Klaus Meine Says Radios Don’t Play Scorpions, Guns N’ Roses, And Whitesnake Anymore

Scorpions lead singer Klaus Meine recently spoke to Mitch Falon and Jeremy White about rock music’s place in the mainstream. He reflected on the radios’ abandonment of bands like Guns N’ Roses, Whitesnake, Aerosmith, and playing famous artists such as The Weeknd.

Many radios, streaming platforms, and charts revealed the most popular songs of 2021 worldwide a while ago. Pop singer Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Driver’s License’ became the most streamed song on Spotify, and other artists such as Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake, and Justin Bieber were close to the top. Apple Music’s popular musicians were The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, and BTS. Also, iHeart Radio’s names were almost the same, except they included other pop musicians like Doja Cat and Lil Nas X.

It can be understood from this data that both the radios themselves and platforms’ users chose to listen to more pop, hip-hop, and rap songs worldwide. Therefore, different music journalists defined last year as the rise of these genres and rock and metal’s declining popularity. Some disagreed with this idea, thinking that rock will always be prevalent, and showed the best-selling albums as proof.

During his interview, Scorpions’ Klaus Meine drew attention to this situation, saying that mainstream radio stations don’t play songs from them or the other hard rock bands, such as Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, and Whitesnake anymore. He stated that people could hear The Weeknd and various new generation musicians from them, so the media abandoned rock and heavy metal. However, Meine added that they still have dedicated ‘rock believers’ that will keep listening to them.

Meine’s statement on mainstream radio play follows:

“Even today, when you listen to the mainstream radio, you would never hear a Scorpions song, Guns N’ Roses song, Aerosmith’s, and Whitesnake’s. You hear The Weeknd; all these other new acts and bands are very popular. Sometimes also great songs, but you’re right; it’s media that put rock and heavy metal in this corner. People are there; the rock believers are there around the world. They’re still going strong. It’s your brothers and sister; maybe the father goes, ‘Check out this band.’ So it goes from generation to generation, and this is what we see right now.”

You can check out the interview below.