Why Måneskin are not bad for rock (as Porcupine Tree say) – Corriere.it

For the leader of the British band, rock in the last 20 years has only produced bad copies. But he is wrong: that’s why

The problem of rock and not of gods Mneskin. If the genre that revolutionized youth culture and society in the Sixties and Seventies today has lost its grip on Gen Z, it is certainly not the fault of those who still look for their own form of expression in guitars and in that language, also aesthetic.

To launch the state debateSteven Wilson, leader dei Porcupine Tree
, English band returned after 12 years of absence with the album Closure / Continuation. An album that, surprisingly, debuted at fourth place in the Italian ranking.

There are some new bands, but rock has failed to reinvent itself for too long. now virtually invisible in the mainstream, where urban is completely dominant, and has become a cult genre, as happened to jazz in the second half of the twentieth century. Have I discovered so many new rock bands that are valid in the last 20 years? The answer is nohe said in an interview with the Courier. Porcupine founder didn’t like the Mneskin either: They’re terrible. always positive when a band introduces kids to guitars and drums, I just wish they were a little better. For those who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath, listening to Mneskin or Greta Van Fleet and taking them seriously is hard because they are a poor copy of what the others were.

The history of rock was made by those who opened a door, but also by those who slipped into it and made pioneers and innovators more approachable to the general public.

Since the 1990s, Porcupine Trees have been exploring less traveled and alternative territories. But not virgins. In their albums, according to the different periods, the patterns of psychedelia, prog and metal were evident, even if Wilson always tried to give a personal touch to what for many were absolute references such as Pink Floyd or King Crimson. By moving to an area further away from the mainstream they have had more freedom to experiment.

In a historical moment when rock seems to be crushed all over the world by the rap-urban wave, I am here two ways that can distance the moment when the phrase rock is dead will be pronounced. The first is that of a revolution, of someone who arrives and does what grunge was last able to do with a guitar in hand. Pending that, those who continue to frequent the genre have the merit of delaying the moment of delivery to history. Also because, you want to listen to the myths, with which maybe you grew up thanks to mom and dad, but when you are twenty you cannot identify with someone who has gray hair and wrinkles. You don’t do it in pop, let alone rock that started out as a generational rebellion.

Mneskin and Greta Van Fleet (there is a difference and we will deal with it later) have had the merit of filling a void. Because music is like politics, if you find yourself on the right (or left) someone comes to take that space.

What then i Greta Van Fleet have done this type of operation practically photocopying Led Zeppelin was their limit. Too derivative, to put it with the wickedness of Wilson, the boy band version of Led Zeppelin.

That small reserve within the GenZ instead found a credible proposal in the Roman band. Not just for the music. Also from the point of view of style and image or of the set of values ​​for what they say in terms of freedom and rights.

Now it’s up to Damiano, Vic, Thomas and Ethan to make the leap forward by giving their musical proposal an even more personal and innovative character. And then that all the rock of the last 20 years is to be thrown away … Maybe Wilson forgets Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, the most experimental part of Radiohead …

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