Rock Music Nearly Died Last Year

The year-end music charts have been released, showing, among other things, that 2010 was the worst year in rock music since 1960. According to BBC News, only three rock songs were among the Top 100 singles of 2010—the top-ranking song being Glee's pop-tinged cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing."

News isn't any better in the States, where Train's "Hey Soul Sister" is the only "rock" song—and that's even arguable—to appear in our country's Top 10. Here BBC News' Colin Patterson talks about the trend:

In 2009, 13 rock tracks were in the Top 100 singles. There were 27 in 2008.

Music Week's Ben Cardew said a "massive rock band" had not broken through since Arctic Monkeys in 2006.

"As recently as 2008, you had a lot of rock songs in there," he told the BBC's Colin Paterson.

"So to drop from 27 of the biggest sellers in 2008 to three in 2010... it's clearly something more than cyclical."

Read the full story at BBC News.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/01/rock-music-nearly-died-last-year/69306/