Belgian dude may not be that well known stateside, but I reckon he's more well known over he.......
I think you're great. I love reading your stuff. You're not afraid to take a stand, in a world where more people should - and I think me and you share a lot in common. :0) ...But I don't agree with you on a lot of the doom-and-gloom stuff. :0) ..I just don't :0)
I went to school in England during the 70's and 80's. It was all folk and pop music back then. Rock was fringe. But it's not like it never existed.. I just wasn't subjected to it, and society kinda steered us away from it.
But, in my time, there has never been a lack of people who want to learn guitar, or a lack of guitar in music. And guitar-centric music has never been that hard to find - even back then, when I was a kid growing up
I guess people can very-easily become products of their environments.. I say that, as, back then, as a kid - as I was only hanging around those "straight-laced types" - I didn't even realize that there was emphasis on guitars in music. The heaviest thing I heard was a single chugged distorted chord in this one ABBA song - a sound which drove me nuts at the time, ... that ...until I met a dude who played some Michael Schenker for me..
...Mother-&$#!!%R! ..
...When I heard 'Into the Arena', I KNEW I wanted to do that with a guitar! It floored me!! I became obsessed with that kind of sound in music, immediately. :0)
First time I had ever heard such a thing!
..My Parents all-but called for an exorcist! :0)
...Guitar.. Not sure of the mechanics of it, but it reaches and attracts people like us. People who then spend the rest of our lives putting-in Masssssive amounts of time and effort learning to play the thing well, just to enjoy the hell out of playing it! :0)
And that effect "guitar" has on people? ...It's not unusual, and it's not going away.
Back then, it wasn't that Michael wasn't around though, or didn't exist.. It was just that that kind of music wasn't mainstream is all. And that was back in the mid 80's.. At a time when that kinda guitar in music ?should? ..have been considered more popular?
Seriously.. Look around.
There are LOADS of heavy metal bands out there. New ones.. Old ones still going strong. Hell, even comparing pop-music then and now - Miley Cyrus stuff has heavier guitar in it than do the bands like ABBA, Depeche Mode, Wham, Culture Club, Rick Astley and whatnot etc., which were the big deal back when..
I can't keep up with the metal scene - but it's not that it's not out there. Country Music is pretty-much all done on strings. Heavier stuff? Yes, you do tend to have to look for it. But that was true 30-40 years ago, ...and it's really not hard to find.
As for mainstream?
...Here, in the 'States, it's country music - pretty-much 24-7-365.. If you wanna work, you learn some country tunes, the locals love it. Rock music? ..not so much, not here, not locally anyway. Then :0) ...having said that, a bunch of kids - not one over the age of 16, played a local festival at the park a while back.. It was a thrash band - this, in a Very Conservative, small, country-western mountain town, where I live.
So, honestly.. Guitar-centric music? ...it's not gone. It's not going anywhere. The heavier stuff has always been - to some extent - under the radar in most locations. But it's not hard to find if you look for it. ..And for the fact that there are so many new metal bands out there - whether I gravitate to them or not - pretty-much tells the tale that there will Always be a demand, and an audience, for that kind of music.
The music industry has changed - I'll give you that. But Guitar is still a cornerstone of the music industry.
On another thread:
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...-most-of-us-know-of-imho-just-so-good.157145/
How could it be? She's Great! But I had never heard of her until today!
..But, it's not like she never existed before today.....and the thing is, we could stumble upon these Phenoms every day of the week.
Guitar? And those who strive to play them exceptionally. ..The phenoms come, and they all-too soon leave us. But that instrument? It's here to stay. :0)
So Worry-Not, Muad'zin! :0)