Rammstein guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe addressed the increasingly smaller commercial profile of rock and dwindling album sales, saying that "the rebellion in rock is kind of over."
In recent years, hip-hop has surpassed rock as the most popular genre in the US, consistently appearing at the top as the biggest in terms of total consumption, which includes physical CD sales and streaming numbers equivalent to albums.
Kruspe, who is promoting the new album from his project Emigrate , spoke about the decline in rock's popularity in a new interview with Summa Inferno .
The guitarist says that besides rock, music in general used to have a "mission." "Rock used to be the music we would use to rebel against our parents. I remember when I was little, I would play rock and my parents would come in and say, 'Can you turn it down?' Nowadays, when my kids play rock, I come in and say, 'Can you turn it up?' The rebellion in rock is over," he said.
“That’s why I think rebellion today is more in the lyrics. That’s why I find hip-hop so popular: because the younger generation needs to rebel. But that will also end, and the next generation will move on to something else. I don’t know if rock will come back, but at the moment, obviously, it has changed and is not a high priority in the music world,” he concluded.
Kruspe also lamented the lack of new rock bands capable of headlining festivals in the future. “[Bands like Rammstein and Metallica ] are all like dinosaurs. I mean, think about it. All those dinosaur bands, they're ancient,” he stated.
“We are old [in comparison]. The younger generation, maybe they are also listening to rock, but they are also interested in other types of music. And the other problem is that these big bands aren't the ones that come after. I always talk about these stadium bands. It's almost over. What's the last stadium band, do you know? Maybe Muse was the last one. I'm talking about huge stadium bands that can play in a stadium. They are dwindling and becoming fewer and fewer, and they will certainly die out.”
Emigrate's fourth LP, The Persistence Of Memory , was released on November 5th.
A year and a half ago, Rammstein postponed their 2020 North American stadium tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was postponed to mid-2021 before being postponed again, this time to mid-2022.
