“Hip hop’s audience still rewards innovation. Hip hop has learned a lot from rock, but hip hop is not troubled by rock’s self-imposed restrictions. Rap songs have multiple writers and do not glorify instrumental soloists; hip hop stars do not pretend to be uninterested in commerce.”
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the death of rock music, but this New York Times column suggests that the genre hasn’t died — it’s just become the new jazz, a new “American classical music.”
It points out that rock’s trajectory in many ways mirrors the rise/decline of jazz music, while the disruptive ethos of rock music has been replaced by hip hop.