Music is generally tied to cultural and social movements or at the very least, reflective of the time. Despite there being plenty to get worked up about in the world, we're living in a "me" society, so I think a lot of the popular music is indicative of that. Nobody has time for change. We’re all too busy with ourselves. It’s sad, really.
With that said, there's still good rock music out there being released every year.
Of course, the ways we discover it may not be the same methods we used years ago & the music biz, in general, isn’t anything like it was, but it's certainly out there. And there's most definitely still an audience for it.
Rock just isn't at the forefront of the mainstream or at the top of the charts like it was years ago, so I think maybe that's what people really mean when they say it's “dead” or on “life support”. And then there’s the fact that these days, it may come under a different guise that doesn’t fall in line with your definition of what rock music is or should be. Therefore, folks won’t call it “rock music” because it’s different from the “rock” music they grew up on.
Therein lies the creation of more sub-genres which is silly and gets out of hand really quick...but that’s a whole other topic.
