ElectricPuppy wrote:Also, I wonder if "kids today" care about the rock we grew up with at all? Eh. Tell your buds to skip the rock and go straight for New Wave synthy ridiculousness.

Yes and no, as I see it.
"Indie rock" (was: "alternative" back when I was a "kids today") still is a thing and occasionally even gets really popular (see: Imagine Dragons, Arcade Fire, etc.). Although there's way more Keyboard and sequencing these days in indie rock (not a bad thing IMHO

).
Smaller geetar subgenres of the 1980s (yer punk rock and metal) still are alive and kicking, including all those new genres that got popular with the 00s kids (emo, metalcore).
I think the current radio-friendly / Nashville side of country is essentially 1980s arena rock with a re-skin. EG: Take a song by, say, Bryan Adams, and add small doses of "country instruments" (pedal steel, banjo, fiddle). You're pretty close to a Thomas Rhett and Brett Young. Florida Georgia Line *wishes* they could harmonize like Def Leppard!
