It's all music.
Don't get me wrong, i'll be first in line to talk trash about the over produced ingenuine crap playing on a hourly repeat over most of the radio frequencies, but there are people who love that same crap. It has a market, let them have it.
And then there are people who really get into the music and the songs, musicians and music nuts like me that want to create something that they themselves would wanna listen to. I've been around the Jax, FL music scene for a number of years (nothing compared to some the folks I know) and i have seen a number of great bands play amazing shows and some of them even made good records. I'm only 24 but I have lived rock and roll and I know it still exists. It might not be in stadiums or on MTV but the magic is still here. We make it, not the record labels or talent agencies. When I play for people who dig what I'm doing or I record a band and they hear their songs made into something more permanent than the echo of a room, rock is being experienced.
And it goes the same way for a rap/hip hop artist getting the perfect beat or groove going, or a country musician writing a ballad that comes from the heart.
It's all music.
And as for a couple modern bands that I consider to still be rockin"
Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, The Black Angels, BJM, Silversun Pickups, Radiohead, Spiritualized, British Sea Power
(and in Jax) Honey Chamber, Tuffy, The 2416, AC Deathstrike, Opiate Eyes, Dig Dog and several others but i'm keepin it brief