(Photo by Matthew Kalapuch)
The big issue with “rock” or really any guitar based music outside of country is multifold.
So with the collapse of the major labels due to multiple factors but mostly utterly and completely fucking up the transition to digital music they are not nearly as big and powerful as they once were. The major label focus shifted towards low investment, high yield artists since 2005 or so. The three most popular genres for this are rap, country and crossover pop music. I will give examples for all three.
