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It’s no secret that traditional rock music has been in a sorry state for most of the 21st century.
While subgenres like alternative and metal have thrived, straight-ahead rock has almost seemed like a museum piece, with
much of its sound and energy migrating to Nashville and morphing with country. Sure, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and U2 are still among the top touring acts in the world, but they and much of their audience are approaching retirement age, if not well past it.
As this century progressed and the impact of the White Stripes and the Strokes — the last two rock bands who truly shaped culture — began to fade, the Grammy rock nominees reflected this conundrum, mixing aging classic rockers like Bruce Springsteen, U2, AC/DC, Tom Petty and even Led Zeppelin (who broke up in 1980 but won best rock album in 2014 for a reunion-concert recording of half-century-old songs) with newer classic rockers like Foo Fighters, Alabama Shakes and the Black Keys, throwing in relative newbies like Radiohead (who seem to be trying very hard not to be a rock band), Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Twenty One Pilots and Jack White.
Yet seemingly out of desperation, the nominees also have included total head-scratchers like Coldplay, Florence + the Machine, Matchbox Twenty, the Eagles — the fuckin’ Eagles, man! — and even Leonard Cohen, who inexplicably won Best Rock Performance in 2017 (albeit posthumously, sadly depriving the world of what certainly would have been a memorably bemused acceptance speech).
Part of this was due to the innovation in popular music moving to the hip-hop, pop and dance worlds and the Grammys’ genrefication of rock into metal, Americana and alternative categories. But mostly it was because traditional rock music was basically stagnant. Considering the popularity of Schools of Rock and the millions of parents who bought their children guitars and drums and basically raised them on rock, it’s a strange conundrum.
To its credit, in recent years the Grammys have worked strenuously to liven up the category, recognizing relatively new upstarts like emo innovators Turnstile and the bruising postpunk act Idles and Irish brawlers Fontaines D.C. (as nominees — the usual suspects usually win). While those bands have breathed some new life into the genre, they stopped well short of the cultural spark that the White Stripes or Strokes, let alone Nirvana and the Ramones, ignited.
Yet the Grammys have the opportunity to recognize arguably the most exciting rock band to come along in many years: Brooklyn quartet Geese, who fuse 21st century innovation with rock tradition in ways that no other band really has — and crucially, their sound is genuinely rebellious in a way that one rarely hears in rock music these days.
In past decades, rock and roll was about rebellion, not just culturally but sonically: The first time people heard or saw Little Richard, Mick Jagger, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten or Stephen Malkmus, it not only felt disruptive and a little frightening, but their unusual voices might have been offputting at first. None are conventionally “good singers,” and their sound took some getting used to, like coffee or whisky.
Without equating him with those icons, Geese frontman Cameron Winter continues in that not-sure-you-like-it-at-first tradition, with a singing voice that careens between bellowing and nonsensical exhortations (“Get out! Get under!”) and snarky asides, almost never singing in a style one would consider conventional. The band’s music goes down more smoothly but is just as challenging: All four are fiery and skilled musicians, blazing through their songs’ unusual structures and angular riffs with ease. And their choice of covers shows how deeply they’ve studied the classics — Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive,” the Stooges “TV Eye,” the Ramones’ “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” — as well as their wry humor: they’ve played both the New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” and Justin Bieber’s “Baby” with (relatively) straight faces.
And perhaps most of all, they’re a real band — Geese formed a decade ago, when the members were in high school — that came up in a modern version of the traditional way, with School of Rock classes, sparsely attended early gigs and hard-to-find early recordings (and parental approval). And during the exploratory moments of their blazing live sets, the bandmembers respond to each others’ playing in ways that you hear from the most-seasoned groups.
Along with a potential best new artist Grammy nom, Geese could slot into rock or alternative categories, and the group’s label confirms that they have been submitted for all three. Best new artist may be a long shot in the year of Ella Langley, but that aside, there’s no question in our minds where they belong: The rock categories include best album (won last year by Ozzy Osbourne), best song (Brandi Carlile’s “Broken Horses”) and best performance (the Foo Fighters’ “Making a Fire”). The average age of last year’s rock winners was 59; the members of Geese are 23 or 24.
Grammy voters, respectfully, the next big rock band is here. Show the music world that you see it.
