CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL parking lot tailgate pre-party -- nominations, discussions, parameters, etc.

yeah Cars are basically as classic rock as Tom Petty when you get down to it

i honestly figure if you can't reasonably imagine some long-haired, aviator-shaded freedom rock burnout sneaking parking lot tokes in the band's t-shirt outside a foghat show c. 1980, then it probably doesn't belong. but then again, it ain't my poll...

I think classic rock as we know it ended the day Nevermind came out. On a completely unrelated note, I'm glad nobody is nominating acts like Big Star, Gram Parsons or Gene Clark, who, great as they are, were never on the radio, and hence cannot be classic rock.

yeah in earlier planning stages i thought of 90/91 as the cutoff point instead of 86/87. so many classic rock stations outright playing Nevermind and Achtung Baby singles now, though. Kenny Wayne Shepherd's "Blue On Black" now shows up in the top 500 airplay stats for the format, and that's from 1997!

my local station has recently taken to playing new singles by old acts in the middle of regular daytime programming, and even if the occasional new Paul McCartney or Joan Jett track is actually not bad, it really feels weird in that context

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Kenny Wayne Shepherd is NO Johnny Lang!

Who is everyone's favorite classic rock DJ? Scott Muni 4EVA!!!!!!!!

"Blue on Black" was the #1 Album Rock Track in 1998, the before NuMetal broke.

The YEAR before, even

I really like a lot of the 60s / 70s stars current music. One of my favorite songs by The Who is Mike Post Theme from their 2006 record.

My dad was reminiscing about KZAP (sacramento) today, talked about how they would play 11 minute Traffic album cuts and stuff late in the evening. I distinctly remember them enforcing a Led Zeppelin ban for some reason?!?

o hey yeah, traffic. "dear mr. fantasy"

I got to say I heard Detroit Rock City and some of the other early Kiss classics way more than Beth on the radio. Maybe it was an Indiana thing, but at night they would sometimes even do the long intro. on Detroit Rock City. I'd say maybe more regional hits, but ones that got played a ton back when I was in high school along the usual staples.

Joe Walsh- The Confessor
Aldo Nova- Fantasy
Billy Thorpe- Children of the Sun
Blackfoot - Train, Train
The Fixx - One Thing Leads to Another, Saved by Zero
The Outlaws- Green Grass and High Tides
Dio- Rainbow in the Dark, Holy Diver, The Last In Line
Rainbow- Man on the Silver Mountain
Ten Years After- I'd Love to Change the World

God, "man on the silver mountain" kicks so much ass

yeah, it's the best and i thought abt nominating it earlier. but i never heard it on the radio, not even back in the 70s. did hear tons of dio once upon a time, esp "rainbow in the dark".

Feel like this debate has already been settled, but The Cars debut album is one of those records where every track but one or two has become a classic rock staple. First Boston album is the same way.

Also feel like Appetite for Destruction is the bellwether that makes the '86 cutoff so crucial. I take back even mentioning "Free Fallin'"

By the time Slash played a solo in "Sweet Child O Mine" with full blown wah pedal, it already felt like a reappropriation of another era. It's definitely the line between the old guard and the new at the time.

There's a strain of Hard Classic Rock mini formats that include GNR and Def Leppard and stuff but that's another dope animal. That whole mid-late 80s hard rock scene scared me as a young kid, all these depraved demons screaming about sex while guitar lava exploded everywhere

one more from the great robert palmer: you're gonna get what's coming

harry nilsson - jump into the fire (even as i nominate it, i'm unclear on whether this is revisionist classic rock history or actual classic rock history. thoughts?)

i get why we might want to force a cutoff point, and '87 seems as good (and as arbitrary) as any. so fine. but including songs that were swept under the "classic rock" umbrella well after that '87 cutoff while still policing the release date itself is sort of bizarre and leads to perversities like arguing that "shake it up" and "i want a new drug" are legit, time-hallowed classic rock jams while "free fallin'" and "sweet child o' mine" aren't. no biggie, but it's strange.

first time i ever heard "jump into the fire" was in goodfellas. it was pretty obscure at that point, certainly not a classic rock staple. may have snuck into a few playlists since?

Okay, I came up with a handful to add

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue
Paul Simon - Late in the Evening
Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds - Don't Pull Your Love
Pilot - Magic
John Stewart - Gold

i have no idea if "gold" qualifies as classic rock or not -- seems more AM/oldies to me-- but damn that is a great song that deserves as much love as it can possibly get. the first time i found myself "driving over kanan" after i moved to LA was a huge moment for me.

yeah I wasn't sure about Gold...but since Stevie & Fleetwood Mac are already a lock, it seemed worth a shot :)

I got to say I heard Detroit Rock City and some of the other early Kiss classics way more than Beth on the radio. Maybe it was an Indiana thing, but at night they would sometimes even do the long intro. on Detroit Rock City. I'd say maybe more regional hits, but ones that got played a ton back when I was in high school along the usual staples.

i mean...i pre-nominated "Beth" and someone else nominated "Detroit Rock City" days ago, but it doesn't really mean anything or matter when different things were nominated. it's all in there now, and people can voice their opinions about them with their ballots.

Robert Cray- Smoking Gun
Robert Cray- Right Next Door

moreso than "strong persuader", or did someone already nom that?

I think right next door is same song

By which I mean "Strong Persauder" is actually called "Right Next Door (Because of Me)"

lol, okay duh. that one!

as you can tell, i don't know anything abt rbt cray, but i do like that song. only track of his i've ever heard on the radio, tho it was NPR.

Two different songs.

Also: YES on the Cars. Every song from the debut I heard at some point in the eighties and earll nineties on classic rock radio.

oh duh sorry: I read "Strong Persuader" as "Smoking Gun" for some reason.

Someone with more time than me, please Spotify all these noms.

Cray was interesting to me, as he seemed the only black artist besides Hendrix and Living Colour that I ever heard on my local classic rock station.

o yeah, good point - "cult of personality"

I will make a master Spotify playlist of all nominated tracks, will be posted in the voting thread after the noms are done.

Bless you.

Off topic question that I'm curious about:
When people make Spotify playlists for things like this, is it done manually by looking up each individual song or is there a quicker way?

How 'bout Joe Cocker? "Feelin' Alright" and "With A Little Help From My Friends" are staples.

You can c+p a list of songs into http://www.ivyishere.org/ivy and it will do its best to give you a Spotify playlist back xp

Joe Walsh - Meadows
Deep Purple - Woman from Tokyo
Grand Funk - Bad Time

Someone with more time than me, please Spotify all these noms.

Lol, or you could turn on the radio for a couple of days.:P [ / ducks]

wow, seandalai, great tip, will def give that a try

I tried it during the Motown poll with some ridiculous list of songs -- close to 1000 I think -- and it churned and churned away at it. I thought I'd broken something but it finally generated a decent playlist. (Completely forgot about it after that.)

it's a tragedy that Great White's "once bitten" is disqualified due to its 1987 release as it's my own personal quintessential CR track

1989 even! damn.

I don't own a radio!