ABC/Paula LoboCoachella may not have any rock headliners this year, but Pete Wentz doesn’t think rock is dead. In fact, the Fall Out Boy bassist feels that rock “feels very much alive.”
In an essay for Variety, Wentz writes that artists like Imagine Dragons, Bleachers, Lorde, Twenty One Pilots and Portugal. the Man are “challenging the notion of what rock music can be.”
“Consider Portugal. the Man, a rock band whose hit ‘Feel It Still’ was one of the most pervasive songs of 2017,” he writes. “I heard it everywhere. And it sounded strange. It is truly an odd song — a throwback with entirely modern production at the same time. It stood out.”
As for Twenty One Pilots, Wentz caught an early version of the “Stressed Out” duo when Fall Out Boy took them out on tour in 2013.
“I saw how they tapped into something by taking different genres and incorporating rap,” Wentz says. “It’s melodic. It’s interesting. And it’s clearly a recipe for success because it can also get played on the radio.”
Wentz also sees the spirit of rock in rappers Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Pump, whoM he thinks are creating “the punk DIY version of hip-hop.”
He concludes, “Rock music might not come the way people expect it, but it feels very much alive.”
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