[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Well, that "Rock is dead" thing is a complex matter to discuss. I guess it all depends on what you actually mean. One thing is for sure: The era of bands, mainly and especially of rock bands, is over and dead as a doornail. Just some dinosaurs (Stones, Purple) keep touring, but... nah, that's not really the same. You can't even blame them, I think. I guess they still like playing their music and stuff, but when they started they made something revolutionary. Now this aspect is lost. Alice Cooper put it in a nutshell when he stated something like this in an interview:
"In my early years, whenever I was in town, parents started trembling and fearing that their kids might go to my concerts and become corrupted. Nowadays, kids start trembling and sweating because they fear that their parents could drag them to one of my concerts"... 9_9
And really, the time when real, long-liviing bands released album after album and more or less regularly went in the charts are definitely over. The age of bands has died, and the age of musical laboratory products and short-lived fashion & trend vehicles has begun.
But as Pierre pointed out correctly: This mainly (or even exlusively) applies to the mainstream - if you look beyond, you will find that Rock, for example, is definitely not dead! Listen to Albums like "Total 13" (Backyard Babies), "Payin' the Dues" (Hellacopters), the latest Gluecifer album or whatever, and you won't be able to say that the music itself is dead. I think it's more society and its relation to music (and, in fact, the interaction between society & music) that's dead. We are accustomed to seeing and hearing almost everything nowadays, but not to actually experiencing anything. We are a consuming society, no living society. I mean, back in the sixties or seventies, a rock concert wasn't just a concert - it was a statement! And the fans were not just fans, they were a social (and often political) movement! If you say that all this has died, then I'd agree. But the music itself, no...