We were cleaning up after dinner. The sounds of Third Eye Blind filled the kitchen as we scraped plates, soaked pans, and went about washing knives and forks. My wife turned to me and asked, “Do Zoomers play in bands?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I thought to myself, trying to figure out if I knew any Zoomer bands, but I couldn’t think of a single one. I responded quizzically, “I don’t really know, to be honest. Maybe they just make electronic music these days.”

Tapping in your room on Ableton isn’t social, and it’s not really very impressive to the girls you like, either. They want to see strumming and singing, not clicking and dragging.

This happened a few days ago, I’ve been thinking about the question ever since, and I still don’t know if there are Zoomer bands.

Sonic youth

Now, of course, I am old, and I am not seeking out new music. I am not trying (and failing) to be younger than I am. But still, I am not blind or deaf, I am online, I do have some idea of the new music that comes down the pike, I do know the general sonic trends today, I do know Zoomers, and I don’t really think there are Zoomer bands like there were Millennial bands or Gen X bands or Boomer bands.

I am sure there are some Zoomer bands here and there. They are probably very indie and have fewer yet more devoted followers, and they are probably making some really cool stuff.

But rock and everything related doesn’t have the same cultural impact it once did. I remember when I was a kid, it felt like everything that coded as young and fun involved an electric guitar. Yeah, there was rap, but honestly I didn’t listen to it and I didn’t really know anyone who did. Maybe it was where I grew up (in the middle of nowhere), but rap wasn’t really much of a thing.

Born slippy

The same was true for electronic music and what eventually came to be known as EDM.

When I was in high school, we never heard techno, trance, or anything electronic anywhere except in a scene from a movie set in Sweden. It was when I went to Europe in high school that I first really heard EDM in a concentrated way. I stayed with a host family in Austria. My host brother gave me a data CD with a bunch of techno on it. I brought it back to the U.S. and thought it was so cool. It felt so foreign and so European.

Back in those days, rock ruled. Mainstream stuff was on the radio and MTV, and the better more independent-ish stuff was not. The sound of youth was rock. Today, it’s rap and EDM that rule; rock has faded into the sonic background.

I think there are probably a lot of good explanations for the decline of rock. The ways that societies evolve and change are complex. Social factors, demographics, technological developments, world politics, and economic realities all work together to impact things seemingly unrelated. Nevertheless, whatever the reason(s) why, the electric guitar no longer means what it used to mean.

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OK computer

Instead of electric guitar or drums, young people play around on software known as digital audio workstations — and they are worse off because of it.

I don’t say that out of ignorance of the medium or simple nostalgia for the distortion pedal. I grew up in music, studied classical music in college, played in bands along the way, and worked in acoustic music for some years. I've also produced electronic commercial music in a DAW for years, and trust me — it’s a totally different experience.

At the base, when you are making electronic music, you are alone. You are stationary. You are sitting at a desk moving only your fingers, staring at a screen, tweaking little digital dials to achieve the desired result. It’s a very sterile experience. It’s creative for sure, and it can be very fun, but it isn’t at all like playing in a band.

Making electronic music in the DAW is geared almost entirely toward the end result, while playing guitar in a band is geared toward the present experience, or at least partly the present experience. The experience working in the DAW is lonely; the experience playing in the band is social. The process of producing music on the computer is docile; the act of playing an instrument is physical.

Old time rock & roll

I like electronic music. Making it used to be my job. But I don’t think its replacing of rock is necessarily good. When rock was dominant, young boys wanted to play guitar, bass, or drums so they could play like the bands they loved and maybe impress the girls they liked.

They got together, played in their parents’ garage, sounded like garbage, but had a good time together while maybe, hopefully, improving on their instruments. And even if not, at least they were a group.

There is no comparable experience in the era of electronic music. Tapping in your room on Ableton isn’t social, and it’s not really very impressive to the girls you like, either. They want to see strumming and singing, not clicking and dragging. I met my wife when I played live music, not when I made electronic music.

Rock, at the end of the day, was something full of vital energy. Even when it was slower, angrier, or came in softer tones, its essence was electric and living. Good and bad, love and hate.

There is much to be said about the social isolation and various dysfunctions of the younger generations. Lots of things have contributed to a lonely world of lonely people. I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone suggest that the decline of rock mirrors the decline of a functional social society, but I think that oddly, it might.

Maybe we need more rock bands.