nothingfails

I didn't have my ipod with me today so I listened to the radio to and from work, and on the classic rock station, I heard "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed. I mean, this is less than a decade old and is now being played alongside Zeppelin and Floyd? It's bad enough that we're now conditioned to believe GNR and Def Leppard are "classic rock" (which I have a hard time believing is already classic rock since I remember when both were current) and even worse now that Nirvana and Pearl Jam, you know, those "new era" groups from the 90's are already played on classic rock. But Creed? a band who peaked in popularity around 2001? I mean, why not play Fall Out Boy as well.

Anyone else noticing this? I love my 80's and 90's rock (well, not Creed), but when I think classic rock, I think The Doors, The Stones, Zeppelin, The Who and other bands whose heyday were in the 60's and early/mid 70's and whose original fans are over 50 now. If it comes after MTV, it's too recent to be classic IMO, but especially not Creed.

DaveWadding

my only beef with my classic rock station is they spin in Santana's "Smooth" fom like '99. But it's Santana and rules so I don't mind so much.

But Creed on a classic rock station is ridiculous...because they weren't good enough to ever be considered classic, first of all.

nothingfails

while I admit to loving GNR, Nirvana, Def Lep, U2 and the sort, I believe 1980-1981 is the cutoff for "classic rock". When MTV came along, it changed audiences and way too many 20-somethings remember when the rock of the 80's and 90's was popular for it to truly be considered vintage like a Doors song from 1967, which was over 40 years ago. While grunge is 15 years ago and hair metal was 20 years back at this point, I think too many people remember when these bands and songs are fresh that it's still too soon for them to be played alongside '71 Zeppelin and '67 Hendrix IMO, because those songs were always "old", but we loved them anyways, as opposed to a Pearl Jam song from 1992 when most people listening to that station remember when them and Nirvana were "the new generation" of music and the sort, and now it's played alongside something from the 60's? And even while Appetite For Destruction and Hysteria are over 20 years old at this point, it still seems weird to hear them played alongside Zeppelin and the sort, considering Zeppelin were already "classic rock" when those were new.

joefrog91

It just means we're getting older. Most of the late 70s and early 80s songs I grew up listening to are being played on my local oldies station.

Dan

I said the same thing when I heard Collective Soul on a classic rock station about 5 years ago.

Michael Corvin

We had four rock stations here. Two classic and two modern. Both the modern stations are playing classic rock now and one of the classic stations is playing rock from the 90s. So now we have three nearly identical stations.

That being said I don't have a problem with classic including songs up until the early 90s as that was 15 years ago. Late 90s though with Creed? That's a problem. Well Creed is a problem anyway but that's another thread.

DaveWadding

Similarly related but not quite:

I saw an ad on TV for one of those CDs put together by Musicspace or whatever (like the Monster Ballads thing etc) and it was like late 90s/early 00's "alt-rock" and I went to look up a tracklist and I saw a couple things to the end of "lolz theez sawngz iz sooooooo olddddd" Man, people my age (21) and younger scare me.

in fact, here's the CD and track list :

http://www.musicspace.com/product.as...uctcode=MS1308

nothingfails

I'm in Louisville too. It was QMF that I heard Creed on, which is why I was so shocked, since I remember in the early 90's when it would never play anything post-1975, and now they're playing Creed crap.

Another thing about what I dislike about them playing 90's alt vs. 80's hair bands is that the 90's music has never gone away. There was a long time where nobody would play Motley Crue or Def Leppard or Poiaon or Ratt, so it was welcoming to hear them on classic rock stations, even if it seemed "too recent". The groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, STP and so on have never stopped getting play on the modern rock stations for time to pass by to make them classic rock. They just suddenly added them to the classic rock stations when modern rock stations were still playing those artists every few hours, and even if it's been 15 years, it seems way too soon because the music has never really gone away, even if Pearl Jam is the only one listed who has consistantly recorded (since STP broke up for a long time before the reunion tour, and Nirvana and AIC ended for obvious death reasons). We were never given a chance for Nevermind or Ten to go away long enough that it'd become "old school" and welcomed on an oldies station.

rw2516

I define the classic rock era as when the artists associated with the era were recording and touring on a regular basis and the lesser B artists were still relevant and popular. I think it began to die in the early 90s and was dead by the mid nineties. If a B artists releases an album now it goes under the radar(usually on an indepent label) and they play small venues. The bigger names are semi-retired, release an album every 6-7 years and it's a big deal if they tour.
I also see two seperate periods within classic rock
1967-75. A clear definition between pop and rock. When the occasional rock song would be a chart hit it was something of a "crossover", although there was no rock charts.
1976-Mid 90s. By 1976 rock had become somewhat stagnant and some think it may have died out if not for the popularity of Boston's first album and Frampton Comes Alive. Rock started to have a more mainstream sound to it and rock artists who had been around for years were suddenly scoring top 10 Billboard hits and went from playing college auditoriums to major arenas. Some artists disappeared. Some people( and I'm one of them) think that the very best work of artists that continued was pre-'76. But not all. There is a ton of stuff from the late 70s and 80s that is great. Also around this time FM rock changed from album tracks to what is FM classic rock stations we see today. The one difference is that when albums were released the new songs got a lot of airplay. Don't hear much of the new Rush album on the classic rock stations do we. When Moving Pictures was released "Limelight" and Tom Sawyer" were played a zillion times a day. I can't listen to classic rock radio anymore. Just the same songs over and over. Somewhere along the line Billboard started a mainstream rock chart for this stuff.

Michael Corvin

I haven't heard Creed yet, but they do spin Nirvana and PJ enough. I enjoy the 90s at noon which is fine, but all day? You're right, none of those bands have been away from the public eye long enough to become classic.

So we have LRS, QMF & the Fox all playing basically the same shit. I'd listen to SFR but that comes part and parcel with them playing 500 commercials an hour(promoting their station) saying they don't play commercials.

When did that become acceptable anyway? If you are advertising your own station it is still a commercial in my book. It's after every damn song. "SFR only plays 4 commercials per hour compared to 8 on QMF*"

*unless you count every one of those interludes then it would be closer to 30 an hour.

cdollaz

Creed was classic as soon as it came out.

GuessWho

I guess it depends on how you define Classic Rock.

Is it
a) rock song that over time has become a classic or

b)is it a song that follows the traditional (ie: classic) format of a rock song: including singer, up to 2 guitarists, drummer; verse chorus verse chorus solo chorus chorus structure.


It depends on if "classic" is describing the song's status in history or describing the genre of the song.



(Creed fits B but not A)

Sean O'Hara

Yeah, true classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Pink Floyd are so old nobody could possibly remember when they were current.

I have no problem with retro-rock stations, but they should segregate their material by era -- Oldies is music from beffore 1965; Classic Rock is 1965-1980 (except for punk); and then Neo Classic Rock would be 1980-2000, and some late '70s punk bands.

nothingfails

yea, I think they should create stations following those formats, because there are a lot of people who grew up in the 70's and tune in to listen to Skynyrd and AC/DC who don't want to listen to Pearl Jam. They should have "real" classic rock stations that won't play anything post "Back In Black", and other stations that play the rock hits of the 80's and early/mid 90's. They do this with pop music (oldies stations and "hits of the 80's, 90's and today" stations, so why not with rock stations as well because there is a lot of stuff out there that might be too old to be played on Modern Rock, but aren't quite Classic Rock either?

DonnachaOne

Neither classic, nor rock. Discuss.

Cornelius1047

K

NoirFan

Do these stations no longer play actual oldies, like Buddy Holly, doo wop or Eddie Cochran? My local oldies station was playing "Love Machine" the other day.

nothingfails

I noticed one of the biggest and most established "oldies" station in my area have dropped 50's songs from the setlist and are now "classics of the 60's and 70's". How can the oldies stations drop Buddy Holly and peak-Elvis? It'd be like classic rock stations dropping Zeppelin and The Doors.

nothingfails

you mean classicly awful, right? haha. I think Starship (no Jefferson, no Airplane, I'm talking about Mickey Thomas building cities on rock and roll) probably belongs on classic rock more than Creed does. Creed brought the worst pretentions in arena-rock back after a great 1990's... paving the way for redneck crap like Nickelback.

The Cow

Welcome to Clear Channel radio

kristina

well if Creed is considered classic rock, than the world must be going to hell alot faster than I'd predicted... I thought I'd at least be 30 or 40 before having to hear that's on a classic rock station. anyhow,... Creed totaly screed themselves up anyhow with the band breakup and Scott Stapp continuously being drunk in public... it's close to comical now.

Burgundy LaRue

Because the people most likely interested in this music are 50+ years or older and are not viable in the advertising world. A lot of baby boomers have gone through their mid-life crisis and don't feel compelled to spend money on their bygone youth. Both for those in the 34-49 age bracket, nostalgia has kicked in and want to shake their asses on the hood of Whitesnake's car.

It's all about money and who is willing to spend it. Simple as that.

DJLinus

I remember feeling the same way in the 90s when our local classic rock station would play Joshua Tree-era U2. Not in that I think the group sucks (quite the opposite), but it was too "new". We're all just getting older, bud.

Lately, one obsession of mine is to build the Ultimate Classic Rock Playlist on my iPod (which I have titled "Dick Hungate"). I've been using what I call the XL102 Test: if I remember that station playing the song when I was growing up, it makes the cut. Another rule I have is the song had to have been released no later than 1985 (this was just to accomodate some songs by ZZ Top and a couple of other bands).

pinata242

Local OKC station has been saying "It doesn't have to be old to be a classic" for as long as I can remember. That being said, I never heard them go beyond AfD-era GnR.

I did hear Sheryl Crowe last night on one of Tulsa's classic stations. I've heard R.E.M. on there before too. Really strange wedged between Supertramp and Cat Stevens...

nothingfails

I think the main thing a lot of people have with music from the past 20 years on classic rock is the fact that by the time Nirvana, GNR, etc... took off, "Classic Rock" was already an established radio format which played the hell out of Zeppelin, Floyd, Doors, Hendrix and other groups of the sort. So it seems weird that these same classic rock stations are now playing artists who were brand new when they were already on the air.

Plus, there's too much of a generation gap. 70's teens were listening to classic rock to escape GNR and grunge in the early 90's, and now those same acts are now being played alongside their ZZ Top and Zeppelin? It's way too much. You won't hear an early 90's Janet Jackson song played alongside The Beach Boys on an oldies station, so it's odd that classic rock stations would do just that.