The plaid-wearing Jesus of rock ’n’ roll.

Last year, only three of the UK’s top 100 singles were classified as rock. Of the fifteen best selling albums worldwide, there wasn’t a single guitar band. Don’t ask me why, but kids now think digital instruments are cooler than electric guitars. And after 60 years of rock and roll, some music journalists are pronouncing the genre dead.

But people have prophesied this for ages. In 1962, The Beatles were turned down by a Decca Records executive who told them “guitar groups are on the way out.” Today, the Telegraph newspaper’s Neil McCormick argues rock is “no longer the center of anything”. He compares what’s happening in rock to jazz. Both genres used to sell-out stadiums, but now they linger in dank bars and clubs. It’s hard to deny rock has hit hard times.

The last style of rock to make it big was indie rock, which has nothing to do with the sexy, struttin’ sounds of rock and roll. Indie rockers instead try quirky variations on rock, with delusions of leading a music Renaissance like their forefathers did. And the masses fall for it. Today, things like “chillwave” and “dubstep” are way more hip than rock and roll. But rock will outlast the novelty acts, as it always has.

Fifty years after the golden age of rock, music freaks like me are still buying old rock albums from record stores. But 50 years from now, will music fans really be looking for the hip, Pitchfork hyped albums of 2011?

This is hardly the first time dancey-music fads threatened the world of rock. In the late ’70s, it was disco. In the early ’80s, it was new wave. In 2011 it’s electricians. I mean electronic-musicians. In all these eras, pop music pushed songs that “has a beat you can follow”. But rockers aren’t into fads. They’re into the extremist religion of rock.

When disco came around, rock fans put up a fight. Parties were held to burn disco records. The phrase “disco sucks” entered the public consciousness. But the finest hour was “Disco Demolition Night” of 1979. During a major league baseball game, crates of disco records were exploded on the field.

I would love to have been there. Fighting rock’s holy war. Slaying our disco infidels!

It’s hard for outsiders to get why anyone feels the death of rock is real tragic. I can’t tell a society that doesn’t dig rock why: a guitar solo will always be better than a synthesizer sequence. Nor can I say why those struttin’ guitar rhythms are cooler than fat beats. It’s like rock music is a foreign tongue that today’s music fan can’t interpret.

Really, music genres are like languages. Before they make sense, you have to tune your ears to their unique sounds. Sadly, rock music is a dying language. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, youth culture spoke through rock and roll. But there is no such rock scene in the modern streets. So when I meet young rock nerds, they usually have the same backstory: they were raised on guitar music.

As a young’n, my mom played me Beatles records and my dad showed me oldies radio stations. Our basement was often filled with the electric noise of my brothers’ band. Once I discovered record stores in high school, there was no turning back. Like a first language, rock music will always be part of my identity.

But why do rock nerds like me cling to this old, hokey language? Because it expresses something that other dialects can’t. Things like sexy-guitars, powerful vocal harmonies and tight songwriting are lost in modern offshoots of rock and roll.

Take indie rock for example. They favour whispy vocals, ambient guitars and songs with one looped phrase. To me indie rock sounds like a pretty funeral. Rock on the other hand sounds like revolution! It sounds like teenage lust. It sounds like it came from a society that believed they were going to change the world.

Even metal — rock and roll’s closest living relative — is a very different language. By making guitars crazier, vocals heavier and songs more intricate that 60’s rock, metal changed the tone. It’s abandoned the sex appeal and grooviness of good times rock and roll.

Maybe rock won’t be pop-culture again, but it sure won’t die. The people that dig rock will always be around. Horny teens and hippie stoners will always want to rock out. And there will always be guitar fanatics. Like a box of records, rock will be stored underground. So what if rock has to live in garages and basements? It’s still making one hell of a noise.

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photo: Farm Aid/Flickr