Re: The Real Death of Rock aka Rawk Marketing 2021/101

Reaction to/rant based on Michael Hahn piece The Real Death of Rock

One quote that caught my eye from Michael Hahn’s recent piece on Strokes/rock music was this one:

The death of rock is often overstated — assuming the band Inhaler top the album charts this weekend, as expected, they will be the 11th rock band to have a No. 1 album this year — but the rock that thrives commercially is safe and full of easy reference points. It is not imaginative.

Now I never heard of Inhaler prior to reading this piece, which is puzzling. They are, after all, topping the charts and are signed to Polydor, so someone must’ve mentioned them on Twitter or IG or elsewhere at least once, right? Wrong – there’s exactly zip, zilch, nada being said about them all around, unless I missed something.

Well, I did missed something, for sure…that’d be a fact that the lead singer happened to be a son of U2’s singer Bono. Having never heard single note of Inhaler’s music I cannot speak for its quality, but their background seems oddly similar to that of Strokes, the articles subject, whose members got solid biz backgrounds of their own (see Julian Casablancas and Albert Hammond Jr.)

So to paraphrase what BB King once said – “does it helps to have Bono for a dad when you’re a rock band ? Not neccesarily, but it won’t hurt”. The omission of the fact might not have been intentional / malicious on Hahn’s part, but it helps to explain how you promote rock bands when there are barely any to be found on the charts.

P.S.

There are also unconfirmed reports that Inhaler slays. We’ll keep you updated as we investigate the claim.