Atomm wrote:
The thing with Classic Rock is it's moving through music that has already established itself. For instance, I use to Listen to the Classic Rock station in Oklahoma City. The played stuff from the 60's and 70's. But as the audience got older, they needed to tap into a slightly younger generation because that is what the advertisers want. So, they stopped playing a lot of stuff from the 60's and started focusing more on the 70's and early 80's. Styx, Boston, Asia, Bad Company, etc....
We're not on the same page here. I'm not debating why 'classic rock' changes, or has to change. Instead, I am bemoaning the fact that what I once called 'Rock" BECAME "Classic Rock".
I know you're younger than me, but cast your mind back: Imagine a time when you'd turn on the radio, and hearing what we NOW call "classic rock". Only as you listen, you notice they're not calling it that. . .they're calling it "Rock". As you continue to listen, you realize that it's 1991.
Now, imagine you're in a some sort of time warp (just a jump to the left). You continue listening, the pages on the desk calander before you fly off into the distance at an ever increasing rate. . .the years go by, but something odd happens. . .the music never changes! Whereas previously, the station had been advertising and playing new bands & new tunes, now they are not.
What happened here? I would imagine, in 1991, the Program Director did
NOT say, "That's enough. We don't ever need to buy any more CD's. We're gonna take the music that had been changing and vital, and freeze it in time. Let's call it 'Classic Rock'."
I figure they stayed with the type of music that was putting them at the top of the ratings regularly, but since Nirvana and Pearl Jam had such a great reception, the record companies went looking for the NEXT Pearl Jam or Nirvana. . .and so, the next 'Black Crowes', the next 'Deep Purple', etc, either went unrecorded, or switched to Grunge at that time.
Music changes by it's nature. Listening to Blues music did not spawn Robert Johnson, but Robert Plant. Led Zep in turn gave birth to Nirvana. It was going to change, and seems to change about every 10 years. I think we'll find it becomes cyclic, given enough time. Now that we have good quality recording tech, and lossless, long-term storage, we're always going to have the old stuff to go back to. Maybe one day we'll have virtually all classifications thriving at once, with enough of an audience to support them all. Right now, however, I regret the fairly sudden change that all but killed the kind of music I favored, and left me foundering, grabbing a stray piece of music here and there like so much driftwood, never again to see new favorite tunes popping up like saplings at a Christmas tree farm.
On thinking about it, it was inevitable, at this point in time, that my favorite style of music would go the way of the Dodo. I still think the asshole record executives helped hasten it, however. . .
Cool news about the Eagles. I celebrate their entire catalog (2 e-penis points for whoever identifies that quote), but curses them and hates them forever for what they did to concert ticket prices. I saw America at a concert once. Curiously, not at THEIR concert. I was taking in an Adrian Belew concert, and Adrian addressed them as they sat in the crowd.
Bob Seger and Meat Loaf both had new CD's late last year. . .neither did anything for me . Tragic, as I was SO hungry for new tunes.