The current state of British rock Part 1: Royal Blood

As a London-based rock fan, I'm sad to see rock in the UK and the rest of the world decline in popularity to a level it hasn't reached since the 60s saw guitar rock become popular, but at the same time I understand why rock has gone from a worldwide phenomenon to almost a niche genre when compared to hip-hop or Electronic Dance Music (EDM). It's never played on top 40 radio without a remix that adds a drop and artificial drums, and the only bands that even stand a chance of having a hit are bands that broke-though in the 90s or early 2000s. While there are a multitude of reasons for this, I will try to demonstrate what I think the major problem is in the UK specifically: The newest crop of bands aren't particularly good.

No before I start this analysis I'd like to point out that there are soe really great British bands right now - Everything Everything springs to mind first, because I'm listening to their great new album as I write this, Creeper is a brilliantly over-the-top goth rock band and IDLES are a super-gritty punk band with bleakly humorous lyrics, to name bands that have put out albums this year. Now onto the offenders:

The offending bands

Royal Blood
Where better to start this than with the band who have been touted as 'The saviors of rock' by seemingly every music publication and website in the UK. This band gets me irrationally angry whenever they're mentioned, partly because of how annoying it is that such a bland band could be touted as the saviours of something as prestigious and creative as rock, and partly because I'm constantly surrounded by their fans. I don't mind anybody liking anything, but when all you talk about and all you play is Royal Blood, it gets annoying quickly.


Royal Blood is rock music for people who don't actually listen to much rock music from my experience, as everyone I know that listens to them only likes one or two other bands, usually the arctic monkeys. The lyrics are either meaningless or are shouted into your eardrums so often that they become meaningless. The music consists of a horrible guitar (which is a bass that's been put an octave up, hence why even the short solos never really get off the ground.) and some good drumming, so while I don't like them they're not 'bad' as such. Hell, if I hear one of their songs on the radio I usually enjoy it. the problem is that all of their songs sound exactly the same.

I challenge anybody that has no experience with the band to go on Youtube and randomly play a bunch of their music videos and then try and say which songs were off their first album and which were on their second. Spoiler alert, it's difficult. Since they only have one song that they keep remaking their albums are impossible for me to sit through. After two or three songs it just starts giving me a headache, since the experience is pretty much just listening to endless early Queens Of The Stone Age choruses smashed together with nothing in between. Most disturbing is the similarity Royal Blood has with Death From Above (formerly Death From Above 1979), who sound exactly the same but with American accents rather than British Accents.


So, what do these guys have to do with the state of British rock? Well, they're arguably the most popular new British band right now. No matter what you thought of Oasis, Blur, The Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, Coldplay (yes, even Coldplay), Radiohead and Muse, they all had periods where they were releasing great material - some of them still are - and yet here Royal Blood are, becoming the kings of british rock are making two identical and similarly bad albums. I would even go as far as saying that the only reason they're as popular as they are is because they sound the way people think rock should sound, so when it's played on the radio young people will latch onto it for it's energy and their parents will be reminded of much better bands like The White Stripes and the aforementioned Queens of The Stone age, who Royal Blood seemed to have been inspired by.

All of this results in a band which has no lyrical or musical depth, no real controversty and sounds very similar to a lot of better music. When rock that sounds this much like itself I can't see any new rock fans being made out of say, teenagers who have largely adopted hip-hop instead, because it's actually controversial. When Skepta dropped 'Konniciwa' in 2016 it was all I heard walking through London for weeks, and it was all that the music press seemed to be discussing. When Royal Blood dropped 'How Did We Get So Dark?' this year, nobody really seemed to care. And these guys are supposed to be the saviors of rock.