Mot people who say they want "rock music back" don't seem to actually want new rock music
i saw a post here a few days ago about how people "want rock music back in the mainstream", and while that may be true, it seems that today's rock audience doesn't want modern rock the way it is today.
to people I know who aren't big music listeners, specifically modern rock listeners, when it comes to modern rock, their tastes are often not all that modern. I'll hear they listen to newer bands like "Linkin Park" or "Foo Fighters", very evidently not the most "modern".
when it comes to actual new rock, the indie rock zeitgeist bands like Geese or Fontaines D.C. or whoever is getting today's indie love are barely heard of by anyone I know in real life. But there's almost always one band that comes up as the one band they know and like, which is Greta Van Fleet.
most who know of the band will know what will appeal to listeners most, and that's that GVF sounds a lot like Led Zeppelin. and while the band is talented, more than just watered down Zeppelin, there's little interest it would seem from people who complain about the lack of modern rock music to actually engage with modern rock.
many rock bands who are pushed on social media are pushed not for their actual musical talent or the songs themselves, but often as "band x sounds like (old band)".
from what I've observed, when people say "I want to hear modern rock again", seldom does it actually mean wanting to engage with modern rock, but to hear modern rock that sounds like classic rock.
to people who lambast the lack of rock music in the mainstream, which is a valid point, the idea from many who say that is less about wanting to play the rock music that is popular and enjoyable, but rock that sounds like "the good old days". people don't want rock to be Geese or MJ Lenderman or BC;NR, whoever you want to throw out as "new rock", they want the next 'Rolling Stones', the next 'Led Zeppelin'.
it's no wonder that breakout bands like Greta Van Fleet are labeled as "the new Led Zeppelin' or Yungblud as "the next Ozzy". Rock can only exist in the mainstream acceptance as a form of nostalgia. any trending early 20's rock band will go ignored by the same people asking "where did all the rock go", but if you take a Stones cover band and ask AI to "generate a song that sounds like the Rolling Stones" and you'll have every person who can't name more than a handful of 21st century rock artists calling them "the last real rock band".
perhaps there's something to be said about the fact that "where have the rock bands gone" is almost always revolved around radio, which has become an increasingly older demographic of listeners, but if the public is wanting the return of rock music, they're doing a poor effort to find it themselves, and they don't seem to want to, because they want the nostalgia of classic rock to feel new again, for them to feel young.
I will note that from the LTM t head that OP however mentioned Spotify as a platform where rock is clearly popular, but that it's from pre-2000's bands such as Radiohead and Coldplay. Do the rock listeners even know that every music outlet has turned Cameron Winter into indie Jesus, or that big thief is supposed to be the coolest band of today.
even today the divide is so wide between the RYM/AOTY crowd that has declared Radiohead as the most genius band to ever live to the people making Radiohead trend on Spotify as 'oh, the band that made creep?" (do "rock fans" even know of 'The Smile'? their less than 500k monthly listeners answers that).
it's not that the indie crowd knows what is popular either. Geese has 1.9 monthly listeners. how many of these very cool hipsters have heard a single Sombr song, an artist who has 57M monthly listeners (and in all honestly isn't all that bad).
if people want to pay for new rock music, that doesn't track either with the billboard rock charts, where Queen's 'Greatest Hits', Nirvana's 'Nevermind', and Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' all lands in the top five, decades later. maybe the next big rock band is whichever classic rock band signs off their rights to become eternal AI slop.
constantly asking for "the return of rock bands" back, people don't actually want modern rock. what they want is a cover band with original songs.