Alice Cooper isn't sure that rock not being popular these days is actually a bad thing. In an interview with LA Weekly, Cooper said the genre was more rebellious when he got into it back in the day, and that maybe a dip in popularity will help it get back to that status.
"Well, you've got your certain bands– you know, Foo Fighters still going. Green Day, things like that. I kind of look at this a little bit differently. There was a time when we first started playing, that rock bands were outlaws. We were on the outside looking into the party and we weren't invited to the party. It was more pop music and dance music and disco. I think we're back to that point. I think it's kind of healthy that rock bands now are not number one, number two or number three. We're back to the point of being rebels again."
Cooper also commented on the now-famous "rock is dead" comment made by Gene Simmons, saying that he thinks Simmons meant dead in a financial sense. He later added you'll always have kids learning the classics in their garage, and that rock (and being in a rock band) is essentially timeless.
"Gene Simmons said rock is dead but I think he was talking financially. I think there are kids in garages right now learning Guns n' Roses, learning Aerosmith, learning Alice, learning Ozzy… Young 16 year old kids rocking, just rocking. That's healthy. That's really healthy. I don't think rock is ever gonna die. When you talk about hard rock, like the Stones, The Who and all that, that's the only music that's lasted. Grunge was here for a while. And punk was here for a while. Emo was here and all this, but hard rock bands just kept going. So if you're in a hard rock band, you can go as long as you want to go."
It's also worth noting that while it's not exactly to the taste of some rock fans, the genre certainly has its place in pop culture these days. Artists like Machine Gun Kelly and Demi Lovato are (or have been) putting out rock-tinged records, while Stranger Things is cashing in on the metal nostalgia big time in their most recent seasons. And I'm not saying they are or aren't "good," whatever that means, but simply noting that rock still has a presence these days.
