Rock ‘n’ roll music is dead. The chart numbers are in, and all the hip kids are listening to Drake and Post Malone nowadays. Sorry Kiss, but nobody wants to “Rock and Roll All Nite” with you psycho-demons in hockey pads anymore. Hip-hop has rolled up to town and stolen rock’s spotlight, just like rock did to jazz in the 70s.

Well, maybe rock music is not dead, but it certainly has dwindled and may never blossom with the same bombastic and guitar-shredding ferocity that blasted it to the top of the charts. It did in the 50s with Elvis Presley, the 60s with The Beatles or the 80s with the hundreds of hair-bands that continuously fell from the sky. It was an epidemic.

For us millennial and Generation-Z kids, hip-hop has been etched in stone as the music we will tell our kids about one day. Little Jimmy will hear the silver-tongued words of Cardi B or Nicki Minaj. Like millennials did when their parents blasted Bon Jovi and Quiet Riot in the minivan on the way to school, they will switch it off and verbally berate and shatter everything we thought was edgy or cool into a million little pieces of expired lyrics and out-of-date autotune.

Gone are the days of the true titans of songwriting, like Jim Steinman, who wrote some of the most epic and cinematic rock ‘n’ roll power ballads of all time, such as Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” or “I’d Do Anything for love (But I Won’t Do That).” Pouring one’s heart and soul out onto a piece of paper, with emotionally charged, epic lyrics, accompanied by operatic voices and borderline-deranged instrumentals, is a dated process. Now, as a more tech-savvy species, we add engineering to the songwriting process, concocting a catchy hook, sampling from another, older track and writing the lyrics after the beat has already proven to be ready for the radio or streaming service.

Sure, U2 is still making new music, and bands like Journey and ACDC can still bring in masses of people to a show. However, where are all the New Kids on the Block? Where are the ones who Axl Rose and Slash can pass the torch onto? Punk rock had its run with Green Day, as did alternative rock with The Killers or heavy metal with Avenged Sevenfold, but rock, as of now, is dead in the water. And just because a song released last year has guitar in it, does not make it rock music.

Think about it. Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” are some of the greatest songs ever written, and we may never get songs like them again. That is bittersweet, to say the least. Here is to hoping that Meatloaf makes a comeback with another classic, 12-minute ballad about love, hot rods and leather to balance everything out.