Hi.
My name is Aaron.
I've lived in germany for about ten years, but I was born in Boston.

What is the stipulation for "classic rock" nowadays?

I get to hear a program on the American Forces Network after midnight which plays this genre, but I'm a bit confused.
I just heard Green Day on there, but The Sex Pistols was never considered?
Guns N Roses get's played, but not anything by Jane's Addiction?


So, what the hell should "classic rock" be, anyways???


[Edited 3/4/06 16:17pm]

Classic Rock doesn't include past "alt" rock (unfortunately)

I thought Classic Rock was rock from the 60's and 70's: Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors...

How can Green Day be classic rock? Sex Pistols is not classic rock, it's classic punk rock.

It's basically just an AOR format used for radio programming.
[Edited 3/5/06 22:20pm]

By the way, my 16 year old brother informs me that Guns N Roses is old enough to be classic rock.

heartbeatocean said:

Yeah, me too. It's weird though, because here in Holland on the "classic rock" station, they play The Cure, Nirvana, and Men At Work as well as the usual suspects. I don't mind though. More variety I guess. I just don't know why they call it a "classic" rock station though.

Err, anything pre-mid-90s played by long-haired men with screeching voices and unoriginal guitar styles, as long as you can see their fingers moving really fast? Nothing that gets too 'out-there' for the average rock radio listener?

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of the music put in the so-called 'Classic Rock' category, (like Hendrix, Zeppelin and other odds and sods), but to categorise in this way has led imo to the effective death of creative mainstream rock since the early-mid-eighties.Rock back in the 60s/early 70s was supposed to be rebellious. What's rebellious about playing music your dad/grandad liked and apparently never daring to add anything of your own??

The early rockers were all individuals and pioneers. The vast majority of their successors, by mostly just recycling and diluting the music instead of innovating and adding new things to it, have failed to live up to their legacy.

I guess you'll all come up with 101 innovative rock bands of the last 20 years, but this is just my view.

Categorisation makes money but kills creativity in music. Rant over.

Thanks for all the replies!

Classic Rock from the 60's and 70's was classic in the 80's, so in this age I guess it needs to be "updated."

Mostly, when something new is brought to the stations who play this genre, it's usually the latest from a classic group or artist. Like The Rolling Stones or Clapton.

So what happens when they're gone?
Then, this category will finally be sealed?

I guess I'm getting old, myself