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

That's a good call.

disco poll was 100 tracks and was awesome

A lot of the acts that have been disputed on some level (Beatles, Cars, Talking Heads, The Clash) have had classic rock staples for two decades. They may be less hard-rocking or hirsute or macho, and their careers fall at the edges of 70s. But if you listen to 24 hours of a classic rock station you'll hear all these acts--multiple times in the case of the Beatles and the Cars.

― intheblanks, Wednesday, June 18, 2014 8:42 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did anyone else here grow up listening to NY classic rock, mainly WNEW and WXRK?

i think those two stations are right on the rock/classic rock divide that have flummoxed a lot of us in trying to remember what did or didn't get played on classic rock radio back in the day. to me, the wnew of scott muni, dave herman and carol miller was a "rock" station, playing beatles/stones/zep but also '60s AM nuggets (motown, girl groups, some actual nuggets) and also plenty of new stuff that lifted from both traditions (petty and mellencamp on one hand, smithereens and elvis costello on the other hand). wxrk, if memory recalls, came later and was much more self-consciously "classic rock," zeroing in on the zeppelin/skynyrd/acdc/vanhalen piece of the format and dispensing with anything that smelled "alternative" or "black" (and adding, of course, howard stern). i think wxrk is much truer to the spirit of this poll.

another station like wnew was boston's wbcn in the '70s and '80s, which played a ton of new wave and weirdo one-hit wonders and local rock along with the beatles and stones and phil spector and sly stone and marvin gaye, and love's "alone again or" was a staple, and i think of it as classic and as rock, but not as classic rock, and i think there's a big difference there.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, June 18, 2014 9:03 AM (5 hours ago)

also, great post, fcc

Foghat: Fool For The City

Kim Mitchell - Go For a Soda
Trooper - Boys in the Bright White Sports Car
Headpins - Don't It Make You Feel
Toronto - Your Daddy Don't Know

0 for 4 there imo

I don't know about everyone else, but I WANT to do a 100 song ballot. I mean, just looking at that list, a 100 song ballot is going to be enough of a challenge.

"Go for Soda" apparently was HUGE in Houston, a big staple of all request hours/weekends/marathons.

Todd Rundgren - Bang the Drum All Day

idk, it's not like it was only in the past 10-15 years that Beatles/Cars/whoever crept onto these playlists through the relaxation of standards. My rural Illinois home station was playing that stuff when I started listening in 1993.

nothing on the wiki about the Led Zeppelin ban mentioned upthread but Mr Veg confirmed it. I will dig up some more & see what I can find

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZAP_(defunct)

i think i was probably 20 by the time i realized "Bang The Drum All Day" wasn't by Talking Heads

local nomination

Y&T - forever

:D

My key CR radio years probably from, say, 89 to 99 or so, everything from hearing it in the background in my dad's workshop or at picnic-type events, to teenage years in a friend's car convinced Led Zeppelin were a major world-shifting revelation. Most of the stuff in this thread is okay by my memories, but most of the ones that have been flagged up as questionable I also question (though I'm down to check 'em out!). It's definitely a way bigger picture than Freedom Rock wooly boogie. On some previous thread I started parsing out some major 'eras' of CR sonically but the thing is they all got played side by side, so you kinda had to dig to realize Steppenwolf and Asia are a decade or more apart. That's kind of the fun of it, it's a canon but it's a weird, contingent, melange of a canon and people's experience varies a bit. The NYC station did a big voter-driven countdown a while ago and ''Joe's Garage'' was in there, never would've expected that.

SD - are we gonna get a 'worst' ballot?

yeah definitely

There will be a worst side poll, yes.

Marillion - Kayleigh?

oooh yes

I made a playlist of as much of the stuff as I had in my own itunes (a lot, lol) and it's the best because I freaking love every single song

lol

(xpost)

I've noticed no Whitesnake tracks have been added yet!

With 1987 being the cutoff, you're stuck with Whitesnake (except for "Slide It In") that never got played on the radio.

Pretenders 100% on classic rock radio -- including My City Was Gone (in NEOH)

agreed

how else would my dad have developed his crush on chrissie hynde

her vegan restaurant did ok iirc

Did Golden Earring get an official nomination? If not I hereby nominate "When the Bullet Hits the Bone" and "Radar Love."

Also, thank you LL and gr80. I will switch to The Loop for the remainder of this poll, even though I generally like The Drive a little better I think.

Golden Earring 4 EVA

psst the first song is 'Twilight Zone' <3

idk, it's not like it was only in the past 10-15 years that Beatles/Cars/whoever crept onto these playlists through the relaxation of standards. My rural Illinois home station was playing that stuff when I started listening in 1993.

Yeah, I was listening to this format a lot in late childhood/pre-adolescence in the late 80s/early 90s. I was definitely familiar with the late Beatles songs and Cars/Police/Talking Heads + the biggest hits by the Clash and Pretenders via this station. I think they actually did a whole feature on Sgt Pepper for its 25th anniversary in 1992. And certainly softer stuff like Fleetwood Mac/Steely Dan/Tom Petty/Eagles/Supertramp/ELO was as much a part of the format as Skynyrd/BTO/Foghat. Has it ever been otherwise? I feel like contenderizer is describing a classic proto-metal stoner rock format that would be awesome but is a bit removed from the reality of classic rock radio.

I know all of those bands were rotation staples on the station I was listening to in 1980

Dylan Poll/CR Synergy Dept.: I'd never listened much to Bootleg V5, so I started it up and The Cars totally swiped that "It Ain't Me Babe" arrangement for "Touch and Go"! I guess Ocasek or Orr or somebody went to one of the Rolling Thunder shows. Or I'm pulling this theory out my behind.

reminds me -

Bob Dylan - Hurricane

psst the first song is 'Twilight Zone' <3

Whoops! Thank you!

iirc there was kind of a moment for sgt peppers' 20th anniversary in '87, but yeah i don't think the beatles were played much apart from like weekend morning 'beatles breakfasts' or something

the less synthy cars stuff, tho, totally

This may be more regional, but: Artful Dodger - Wayside

I would believe that CR Beatles play has sort of expanded and contracted. Would make sense that there wasn't as much of it in the late 80s and into the 90s, because "oldies" stations (that reached back as far as the 50s, so much more Elvis and Chuck and Fats and stuff that you never hear now) were still playing the shit out of them. The CDs coming out had to put some kind of new spotlight on them but I don't know who took up that torch really. By the time I was in high school in the late 90s, my sense is that the oldies stations were shifting their chronologies forward, the early Beatles were sort of left in the dust, and the late stuff became Classic Rock property even moreso than it was already. This was also the time of the Anthologies and a lot of interest in them. But I might be really talking out of my ass here.

They're a weird case though because it's not like the Beatles were ever unpopular really. It's hard for me to imagine a world where the kind of people that like "classic rock" aren't gonzo for White Album and Abbey Road. The real question is what becomes of Rubber Soul through Pepper's.

The Beatles were always played here. In the car today, for some reason it was Paul McCartney day.

we got a sequence of "Band on the Run", "We Can Work It Out", "Love Bites", "One Way or Another" (never on real classic rock in the past), "Proud Mary", "Working for the Weekend", "Don't Bring Me Down", "Mysterious Ways", "Feeling Stronger Every Day", "Captain Fantastic (never heard on radio before today), "Wanted Dead or Alive", "Love the One You're With", "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", "Somebody Save Me" (Cinderella? I don't know why), "Fame", "Fantasy" (ALDO NOVA!!), "Here Comes My Girl", "Jealous Again", "Bad Case of Loving You", "Night Moves", "The Boys of Summer", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Go Your Own Way", "Yesterday", "Junior's Farm" I copied this list from the website. I didn't have a notepad handy in my new car. In a rainstorm on the way to the doctor appointment.

I know that's just a long list of cool songs, but I was impressed. I don't drive much these days so I hadn't been listening. I'm sure The Eagle is programmed nationally by a computer, but back when they were competing with The Arrow, neither station had this wide of a range (of white guy rock music from a 20 year time span).

Yeah, to be clear, I wasn't advocating for "Michelle" or "And I Love Her" to be part of this poll. There are a bunch of CR staples in the 1967- Beatles catalogue, though, ime, and I had the impression that people were arguing that even these don't really fit, which seemed bizarre to me. Were oldies stations ever playing much from Pepper or the white album??

I feel like contenderizer is describing a classic proto-metal stoner rock format that would be awesome but is a bit removed from the reality of classic rock radio.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, June 18, 2014 4:56 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah, my sense of "classic rock" was formed between 1978 and 1985, during my preteen & early-mid teen years in spokane wa, citywide heavy metal parking lot to the western united states. el caminos & novas, feathered roach clips under black light, chew rings & sleeveless denim. that is the type of shit. so my view may not reflect that of your "mainstream".

*spits, shrugs*

listen, you can go outside and smoke a J when we're going through the Stephen Stills parts of the countdown, it's all good

In the car today, for some reason it was Paul McCartney day.

it be his birthday.

DA NANA NA NANA

Has "Low Rider" been mentioned? that's gotta be one of the few tracks by a legit funk band that gets classic rock play. (Cousin of mine useta think it was Santana)

yeah, it's in the OP. also a mean fighter.

I'm just voting for songs on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack.

Small Faces - Itchycoo Park

If the band/singer already had their own dedicated poll, I'm not going to vote for them. That means no Stones, Who, Dylan, Zeppelin, Springsteen etc. So while I normally like Gimme Shelter more than Radar Love, I don't here.

― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, June 18, 2014

yeah i'm not making any hard and fast rules but acts that transcend classic rock are less likely to get my vote than acts that only get played there

head east, red rider and golden earring own this thing \m/

(and yeah gotta get "when the bullet hits the bone" on the list and la lechera otm wrt "since you been gone")

i have had "Since You Been Gone" in my head for DAYS now

duh duh-duh DUH