comparing the evolution of 'classic rock' between uk and usa

Creem readers also regularly chose as their favourite jazz acts Chicago and Edgar Winter (cause he played a saxophone on occasion)

yeah i know it was a readers list but list-making doesn't always reflect what people are listening to irl - the lower half of that list feels totally like some makeweight 5 vote shit

like, i am aware of the existence of stuff like Legs Diamond or Coney Hatch thru Kerrang but nobody in the UK has ever listened to them ever, objective fact.

haha a few years ago last time I was in Rock Fayre (2nd hand shop in the trongate) had tons of Legs Diamond and Heavy Pettin' lps as my mate was laughing at them(hes about your age) It is a goldmine for 70s and 80s lps.

Record Fayre not rock fayre

http://www.recordfayre.com/
http://www.recordfayre.com/resources/GEDC0406.JPG
http://www.recordfayre.com/resources/GEDC0355.JPG

All the vinyls typically most of out of shot but you can see some of it(ie the top of) bottom left and right

Bob Marley vs. Jack Daniels - FITE

I got most of my prog lps and hanoi rocks and groundhogs etc there in the 90s. They used to have shitloads of numan 7"s and pic disks. Lots of punk too. It basically sells albums no other places do. cds however are more like the other 2nd hand shops. However this shop alone proves the existence of classic rock in the UK

tbh i wd be up for listening to some semi-obscure 80s AOR, might use that list for a dig around

Disco was considered too different from the originally defined sound to be absorbed, and somewhat more surprisingly, so was punk rock. Rap never had a chance. I said AOR was built to "reject" aberrant styles, but perhaps reject is too strong a word and "ignore" is better.

It seems like people are trying to think of this in musicological terms when really the classic rock format in the US is just a demographic thing (music for white boomer men). Just like all of the other radio formats really. Would you really expect those dudes to get into disco or hip hop if it were somehow integrated into the playlist of the radio station they listen to? Doesn't make sense.

Maybe not but I have no trouble imagining that audience getting into Funkadelic and Stevie Wonder and Prince.

you have a vivid imagination. really, this is like wondering why oldies radio doesn't play the velvet underground or something.

oh hell no man, Prince is anathema to real white boomer rockists. or at least to my dad.

Well, the Velvets were a cult band so that one's easy to figure out. You really think people who consume Hendrix and early Zep as staples would have that much of an obstacle with Maggot Brain or Prince's soloing?

I mean, 'classic rock' is a very broad category. I get why Tom Petty and Eagles fans would have difficulties.

You really think people who consume Hendrix and early Zep as staples would have that much of an obstacle with Maggot Brain or Prince's soloing?

absolutely. and they do!

yeah, prince is so diametrically opposed to the classic rock format, I just don't even get what you're hearing. And Funkadelic is too weird. What song would you play? Stevie wonder never used any heavy guitars. Too pop.

More importantly, classic rock is a static format built on nostalgia. Any racism and segregation happened when the music was first played on the radio. Now you can't go back and reintroduce these people to Funkadelic if they're not already familiar with them. That's not how the format works. Just like nobody is going to add the VU into oldies rotation even though a song like Sunday Morning would fit in just fine. Occasionally a newer song will get integrated into the format (like "old time rock & roll" on oldies stations) but there's really no incentive to ever go backwards and reintroduce people to stuff they missed the first time around.

xps

we've talked here a lot about USA classic rock / country crossover in the 90s and beyond, where you go now for "new" bands playing classic rock type tunes. "modern rock" post-grunge was a different thing. classic rock RADIO doesn't play new country but the audience for classic rock had more options after the crossover got going. I don't think the classic rock radio format was sensitive to this at all though.

I mean in the logic of commercial radio, Maggot Brain was not a hit for this audience the first time around. Why would it suddenly become a hit now?
xp

Prince is a virtuoso lead guitarist who plays all his own instruments, is influenced by Hendrix and Zeppelin and Todd Rundgren, makes 'great albums'. He doesn't seem that diametrically opposed to me at all, no more than a lot of 80s music that gets played on classic rock stations. A lot of Funkadelic doesn't seem that much weirder than Hendrix to me but you're right that it wasn't really hit material.

Jack FM stations do integrate Motown along with classic rock and more recent pop stuff.

Playlist excerpt from Ottawa's JACK station today:

1:17 pm Gemini Dream The Moody Blues
BUY
1:14 pm Oh Girl Chi-Lites
BUY
1:11 pm You Can't Hurry Love Diana Ross & The Supremes
BUY
1:08 pm Hey You Bachman-Turner Overdrive
BUY
1:04 pm Unwell Matchbox Twenty
BUY
1:00 pm 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover Paul Simon
BUY
12:56 pm Star Baby The Guess Who
BUY
12:52 pm Just a Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody David Lee Roth
BUY

Zeppelin and Todd Rundgren

really really doubt this - at the time he was making hits anyway - especially the latter. Prince claimed he never listened to the Beatles until Around the World in A Day, Purple Rain was an attempt to write a Bob Seger ballad (something he professed to "not understand") etc.

Didn't he actually run "Purple Rain" by the Journey guys to ensure that it wasn't too close to "Faithfully"? Am I misremembering?

A little further back:

12:47 pm The Tracks of My Tears Johnny Rivers
BUY
12:44 pm Echo Beach Martha And The Muffins
BUY
12:41 pm If You Don't Know Me By Now Harold & The Blue Notes Melvin
BUY
12:37 pm Our House Madness
BUY
12:35 pm Jingle Jangle Archies
BUY
12:31 pm Celebrate Three Dog Night
BUY
12:29 pm Little Bit O'Soul The Music Explosion
BUY
12:22 pm Harvest Moon Neil Young
BUY
12:19 pm Fire Arthur Brown

But yeah, that Zeppelin/Rundgren thing is based on stuff I read. Maybe I'm wrong there.

Prince is a virtuoso lead guitarist who plays all his own instruments

what classic rock acts are just one dude playing all the instruments?

You really think people who consume Hendrix and early Zep as staples would have that much of an obstacle with Maggot Brain or Prince's soloing?

absolutely. and they do!

― joe schmoladoo from 7-11 (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, August 12, 2013 2:33 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In Cleveland, at least, the classic rock audience can hang with Eddie Hazel:

From 1976 to 1995, disc jockey Bill "B.L.F. Bash" Freeman started a tradition of playing the original full version of [Maggot Brain] on 100.7 WMMS/Cleveland every Sunday morning at 1:30 (around "last call"). The tradition picked up in 1987 is still carried on to this day, by Mr. Classic host of "The Saturday Night Live House Party" featured on 98.5 WNCX/Cleveland at 11:50pm.

WMMS was, of course, the famed progressive FM/AOR station; WNCX is pure classic rock.

Ha, Rundgren (whom I never hear either)! But no, that's not the norm. My point was more that it's all live musicianship as opposed to sequenced electronic stuff.

xpost to crut

what classic rock acts are just one dude playing all the instruments?

Boston

what classic rock acts are just one dude playing all the instruments?

Gary Wright?

Didn't think that was the case with Boston?

Prince is a virtuoso lead guitarist who plays all his own instruments, is influenced by Hendrix and Zeppelin and Todd Rundgren, makes 'great albums'. He doesn't seem that diametrically opposed to me at all, no more than a lot of 80s music that gets played on classic rock stations. A lot of Funkadelic doesn't seem that much weirder than Hendrix to me but you're right that it wasn't really hit material.

Jack FM stations do integrate Motown along with classic rock and more recent pop stuff.

Again, you seem to be making a musicological connection, but that's not how radio formats work. Prince just doesn't sound anything like the stuff they play on classic rock radio! His music sounds very '80s, polished, pop. It sounds like dance music with drum machines, and it's very flamboyant and even effeminate.

Jack is a totally different format than classic rock isn't it?

Didn't think that was the case with Boston?

yeah, I guess it was just home recorded. Scholtz didn't sing obv and he didn't play drums either.

It is a totally different format (that might be taking over from CR). I'm just saying that provides evidence that these 'opposed' things can coexist on a mainstream radio format.

Prince just doesn't sound anything like the stuff they play on classic rock radio! His music sounds very '80s, polished, pop.

But I think this is also true of a lot of 80s things that DO get played on classic rock stations (Loverboy, 80s Springsteen, 80s Henley, even some 80s Rush and Yes and Genesis and Bowie)!

To be honest I haven't actually heard any classic rock radio in probably 20 years. I guess I just assume that it's still stuff like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Rock_(Time-Life_Music)

It is a totally different format (that might be taking over from CR). I'm just saying that provides evidence that these 'opposed' things can coexist on a mainstream radio format.

yeah, for a different demographic.

I'd like to imagine that stations would play "Bambi" if listeners didn't know it was Prince.

Ultimately, we might be saying the same thing. My original point was that the distinction between 'rock' and 'R&B' categories, and the way that playlists were developed, had more to do with social factors than musical ones. I think that's the same thing you're saying.

xposts to wk

xp it's called "adult hits"

i dont see why classic rock listeners couldn't enjoy Purple Rain or Super Stupid.
RHCP fans dig em and eventually they will be the classic rock listeners by now or soon enough.
If classic rock doesnt let in alt rock then you will get new oldies alt rock stations.

The modern rock format is not too far from that already.

otm, our Modern Rock station hasn't updated its playlist since 1999 - RHCP, STP, Bush, Green Day and Pearl Jam 24/7.

yeah that's how radio formats work right? each generation gets frozen in time with the hits from when they were 18 and that becomes a new nostalgia format.

lol - last played according to their website:

Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm
Comedown - Bush
Why Go - Pearl Jam

Yeah, the point of a format like classic rock is not to be expansive - it's to be reductive, to simplify, to reduce options, to make things easier for everyone. Short of boring their audience to death, there's no drawback to sticking close to the formula.

I do think AOR programmers of 1975 would be astonished that the basic format they established would still be viable in 2013 and that teenagers would still be listening to Led Zeppelin. I have to believe they wouldn't have expected their format to last beyond about five years.

yeah that's how radio formats work right? each generation gets frozen in time with the hits from when they were 18 and that becomes a new nostalgia format.

lord help you when it reaches the nu metal era

Yeah, the point of a format like classic rock is not to be expansive - it's to be reductive, to simplify, to reduce options, to make things easier for everyone. Short of boring their audience to death, there's no drawback to sticking close to the formula.

But ironically these stations are often more interesting and diverse than a contemporary top 40 format because their narrow playlist of chart hits is at least drawn from a 20 year period rather than just this week.

not if its always the same songs surely?

this sounds like my idea of hell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_contemporary