Classic Rock

Oh, and to your question: I grew up listening to a fair amount of classic rock (if the Beatles count as such) as a little kid, but avoided it like the the plague after discovering punk. Now I listen to a lot of it, if only because the only half-decent radio station I can pick up in my car is 97.1 FM WDRV ("The Drive," for those of you in Chicagoland). Still, if the Eagles are played, it's either NPR or silence.

Have we had a "Classic rock: Search & Destroy"?

Turn this one into a Classic Rock S&D if you want.

Search: Thunderclap Newman, Hollywood Dream

Destroy: The Eagles

Is that how it works?

Yup. 25 years old, raised in Ypsilanti. Listened to WRIF and WCSX plenty enough. And then there was WJLB, which balanced things out with R&B and the Electrifyin' Mojo at night.

Is 'the face' of classic rock radio changing? I flipped to WCSX the other day and heard Dave Matthews.

The first records by Pink Floyd and Debbie Gibson.

(Unrelated aside: Morbid Angel fucking rock. Thanks, John.)

The thing though is that I was the minority. (You wouldn't get that idea from this thread. I guess no one wants to post just to say "Nope, never really got into it. Who's Boston?") Being a Led Zeppelin fan was practically antisocial in my (immediately pre- grunge) middle school, to say nothing of liking Rush. Most people were into hip-hop and dance music. A lot of people got into rock music with grunge and went straight to indie without ever going to classic rock. This is actually true of most indie rockers I know, I believe. A lot of other people went to electronic music or rap without ever listening to classic rock. The vast majority of people I've met of my age have never had a classic rock phase. In fact when I meet someone who grew up loving Led Zeppelin I really feel a certain kinship with them. It's not all that common. That music, with its wailing solos and high-pitched singers, seems archaic to a lot of people.

The 2112 star was part of our high school swim team's logo! All the jocks were way into Rush and Primus and Pink Floyd, stuff like that. The skaters and misfits listened to punk and metal. I listened to all of it, partially because I liked having something to talk about with these people, though I was never a jock, skater, or a misfit. I don't think I've ever had a phase where classic rock was what I listened to most; it's just always been there.

Sundar, if you like Morbid Angel, you should get your hands on the following: Gorguts - Obscura, and Cryptopsy - None So Vile. I think they're the 2 best death metal albums ever. They're also both Canadian bands (I think they're both French Canadian, actually, just like Voivod. Is there any good reason not to move to Montreal?).

By the time I got to high school, when Blind Melon and the Black Crowes were all over MuchMusic, classic rock had undergone a bit of a resuscitation. Led Zeppelin would have been a cooler thing to like but that doesn't mean everyone or even the majority was into it. I'm willing to bet most of the non-white kids couldn't have named more than three or four of their songs. Most people probably just listened to top 40 or adult contemporary radio. From what I could tell, I think many non-white kids listened to hip-hop, bhangra, or dance music. I think most people who were into rock music were into Pearl Jam and the Tragically Hip. A lot of people were into Nine Inch Nails and the like. There was a crowd that was really into punk and metal. Rush would have still been one of the least fashionable things to like though. You have to keep in mind that "Roll the Bones" and "Nobody's Hero," two of the worst singles ever, got tons of airplay here. "Roll the Bones" still does. I suspect Canadian content regulations played a part. "Nobody's Hero" was top 40 on MuchMusic. It was pretty hard not to hate them. 2112 would have been over 15 years old. If people had heard older Rush it would have been for most people the high-production synth-drenched 80s stuff, which grunge was reacting against (or something like that). Even otherwise, though, the idea of 2112 having that kind of mainstream trendiness (Were girls into it too?) in any set of circumstances is hard for me to wrap my head around. Did all the jocks groove to the time changes and organ drones on "Hemispheres" too?

Voivod's cover of "Astronomy Domine" was a minor hit here too.

Montreal's somewhat dire economically so it's hard for a lot of people to find good work. Depends what you do, though. You'd also be at somewhat of a disadvantage if you don't know at least a little French. Otherwise, hell no, it's a great place. Rent's super-low (though it's rising), there's all kinds of crazy shit going on, prog and metal and experimental music (well, relative to other places) are all huge, and you can get alcohol at convenience stores.

http://freewebz.com/buttrocker87

but in high school my closest chum Steven introduced me to the wonders of classic rock. First, through Led Zeppelin, whom I love to this day, and then to his favorite band, Rush. I got into Rush for a while, bought the "Chronicles" two-CD set, and it must have led to some tolerance for ambitious progressive music on my part. Since then I've noticed they're just a bit overblown you see ... but they still have a fond place in my heart. Though I've always had a distaste for that individualist Ayn Rand ideological bullshit.

Another fine band I admire to this day is Jethro Tull! I can't believe they went synthesizer in the 80's, but their earlier work is classic. "Living in the Past" is one of my favorite albums ... thinking particularly of 'Christmas Song,' which I just heard recently:

"Once in Royal David's City stood a lonely cattle shed, where a mother held her baby. You'd do well to remember the things He later said. When you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties, you'll just laugh when I tell you to take a running jump. You're missing the point I'm sure does not need making that Christmas spirit is not what you drink. So how can you laugh when your own mother's hungry, and how can you smile when the reasons for smiling are wrong? And if I just messed up your thoughtless pleasures, remember, if you wish, this is just a Christmas song.

In the U.K., "Classic Rock" culture tends to concentrate on bands with "artistic integrity". The Beatles, Dylan and the Stones are especially well-loved because they established their identities before rock became a massive industry (I'd say that rock became "big" about the same time that the "Woodstock" film was released). Even magazines such as "Mojo" regard bands such as Yes and E.L.P. as being dinosaurs. Perhaps the only stadium stars from the 70s who are regarded as being "classic" are Zeppelin, Floyd and Springsteen.

The nearest thing we have to a "Classic Rock" station is Virgin. It prides itself on playing "real music" rather than pop or dance. However it doesn't play album tracks by Journey and Argent all day. You are more likely to hear singles by the Jam, Bob Marley, Roxy Music, and U2.

I've never really had a "Classic Rock" phase, but I have listened to a great deal of "Classic Pop". Old chart pop gets played on the t.v. and radio a lot in the U.K. The media used to be obsessed with Sixties pop (Merseybeat, Motown, Stax, Swinging London etc.) but now the nostalgia industry has turned its attention to music from the 1970s and 80s (glam rock, disco, New Romantics).

Radio not based around the rehashing of the same old hit singles as heard on British "Gold" stations is a wonderful idea in theory from a British perspective, but in practice, as others upthread have confirmed, it so often ends up being a rehash of, er, the same old album tracks, nothing to envy at all.

And, also I was thinking lately that 3 of my most favorite bands (Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, David Bowie) could be considered classic rock, but I generally dislike classic rock. But of course I relized it's because they are very artistic/ experimental, unlike other classic rock that comes to mind.

However, there is something about the reverential tone of "Mojo" that doesn't do these bands justice. "Mojo" may be good at cataloguing trivia, but the writers rarely pinpoint exactly why these artists are so intriguing. Bands such as the Velvets pushed against the artistic and social norms of their time. They don't really fit in with the comfortable culture of "Classic Rock".

For the most part, classic rock was the cool music in junior high and high school (79-83) where I grew up. A lot of nasty little neo-nazi types were into Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, the Stones. I tended to bond with anyone who was listening to some other type of music (that I didn't find embarrassing), whether that was Pat Metheny or PiL. (For a while there might have been only one other kid in my high school who listened to PiL or similar bands.)

At this point, there is probably more classic rock that I like than there is rock from the punk/post-punk/indie milieu, but either way I don't listen a lot to either one.

np: Led Zeppelin - 4th album

But there is no doubt that there was some incredible music that came out of the whole thing, music borne of labor and imagination and reflective of a particular impulse. The young kids who summarily dismiss it just make me laugh. A dance kid poking fun at the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd is to me as distasteful as a Sir Lord Baltimore fan whole thinks rap is unlistenable. If nothing else any thinking person would embrace this music for all the opportunities it offers for, uh, "unpacking".

I still listen to the local Classic Rock station when going to work, but what is striking about it is, as Dave 225 said, that the limitations of the format are greater than ever these days. It's almost not even a question of playing the same artists or albums over and over anymore, but that they play the same particular songs over and over: "Won't Get Fooled Again", "Don't Look Back", "Carry On My Wayward Son", etc. That's especially sad.

But I think some great music came out of the era that the station represents. It's too bad they don't expand their horizons and expose people to the other, lesser known stuff that came out of that time period.

I'm not quite so on the attack in that case, but I think I summed up my view in a recent CTCL essay with the comment about being in such a phase: "great to have one, even better to leave it" -- because otherwise you could get stuck there FOREVER (and thus the hell of the kind of stations Joe describes).

OK, fair enough Mr. Diamond--but what about the people who created the music of the '50s? All them rednecks, you know? Were they just as "questionable" in their "worldviews" as the people who made '70s rock? Did they have the luxury of "worldviews"?

Just askin.

Like what, Jess? Pere Ubu doesn't count, you know ;-)

i hated this kind of music from the moment i started listening to the radio. HATED it!

till i moved to asia. now, after about 10 years of hearing not a single classic rock station evah, not even once, i can now actually enjoy the supreme rockingness of don't stop believing, emotional rescue, jack and diane, life in the fast lane, etc. being away from the pestilence that is classic rock radio for so long made me realize it wasn't that the songs were bad, it was just being forced to listen to them ad naseum that make them vile to me.

along with soft rock, now this genre totally pushes my nostalgia buttons. seriously, i went on a downloading binge a while ago, i was rockin boston and foreigner in my car for WEEKS. then my hard drive crashed, so now i'm going to download every one of those songs all over again for further rawkage. the weird thing is, i don't really want to hear stuff like "OP10: Songs by "classic rock" artists that should be mainstays on classic rock radio, yet inexplicably arent" i want to hear the ones that are on the standard playlist i've heard a fuckzillion times or nothing.

what is the last classic rock album? Full Moon Fever?

Eric Clapton Unplugged?

Part of me says that classic rock has to be stuff that when it was released was just "rock", so basically the 70's plus the late 60's. Under this view I'd say Back In Black was the last classic rock album.

Regarding the OP, damn right I had a classic rock phase. The musical landscape in Ireland was pretty different to the US though. When I was in school (i.e. up to 1999) The Beatles were big on everyone's radar but not much of the other stuff mentioned upthread. There was no classic rock radio station - there were one or two specialist shows on Sunday evenings that played old rock stuff. One thing to note is that AOR radio didn't exist in Ireland so if a song wasn't released as a single it never got played on radio. Hence people like my dad who knew Pink Floyd as the band that did See Emily Play and as far as he was aware might as well have broken up until they released Another Brick In The Wall over 10 years later.

Then in college I was friends with other musicians and got big into stuff like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, but it was my first time hearing any of those songs. At some point we had our own rock version of poptimism (possibly connected to stoned viewings of Dazed and Confused) and went from thinking Foghat, Free etc were cheesy buttrock to realising all that music was actually great fun. At no point was I listening exclusively to classic rock though, I was still listening to current techno etc.

Supernatural

Heard most everything played on classic rock stations either as it appeared or a few years after it had appeared. Enjoyed almost all of it - even the Foreigner, the Boston, the Heart, the Supertramp - peaking in 1978.

Rapid descent too - first 'hey could we quit playing this now?' soul stirrings c. 1979. Once the boomers decided to never hear anything new again, circa first Reagan administration, it was war. I get if you never heard it before though, it probably has its attractions, but then so does Taco Bell.

Full Moon Fever a pretty great candidate for this designation. Only real competition I can think of is maybe Get a Grip, or perhaps The Razor's Edge (which is a stretch, but has Thunderstruck).

What about Wildflowers?

Man, I'd say something like Elephant.

For me - born 1971, in high school 1985-1989 - classic rock hit hugely in 86-87.

Many of us had been cheerfully, unquestioningly pop-centric in 81-85, and that pop was reasonably diverse and interesting to us. Thriller, "Borderline," etc. When a DC station switched over to classic rock format, we were suddenly hearing as much Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin as we wanted. And it was just in time, too, because the Top 40 station started playing Vanilla Ice, Roxette, Paula Abdul, New Kids on the Block. We felt that those songs weren't for us, and the Who (or whatever) seemed as good an alternative as any.

At the same time, it was possible for that cultural shift to co-exist with discovery of more punk/indie/"alternative" artists. All these streams had overlaps and intersections. If you liked New Wave and synthpop (and many of us did), you could follow its trail back to punk. For example, if you heard the Cure in 1985, it was easy to follow its heritage backward through New Order to Joy Division, the Smiths, etc. and thereby find out about the Clash and the Sex Pistols. But that's a separate arc of taste from the Classic Rock thing.

Not sure about the "last classic rock album" question.

To answer fully one would do well look inside the careers of artists with long enough careers to have a foot in both camps.

Led Zeppelin IV is a classic rock album but Now and Zen is not.

I would have considered Cold Spring Harbor a classic rock album, but Storm Front was not.

Arc of a Diver is a classic rock album but Back in the High Life is not.

But in those discographies, where is the dividing line?

My city had a long-lived Rock station that just seemed to gradually shift to Classic Rock over time. It probably coincides with Clear Channel being involved.

So to me, the question of the last classic rock comes down to the last new stuff I remember that station playing when it was new. "57 Channels and Nothing On", "Light of Day", "Mary Jane's Last Dance", "Bad Medicine", "Mama I'm Coming Home"

Some hair metal like Guns 'n' Roses and Cinderella

"Now and Zen" is in, but "Manic Nirvana" isn't. "This Note's for You" is in, "Freedom" probably isn't.

I would love to see playlists year by year from the 70's to 90's to relive my listening experiences.

An interesting little era in the evolution of those stations ran from about 1979-1983, as certain New Wave songs were stuck into the rotation of the FM rock roster. My recollections are entirely based on FM west coast rock radio, especially San Diego (Los Angeles was a bit ahead with KROQ), so the dates and specifics likely differ some by area.

Hanging on the Telephone, Accidents Will Happen, Pump It Up, Take Me To the River (the T Heads cover), Rock Lobster, Turning Japanese, My Sharona, Girls Talk (the Dave Edmunds cover), various Devo tunes. I'm leaving out The Cars, who enjoyed full FM admittance from the start, and Combat Rock (earlier Clash wasn't included as often, and I do recall some grumbling over the mainstream popularity of "Should I Stay or Should I Go"). Plus there were some special interest shows late at night, occasionally, where you might hear Homosapien (but never the Buzzcocks in my experience), Ian Dury, some LA stuff. I taped Get Happy in its entirety off the full album show the day of its release - nothing from that album was ever included in that station's normal playlist, however.

Finally though, this became a smaller sized market of its own with its own station or stations, and nearly all New Wave was permanently struck from the playlists of the firmly rock stations. "Classic Rock" was born in a purge of New Wave, plus previous psych/folk/hippie type stuff that had sometimes been let through.

I remember when the first station in Chicago that advertised itself as "classic rock" started, and like YMP's experience, it was around 1986 (WKCG in Chicago).

But I found its criteria for what constituted "classic rock" baffling, arbitrary, and racist. Styx and the Moody Blues were "classic rock"; Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Sly and the Family Stone, Funkadelic, and Stax artists weren't.

(and in Chicago, it was particularly egregious: lots of airplay for the Blues Brothers' "Soul Man," none for Sam & Dave's.)

Oh I know, the only reason I didn't say that black artists had been purged at the same time is that they were already almost totally absent from rock radio. George Thorogood stood in for all the 50s greats, The Blues Brothers for soul. At least Jimi Hendrix didn't have to live to see himself be the permanent token classic rock black artist.

Tracks from the Use Your Illusions are still classic rock radio staples. 1991 could be the cut off.

Pearl Jam has made it on our formatted station

I remember talking to an American friend a few years back and I said that CCR were a classic rock band - thats what Classic Rock was for me, the successful popular rock bands of the 60s-70s (Who, Beatles, Stones, CCR, Led Zep, The Doors). Well he said if CCR were Classic Rock then that'd be great but Classic Rock is what gets played on Classic Rock radio. I thought it was odd for a genre to be defined by what gets played on certain radio playlists

that's because it's a radio format not a genre

but would you not say "I like Classic Rock" and mean both?

Vic speaks truth on New Wave. The Elvis C. of My Aim Is True never appeared on any radio station I ever heard, even when "Everyday I Write the Book" was a chart hit. Ditto when "Veronica" was.

And on race - absolutely true and infuriating how whitewashed was the classic rock radio format of my youth.

Most Motown and vintage soul reached white American teen ears via the "Big Chill" and "Commitments" soundtracks (honorable mentions for "Stand by Me" and "Dirty Dancing"). Which is pretty fucking criminal.

Perversely, our parents' radio stations were more diverse than our Classic Rock stations. It was from my dad's corny-ass Oldies station that I heard Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Ink Spots, Sam Cooke, Ben E. King, Temptations, etc.

And the teenybopper bubblegum of Casey's Top 40 was also decidedly more integrated. Stevie Wonder and Devo could comfortably share Casey's Top 40, as could "Pass the Dutchie" and "Train in Vain," as could Lionel Richie and Bruce Springsteen. But for many of us, the closest that Classic Rock radio got to diversity was "Purple Haze" (unless you happened to see a picture of Phil Lynott, which many of us hadn't).

Growing up listening to American Top 40 permanently defined "pop music" for me as literally whatever is popular. Thus the idea of pop as a genre/sound has always felt bizarre and wrong; pop is whatever sells the most.

current Classic Rock radio = no women, no black people, no gays. It's strictly demographic.

x-post oh yeah, the sudden appearance in about 1985 of an AM oldies station that covered the late 50s, the 60s and some early 70s was of lasting consequence for me. And that station (69 XTRA Gold) was really wide open to start with, playing stuff like Pushin too Hard, Talk Talk by the Music Machine, Shoot Your Shot by Jr. Walker

.... essential for getting me to Motown, Stax, & James Brown hits (not enough of those however!), not to mention all that below-the-critical radar white pop like Gene Pitney and Lou Christie ...playlists narrowed over the years, but this format really changed my listening & record buying habits. Glad I got the chance to know a lot of this music through an AM radio speaker driving an old car.

There was a station in Chicago in the 80s called the Loop...I think it's still around...anyway, they had a weekend oldies show that played lots of Nuggets, Stax, Motown, early doo-wop, stuff like Little Richard/Chuck Berry/Bo Diddley, Phil Spector...it didn't seem momentous at the time, but in retrospect, it was pretty amazing/educational.

and I think before Clear Channel got their hooks in, oldies stations had a shit-ton more variety. I remember hearing "Itchycoo Park" on an almost daily basis on one oldies station in the mid-90s; haven't heard it on the radio since.

Not sure about the "last classic rock album" question.

Maybe The Wall.

I like how Sirius/XM divides up their clasic rock. They have the "Classic Vinyl" station staffed by lots of oldschool NY FM DJs like Carol Miller and Pat St. John, the same voices I heard growing up. That is your traditional Zeppelin/Floyd FM rock. Then they have a "Classic Rewind" which begins around 1980 or so. That is where AC/DC, Van Halen and 80s stuff gets played. No Nirvana, Pearl Jam or anything remotely 90s alternative, but The Cars and other new wave acts get airplay.

Then they have Deep Tracks, which plays total obscurities from acts like The Move, and Be-Bop Deluxe.

Sirius should be better than it is, but at least there is some effort at expansion. Surely even casual music fans would like to hear more than they do now, right?

I wish they'd hire some writers - John Morthland or Donna Gaines or Lenny Kaye or Ed Ward - to program one of their older-musics channels!

The other weird thing is that currently, "Classic Rock" includes both rock from the actual 80s, and the entire catalogs of purported classic rockers. Calling "Allentown" or "Sunglasses at Night" or "Sunset Grill" classic rock is odd to me because I heard them new in the 80s. My mental category of "classic rock" consists of 60s/70s things that I only heard in regurgitated form.

Οὖτις, I believe the diversity picture is dismal, but none, seriously? Does CR in your milieu not include Queen, Heart, the Mac, Hendrix?

Perhaps you're being hyperbolic but it's hard for me to grasp the idea of a classic rock dj who won't play "Barracuda" or "We Are the Champions."