Where has all the music gone? What happened to the music that we grew up on? Where did it go?

Hell. It's gone to hell in a hand-basket.

That is, if you believe the guy in my Speech 110: Intro to Public Speaking class. It's not Trey Gibson, before you think Tech's debate coach may have suggested rock is dead.

The guy who gave the class this little nugget of wisdom (and whose name escapes me) also convinced us of how his life is like doing nothing in his first speech. Inspired, that one.

If rock were to die at any point, it would be the fault of people like him, which is why rockers can't afford complacency or silence.

"Today, I'm going to inform you how rock is dead."

Better to persuade me, friend, because I don't believe that in the slightest.

Rolling Stone is depressing me these days, too, with its occasional comments along those lines.

A vanguard of "rock curmudgeons," music writers who are trumpeting the so-called demise of rock and roll, seem to have infiltrated the seminal music magazine of the past two generations.

Blasphemy to even suggest that rock and roll, the eruption of American spirit, is dead. You may as well sign the lives of those who love rock and roll away.

But, as a journal-of-sorts for popular culture, not just rock and roll, per se, Rolling Stone has to express the truth: pop is trending away from what most rockers would call rock.

Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and others brought rock into popular view, and it has transfigured itself through the decades as a representation of the same ideals: freedom, sex and attitude.

Sounds a lot like what rappers are rapping about now, don'tcha think? Connect the dots.

Popular culture is moving more toward homogenization. America is becoming more mixed as a country. To even get a communications job in Texas is beginning to require knowledge of Spanish.

Rockers can't access it anymore, and label it as dead because they can no longer hear it.

But look at these newer musical genres in terms of what came before rock.

You can't connect rap, grunge, or even watered-down pop-punk music to, say, Glen Miller or Louis Armstrong without first going through Elvis Presley.

Music today is the offspring of what our pessimistic rock writers and elitists would call "rock."

Do not believe the hype; rock is not dead. It's a parent.

Rock will only die out if nobody likes freedom, sex and attitude anymore.

Nick Todaro is a senior journalism major from Shreveport and serves as the editor of The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to nst005@latech.edu