John Mellencamp has joined the likes of former KISS drummer Peter Criss in thinking that Rock is no longer relevant and that it’s never coming back.

During a Q&A session for the Direct Connection event series, Mellencamp explained his stance off the consuming and staying power of music.

“I’ve got two boys, 22 and 21, and I don’t think they ever sat down and listened to a whole album in their whole life,” said Mellencamp. “I read just the other day — I think it was Ray Davies — that rock ‘n’ roll is going to come back. It’s not going to come back. We’ve seen it. It happened … it’s like we had a 50-year run of a particular type of music and history will tell us that.”

When someone pointed out that rock was just one of the styles of music that had its turn on top of the charts, Mellencamp argued that it wasn’t just the cyclical taste that hurt rock’s time at the top, but the way the industry is hobbled by the rapid amount of entertainment options for the consumer.

“I’m not saying there aren’t great songwriters out there. There are,” he added. “But we’re never going to experience them the way we able to experience them in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. We’re not set up for that anymore.”

Though Mellencamp believes the heyday of rock is over, he recently released his new album, Sad Clowns and Hillbillies.