito’s Handmade Vodka stage in July during Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival.
STREAMING DOLLARS
Recorded music produced an estimated revenue of $12.2 BILLION in the United States last year, up 9.2% from the year before. Streaming accounted for $10.1 BILLION, which was 83% of the total and 13.4% higher year-over-year. Physical music sales of $1.1 BILLION were just 9% of total revenue, while vinyl records earned $626 MILLION or 5.2% of the total.
RECORD HIGH
Punk-rocker Turned UFO Researcher
By Kendall Polidori
He’s not just a musician, and Angels & Airwaves is not just a band— Tom DeLonge creates and educates through ‘psychic warfare’
Tom DeLonge opened up about punk music, human kind and what it means to be a good person during an interview with Luckbox.
Like any other punk rock kid hanging out in a garage and making music about broken homes with buddies who also came from broken homes, Tom DeLonge couldn’t care less what people thought of him. For photo shoots, he sported only boxer briefs and sometimes not even those. He ran around vandalizing whatever he pleased and pining after girls.
Though DeLonge’s obviously matured over the years, when he walked into a dimly lit Chicago hotel lobby for an interview with Luckbox before his Lollapalooza set, he was wearing a wrinkled navy blue tee, jeans and a red trucker hat. He had an iced tea in hand, and it was evident he was not the same person he was back then. He looked like a dad—a regular guy—which is exactly who he is and wants to be.
When DeLonge left Blink-182 in 2005, none of his fans quite understood why. Here was a punk rocker known for making sex jokes onstage and running around naked in music videos suddenly starting a new band with a mantra of Love.
“I knew back then everyone was going to think this was the stupidest thing—they didn’t understand,”
DeLonge said before taking the stage with his band Angels & Airwaves. “It wasn’t normal for a punk rock kind of thing to have that, but that’s why I wanted to do it.”
Back in 2005, DeLonge finally had a vision for what his new band project was meant to be but said it took up until two years ago for it to really click with people. On the band’s most recent tour in 2019, the fanbase seemed to grow significantly, and now DeLonge and the other members of the band are able to present themselves in a way they always wanted to.
“It’s cool to be a good person, to have love in your heart and treat people with respect,” he said. “It’s an energy thing. It’s a conscious thing. It’s a physics thing. So my goal with Angels is to get people to understand that being self-aware and improving the lives of others around you, literally is a physics-level fundamental expression of us as human beings.”
DeLonge describes what he is doing as his own version of psychic warfare to make being a genuinely good person not so taboo, which includes managing his company, To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences (TTSA), a research development and media center for science and technology.
Through the company and its subsidiary, To The Stars Inc., DeLonge and his team have published books, produced documentaries, started a podcast and most notably have confronted government officials, pushing them to release the results of their UFO research.
Even before the Adventure of Angels & Airwaves, DeLonge was screaming at Blink-182 fans that Aliens Exist and obviously was not taken seriously. His personal research down the UFO rabbit hole started with simple curiosity and grew significantly as he found out more. Soon, it became impossible to resist.
But it wasn’t until 2017 that his work was highly recognized. That’s when he received the UFO Researcher of the Year Award. Then in 2019 some of his findings were substantiated: The Navy confirmed that videos released by TTSA did indeed capture likenesses of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).
That same year, a New York Times article titled “Glowing Auras And ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program” prompted skeptics to take another look at what DeLonge was shouting into the void for years.
More reports are surfacing because of DeLonge’s efforts to inform people. Earlier this year, the Pentagon released the Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Report, which DeLonge traces to his team’s effort to set up briefings in Congress and at intelligence agencies.
The report represents the most direct U.S. government account of what officials call UAPs ever made public. It lists five possible explanations for UAPs but still states that researchers don’t know what the UAPs were.
Not speaking for his team or company, DeLonge said he personally believes the government knows a lot more than the most recent UAP report suggests. It states that one possible explanation for UAPs is they’re technologies deployed by “China, Russia, another nation or a non-governmental entity.”
He knows a lot that most people don’t, and he focuses on telling stories in a digestible way through To The Stars books and films. But much of what he knows is classified and what he can “expose” is limited.
“People will not fucking believe what went down,” DeLonge said.
“I mean, they just can’t even grasp it. It’s going to scare a lot of people, and so we just have to go step-by-step. It’s going to change the world.”
How much? “These are giant games that are dealing with consciousness and the social engineering of mankind,” he insisted.
It’s difficult not to question how someone who came of age as a punk rocker and skateboarder would go on to research UFOs, but DeLonge has a sense of wonder that leads him down many paths.
The point of Angels & Airwaves was to produce work through multimedia platforms, and he has been doing just that. After incubating for three years, the band’s sixth album,
LIFEFORMS, was released in September.
The album returns to DeLonge’s garage punk origins with heavy guitars and speedy interludes. It diverges from his later synth-focused space rock to get faster and more angsty.
DeLonge writes music for himself, not for the radio or to fit a streaming algorithm. With LIFEFORMS he uses what he’s learned over the years to take a hard look at humankind and how lives intersect.
“I go through life now knowing— not wondering—that my mindset and my vibration will affect every single thing around me, from my health to the people around me that I love, to the art that I create,” DeLonge said.
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
1992: Blink-182 forms in Poway, California.
1999: Blink-182 releases platinum selling album Dude Ranch.
2005: Blink-182 goes on hiatus. Angels & Airwaves is formed.
2006: Angels & Airwaves releases debut album We Don’t Need To Whisper.
2015: DeLonge assembles a team to pursue government data on UFO findings.
2017: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) launches with three divisions: science, technology and entertainment. The company is composed of scientists, engineers and creatives.
2021 (SEPT): Angels & Airwaves releases LIFEFORMS album.
