Music in general has been on the quality decline. There are no bands that everyone likes, there are no generation defining song hits, etc. This decade has been rather poor in those terms.

No, in terms of album sales its far from dead. When you've got bands like AC/DC still shipping 6 million plus for an album, or newer acts like Cold Play doing the same its obvious that the genre still sells.

Quality I think has declined, but everything ebbs and flows.

There are really good bands right now like muse. People have gone to either rap, pop or pop rock, which I think has come from pop punk bands like greenday, blink 182 etc.... But there are somo pop rock bands that are better than, for example, Tokio Hotel.

Bands like U2 and Oasis still make great music, I happen to like other new music like Jet, Keane, the artic monkeys, foo fighters, coldplay, muse, the killers, etc...

The thing is, people can still listen to bands like queen, the beatles, the rolling stones, etc..., added to new rock, poprock, punkrock, brit pop  bands that appear even if the mainstream is filled with crap, because the mainstream has almost always been about crap, bad music has always existed. The problem with rock(only for this matter) is that it has so much variations sometimes you get lost in them(but I love that its so diverse).

There is also an attitude from people who just follow others and say bands like Metallica, greenday, the offspring, Linkin Park, etc... are sellouts so they refuse to listen to their music ignoring possible good songs in some of their albums.

I can tell you, here in SA people listen to a shit called Reggaeton, and most people love it, even when they know its crap, but there are a lot of people who listen to other music, new and old rock music.

Yes this newfangled punk emo crap gives me a headache. Give me a Skynyrd, AC/DC, CCR, Eagles, Styx, BTO, Floyd playlist and turn it all the way up.

No, rock will never die. It's lost popularity recently, but rock music will outlive this current rap music fad.

To all the people here that like The Killers, I have news for you: I don't! They have totally and completely lost their roots, I mean, those guys are from Las Vegas: they should try their best to sound like that, as opposed to sounding like Brit-Rockers (whom I have nothing against, btw)... These guys are US citizens; if you're not going to sound like you're from Las Vegas, at least try to sound like Americans, goddammit!

I find it hard to take a stance here. I mean, I'm a rock fan through and through and I know there is great stuff out there. If I can throw everything together from soft rock to brit pop to metal, then I find enough to listen to. Muse did good, Arctic Monkeys are quite enjoyable, I will never miss a Rammstein opportunity etc and these are mostly guys who made it big in the last decade.

But the issue now is that we haven't seen anything "wii sports" huge since the early 90's. I consider Nirvana/AC/DC the final true testament to new well known rock, meaning that you can go to the director of the Philharmonic Orchestra and he can humm the tune to Highway to Hell or Teen Spirit. After that? Nothing. Nothing broke out since them to the general public as rock-revelations.

Prior to that we only had to wait a few years before the next big thing hit. Think about it in the 50's there was suddenly Elvis, the Beatles and Bill Hailey etc, then the golden Era of the 60's with the Doors, Rolling Stones, CCR, the Kinks, Jimi Hendrix and so on... the 70's where queen started and went on full into the 80's, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, all the Hair-Bands like the Sweet... the 80's with Guns n Roses, Metellica, Kiss...

The greats are few and far between now.

Just because rock music isn't quite as dominant in the mainstream as it once was doesn't mean its dead. Ignore the mainstream, steer clear of the charts and listen to music that sounds good rather than just listening to stuff that other people are telling you is good.

Throw in a bit of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and some thrash metal and you me have similar taste.

It can't be dead when there are still millions of avid - young- fans like myself around the globe who love rock and/or metal. In fact, in the UK, metal is pretty big, in a non-mainstream sort of way. Nearly every friend of mine listens to metal or rock - for some, it's fairly mainstream-easy like Avenged Sevenfold or Trivium, but others listen to Guns n Roses, classic Metallica etc and others listen to very non-mainstream metal like Opeth (woo!), Dream Theater, Devildriver etc (I listen to a mix of those three categories really) and that being the case, rock can't be dead.

I think Guitar Hero has a lot to answer for. Honestly, nothing in recent years has put rock, indie and metal into the limelight like Guitar Hero has. It's a cultural phenomenon that has bred millions of new rock fans (although my listening to rock pre-dates GH, I know many who have got into it through GH) and introduced people to bands both classic and contemporary. Look at the success Dragonforce found after TTFAF was on GH3.

So although rock/metal isn't really radio-accepted any more, it certainly has it's place and a lot of fans. Just look at Kerrang Radio/TV and Scuzz TV (UK). There's also no shortage of good bands out there, it's just that the time of 8 minute rock songs topping charts (e.g. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody) have sadly passed, at least for now.