CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

this video sold me on Grand Funk forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL4rXHt0_GI

i legit only knew them from The Simpsons for most of my life

Tuned into the big local CR station for the first time in a long time during my work commute this evening--they apparently have been doing Pat Benatar blocks all day in honor for birthday (caught "Heartbreaker" & her version of "I Need A Lover"). Last thing I heard was "Unskinny Bop", and "Welcome To The Machine" was the earliest song.

Kinks are weird because their initial big hits in the states were all in '64-'66, then you move to '70 for "Lola", which I feel is still a pretty big radio song, and "You Really Got Me" is another token '60s song. Moving on, they had a number of big radio songs during their Arista period, but those songs are pretty much all forgotten now.

― Never Learn To Mike Love (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, January 10, 2018 6:37 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like i hear "come dancing" more than any other kinks song. and van halen's (truly awful) cover of "you really got me" more than that

looking it up now, "come dancing" was their highest charting single in the US (#6), tied with "tired of waiting" but ahead of all the others

the fascination with the "60s narrative" migrated wholly to the world of visual art where it will live for another 2 decades I reckon

― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion), Wednesday, January 10, 2018 6:15 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also this is so otm

The classic rock station I grew up with still had weekly jazz and blues programmes until the mid-90s and still gave some DJs enough freedom that I heard Frank Zappa and Babe Ruth commonly enough on Sundays and was pretty familiar with Focus's "Hocus Pocus" and "Inna Gadda da Vida" (alongside stuff like Midnight Oil album tracks) by middle school. Those things have all definitely become casualties. (The last five songs they played were "Call Me the Breeze", "Mr. Jones", "Sultans of Swing", Robbie Robertson's "He Don't Live Here No More", and "Jesus Just Left Chicago".) Cream, the Kinks, and the Animals are other good example of things you don't hear as much anymore. Something like Deep Purple's "Hush"?

"Come Dancing" is one of my very favorite songs, but I don't remember hearing it on classic rock radio in the late 80s or 90s. I had to rediscover it in the Napster/Mp3 era.

What I do remember is hearing it on top 40 radio circa 1982-3.

As an aside: That was a great couple of years for eclecticism in pop, by the way. You would hear "Rock the Casbah" and then "Borderline" and then "Beat It" and then "Pass the Dutchie" and then "Rio" and then "Come on Eileen" and then "99 Red Balloons." You'd hear "Everyday I Write the Book" and then "All Night Long" and then "Time After Time" and then "Thriller" or "Shock the Monkey" or "Little Red Corvette."

Everybody thinks the music of their own youth is the best music that ever musicked, I know. But it does seem like punk and new wave and pop and R&B coexisted in Casey's weekly top 40 to a remarkable extent. I feel privileged to have been a tween with a radio during that time.

4 Observations from the Ride Home

--Other Lady Guest @ The Sausagefest: Pat Benatar. Caught another twofer block of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and "Promises In The Dark". Seems like she'd do well on a more '80s-centric playing field.

--The only two '60s songs were "Satisfaction" and "Magic Carpet Ride", which reminds me that Steppenwolf are quite lucky because both "MCR" and "Born To Be Wild" will still be in heavy rotation until doomsday.

--Newest track was "You Could Me Mine" by G'n'R, which perfectly ties into the coronation of AxL & Co. as the "Last Great Classic Rock Band" and why the format had to stretch in to the '90s to include them.

--Heard a commercial for a law firm that only represents men in divorce cases--Welcome To The Land Of Who Still Listens To Terrestrial Classic Rock Radio!

It occurred to me re-reading the thread that we rightly or wrongly left out a lot of stuff that was corny to us but that definitely has a place at the classic rock table. Like Kiss, and the Doors, etc. Plus I think maybe some late 60's stuff too, like Dylan etc.
It's kind of funny how modern tastes edit out the stuff that is very much a part of Klassik Rawk

Have the Ramones officially become Classic Rock

it's more that "blitzkrieg bop" has become a sports anthem.

Dylan along with a few others was probably shortchanged by the sense that he'd had his own poll, whereas this is probably the only time you're ever going to be able to put Sugarloaf on a ballot. (Didn't help them either iirc but....)

Probably the most common Dylan song I've heard on CR is freakin' "Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35".

yeah I don't remember hearing Dylan on the radio ever, classic rock or otherwise.

ours plays Tangled up in Blue a lot

Oh, and also "Stuck In the Middle With You".

I though "Hurricane" was awesome in Dazed & Confused but it seemed culturally out of place

wanna say that Planet Waves is the most CR Dylan

Re: Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone" is sometimes heard on radio.

I feel like "Tangled Up in Blue" is a comparatively recent discovery by radio. Back in the day, we listened to Blood on the Tracks in dorm rooms, but would never have heard its songs on radio until 2005 or 2010. We may have heard the Indigo Girls cover on college radio.

pplains, do you mean the Stealer's Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle With You"? Not Dylan. Not even Lennon (another misattribution one sometimes hears).

One interesting thing (to me) is that Dylan's most famous song may be "Blowin' in the Wind," but his own recording is by far the least-heard version of that tune.

Oh and re: Ramones: "I Wanna Be Sedated" is every teen movie's go-to track for indicating that the antisocial misfit girl has vintage punky musical taste, and that is why she is a cooler and better person than her classmates. She wears black leather and she pogos to the Ramones in her bedroom. The cheerleaders snub her because think she's a weirdo.

Glad someone is doing so. But then, in my hearing, very few Classic Rock stations ever gave all that much airtime to any vintage soul/R&B/Motown. Temptations/Marvin/Stevie/Otis/Bill Withers were almost absent from the dial, even in the late 80s.

― mime kampf (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 10 January 2018 23:41

There's a UK channel called Smooth Radio which calls itself adult contemporary but really it just plays any pop hits that aren't too fast or heavy. The guys you mention above are represented but it's a woefully small selection of them and everybody else they play.

Maybe kids without internet buy Uncut and Mojo, who probably pander to old farts more than they already did?

As much as the audience for these bands will dwindle, I think most of them will still have a sizeable audience for decades yet, at least among music fans who dig into histories, influences etc.

I never really cared about the Doors but some people on Bakers Dozen convinced me to check them out someday.

pplains, do you mean the Stealer's Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle With You"? Not Dylan.

Pretty sure that song's by Bob Dylan. Surely you're not saying that every single caller on my request line is wrong, are you?

(Also, the name of the band is Stealers Wheel - no apostrophe. :-p)

It definitely feels like there is less variety in the 70s music that is played these days.

yep. one of my attainable New Year's resolutions is to avoid all Classic Rock stations wherever and whenever possible. Already ditched the bar on my way home for a different one. I never, ever want to hear a Foreigner song again. I like a fair amount of this stuff, but there are certain things that are total dealbreakers. Gimme a BOB station anytime, thanks.

no Foreigner? does not compute

I hate them so intensely, the worst ever, I would go back in time to kill them if I could

plus they ripped off Thomas Dolby, so fuck 'em

(pplains, sorry I did not get the joek)

damn sleeve, that's cold as ice

sleeve needs to know where love is

no foreigner but you gotta have some room in your heart for "midnight blue" no?

"waiting for a girl like you" is probably the greatest song of all time

I don't recall it ranking, so I doubt that's true

it’s true in my heart so there

It is Urgent that we get to the bottom of this Foreigner question

I've never been able to reconcile the Foreigner/King Crimson connection in my mind. It just does not compute.

I though "Hurricane" was awesome in Dazed & Confused but it seemed culturally out of place

it does play weird in the scene that it's used in, but not out of place culturally. 70s stoners loooooved him and that song was ubiquitous at the time.

it didnt seem that out of place to me idk

I have it in my contract that it must be playing any time I walk into a poolhall.

Dylan's most famous song may be "Blowin' in the Wind," but his own recording is by far the least-heard version of that tune.

what other versions are more often heard? sorry don't listen to classic rock radio (or any other radio tbh)

at this point i would say no versions are heard, tbh

Dr. C right (from the perspective of classic rock radio). But among folkies, I think Peter, Paul & Mary's and Joan Baez's versions have generally fared better. Is there a Weavers version?

Random Thought (because I heard the song on the radio just now): How much bank has George Thorogood made off "Bad To The Bone"? It was already a CR staple when I was in Kindergarten, and is another one of those songs they'll spin until doomsday (and that's not even considering all the licensing!).

Spent the entire day reading this thread & listening to the Spotify playlist. Time well wasted, thanks belatedly, sd & gr80!

feel like 'all right now' is the quintessential classic rock song

it's . . . decent? but i can't imagine any possible context in which it might be mentioned other than 'classic rock songs that exist'

(i will literally fite anyone who starts a 'bad co origins' thread')

i mean, Free’s pretty classic

I can't hate Steve Miller for the simple reason that I feel like he's just begging you to hate him with every song

Paul Rodgers seems basically like the official voice of Classic Rock, to the point where if you lose Robert Plant or Freddie Mercury you can just hire him as your singer

"all right now" is also quintessential b/c when it's on in a car or at the beach or sth it sounds dope and you wanna sing along to the chorus and nod yr head to the verses, but if you like just sit down to listen to it it's kinda boring and too long and unvaried but still kinda good

The bass playing is too funky for classic rock.