I was thinking about this earlier. If rock music were to make a complete return to the mainstream in the 2020s, would people born in the 90s and Early 2000s be the cohort who would be the main driving force behind such a return? The reason why I ask this, is because people born from the Mid 2000s onwards would never have experienced a time when rock music was a dominant mainstream force. Considering that people are generally a product of their time, it's possible that they may not have the same interest or desire to see rock music make a complete return to the mainstream. It's a scary thought, but it's entirely possible that the only time people born since the Mid 2000s are exposed to rock music, is when their parents are listening to rock music. As a whole, they are simply not exposed to rock music to the same extent as people born prior to the Mid 2000s, especially when you consider how fragmented our popular culture is now.

People born in the 1990s and Early 2000s will be the ones controlling all aspects of pop culture one day and they are the last cohort who remember when rock music was a mainstream force. As more people born prior to the 1990s get older and eventually retire, they won't have the same influence on the direction popular culture heads in. What do you think? Are people born in the 90s and Early 2000s the cohort who will be largely responsible as to whether rock music makes a complete return to the mainstream?

I wish

It's an interesting theory, but I don't think people born in the 90s and early 00's will be the ones to bring back rock music to the mainstream. Because if it were the case, they would already be doing it. People born during that era are  in their teens and twenties and people start in rock music YOUNG. The pop and rap stars of today are mostly in the age group under discussion, and they are not making rock music. There would be little bands in garages and cellars everywhere, and that's not really happening. 

I've thought about this same thing before. Rock music has not been a major entity in mainstream pop culture since arguably 2008, and even that is possibly being generous. Even kids in high school right now were only 5 or 6 years old the last time that rock had a large presence on the Billboard charts, and most of them were just toddlers the last time that a rock song was #1 on the Billboard charts with How You Remind Me in 2002. There are 12-year-olds right now that cant remember a time when a rock song was a true cultural force. The last group of people to be in high school when rock was still relevant in the early and mid '00s are now close to 30.

This is what ultimately kills music genres if you look back historically. When they stay out of the pop culture mainstream for so many years that an entire generation of young people have no recollection of them being popular, and they become seen as old people music. Rock very well could be in the 2020's where jazz was in the '60s, and that would certainly limit it chances of being able to make a full mainstream comeback.

A question might be, if, hypothetically, rock were to make a glorious comeback, not WHO would bring it back, but WHAT. What cultural climate would engender a return to this type of music?