Joe Rogan And John Mellencamp Talk About The Deaths Of Rock Music And Comedy Movies

There are a few things that I think most people would agree that they like to some degree as much as rock music and comedy movies.

Everyone likes each of those things at least a little bit, and while they're still around, both are dead in the sense that they're not what they once were. Now we're getting a post-mortem on each from a big name in comedy, Joe Rogan, and a big name in rock, John Mellencamp.

The rock legend was a guest on the latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, and during his appearance, he talked about how the music industry effectively took out rock music.

Mellencamp talked about a conversation with his friend, late Billboard editor Timothy White, in which White told him that the outlet was signing a deal with SoundScan, which effectively changed the way Billboard's charts were calculated by weighting plays based on where they took place.

"The way that the charts work is that if you get played in Indianapolis and you get played in New York, it counts as one play (per play)," Mellencamp explained. New York counts as one play. Indianapolis counts as one play. A play's a play. When SoundScan came in, they changed it… So if you got a play in New York that was worth five points, if you got a play in Indianapolis that was worth a half a point."

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This obviously tilted the charts in favor of urban areas, which Mellencamp claimed was also a factor in the rise of rap.

"And once SoundScan took over," Mellencamp said, "If you're in a rock band, the record companies said, 'Well, f--k this. We're not even going to advertise in Indianapolis anymore.'"

I think we all knew that the music industry wasn't exactly trying to scope out "quality," but this is a fascinating insight into how it all works.

"Rock bands right now, just in general, are almost non-existent in terms of like new bands," Rogan said. "It's really weird. There used to be so many rock bands, and rock and roll is still a very popular form of music when you listen to the older stuff."

Mellencamp later pointed to how even the greats' new material gets ignored these days.

"You know — and there's a lot better songwriters than me — And we all got it 86ed," he said. "I mean, like the f--king Rolling Stones just put out a new album, and I never heard it. You never heard it."

Joe Rogan and John Mellencamp break down how industry shifts and woke overreach sidelined rock bands and made bold comedy films nearly extinct. (Getty Images)

Joe Rogan Explains The Death Of Comedy Films

While we're on the topic of stuff we enjoy dying off, let's move on to comedy films, shall we?

Mellencamp mentioned that he had been buddies with Sean Penn since the actor was playing Jeff Spicoli in the legendary comedy flick Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

"Wow. That was a f--king great movie," Rogan said (sounding ever so slightly like Spicoli when he said it)

"Yeah, it was," Mellencamp agreed. 

"They can't make a comedy like that anymore… that's the thing — with political correctness and then the woke movement — that's the thing that really died; was the great comedy movies," Rogan said.

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Mellencamp wondered why people caved to the pressure, and Rogan explained.

"I know, the climate got crazy," he said. "People lost their f--king minds, and I think it's kind of turned around, and people are kind of recognizing that it was a massive overcorrection."

He then laid out how — in a similar way that rock music was sort of killed off by the music industry — comedy films were killed off by a gun-shy Hollywood.

"You know, like [Tropic] Thunder or any of those kinds of crazy movies that were really outrageous and funny… You can't make them today. Nobody wants to fund them and finance them. Nobody wants the heat, nobody wants to deal with the criticism. 

"They, they essentially killed comedy, music, (and) movies."