This year is the 20th anniversary of Wolfman Jack’s death. Despite that, he still broadcasts on a variety of stations (including one just an hour north of you, Jason). The definition of staying power.
If it didn’t play on the Midnight Special it isn’t classic rock.
I was just joking 
That’s interesting about Canadian radio. Does Justin Bieber count?
I think I see some flaws in the author’s methodology:
I spoke to Eric Wellman, the classic rock brand manager for Clear Channel…
Who, predictably, proceeds to outline his marketdroid definition of the term.
The stations find a cluster of people who like the music that makes up the core of classic rock, and then finds out what else they like. They like R.E.M.? Well, R.E.M. is now classic rock. “It’s really that simple,” Wellman said.
So I guess apple pie and blowjobs and The Empire Strikes Back must be classic rock too! Not simultaneously though.
The problem is that unlike “oldies,” classic rock isn’t explicitly defined relative to the current day, but unlike “heavy metal” or “prog rock” the term is a generic-sounding descriptor, which can be bent out of recognizable shape by idiot radio executives to include R.E.M. and Nirvana.
@d_r’s Midnight Special yardstick is a tad too restrictive but it’s close to the mark. How about “music (besides country) you could put on the jukebox in any truckstop or roadhouse in the U.S. without pissing off or confusing the regulars?”
Of course, none of this matters, because mainstream radio as we know it is on its last legs. Everyone’s got satellite, everyone’s got iTunes, nobody needs to put up with ten-minute commercial breaks to hear Sweet Emotion for the third time this afternoon.
Our local “alternative” station is Canadian. I never really know if the music I hear is popular anywhere outside of Detroit or Canada.
Classic rock is anything that came out before I was born… Except stuff I like… such as Kraftwerk. Because they are TIMELESS!!!
In all honesty, genre is just marketing of the industry. It’s as old as the recording industry itself (I just saw a paper about niche marketing to ethnic groups before 1940), and is unlikely to go away anytime soon. So, like what you like, and don’t let them warp your view of what you love…
Tour de France is up there with the Meters’ Chicken Strut for sheer awesome.
I wish I had understood this when I was in my teens ands hadn’t let peer pressure narrow my musical tastes.
Goes as well with this post and as it does with this one
Apparently, not much of what I like counts as “classic rock”, even when it is classic, and rock, from the 70s-80s, that people have actually heard of. Most of it goes far into prog or post-punk. When I had a job that forced me to listen to lots of classic rock radio, I picked what I thought sounded like appropriately middle-of-the-road music for them to play - Motörhead! So I called their request line every single day to request Motörhead songs: Locomotive, Ace of Spaces, Bomber, Eat the Rich, etc, and I don’t think I ever, ever got them to play a single track.
Then I am dating myself (phwoar!) because even though I make electronic music, I have only ever been able to enjoy their earlier instrumental work, the first two albums. Especially when Dinger and Rother were there.
Note the van dweller, in his native habitat.
So say we all! 
Freedom Rock? Turn it up!
Yeah, I became That Guy once L.A. rock radio died in the mid-90s. I’ll listen to KPCC on my way to and from work, unless they’re talking about something particularly dull or depressing, in which case I’ll turn on the iPod.
It says something about the state of L.A. rock radio, that I’d sooner listen KCBS 93.1, the local JACK-FM affiliate, than any other music station, if only because their playlist is twice as big as anyone else’s. They have no DJs, and are almost completely automated, and somehow that’s now L.A.'s best case scenario for music radio.
I never really listened to it (though my stepdad did, religiously), but the local classic rock station (Q107 in Toronto) seemed to have the standard marketdroid definition of “classic rock”. Basically, Zeppelin, AC/DC, your typical 70’s and early 80’s hard rock. But they’ve rebranded now, apparently, trying to attract more than 50+ males… And they’re playing rock from the late 80’s and 90’s… Even the 2000’s! Though it seems like every time I flip past it, it’s still mostly classic rock… Looking at their playlist, they do appear to be playing at least some more modern stuff, it just never seems to be there when I’m listening. Though I’ve mostly given up on terrestrial radio, going to podcasts or streaming my own music… The Edge ruined me for terrestrial radio by playing the same 15-20 songs over and over and over and over again.
Satellite radio? (I quite like 1st Wave, plus you can get the World Service course, I only have that while trial subscriptions on new cars last - I’d never pay for it)
KEXP is the only station other than NPR that I have discovered in the US that I can stand - and yay, it’s where I live.
A buddy of mind found a trick to extend his trial Sirius subscription indefinitely. I don’t have Sirius in my car, else I would be tempted to give it a go. I dig Sirius’ Lithium station.
Satellite radio is groovy, especially with the lack of commercials and the generally big playlists. I liked when we got Sirius stations on our DISH network satellite receiver at home (the rock stations on DirecTV’s network don’t seem to have the variety), but yeah, I’m not about to pay extra for it in my car. I’d need to spend a lot more time driving to justify it. In the 90s I sometimes averaged 30,000 miles a year, but these days I mostly just do a 30-mile round-trip commute.
I ended up paying in the one new car. They do let it go for next to nothing if you fight.
It’s been 10+ years since I ever listened to Q107 but based on their recent play lists their rebranding sure seems to have made it a whole lot worse. That’s the Toronto station I referred to further up in the thread. At least before you could be sure you weren’t going to hear complete garbage, mostly just things you’ve heard a hundred times already (“the song remains the same” you might say).
And yeah I could never stand The Edge but that’s what every “alt-cool” person in Buffalo listened to (probably still true).
I remember the first time I went to California, I drove, and I was kind of expecting to find all sorts of cool radio stations. That was in 2007 I think. KCRW probably qualifies but I’m not personally really into anything they play on there. In any case I remember driving around the freeways for the first time listening to a smooth jazz station because that was the best thing I could find. My first shattered LA illusion.
I too have noticed that if there’s nothing good and no alternative, Jack fm is often the best, which is pretty sad. I have been known to drive in silence when necessary.
I guess for me it’s different in many ways because I’m young enough that radio was already pretty much dead when I was a teenager, so it just was never important to me (though it still was for others my age since ipods etc. didn’t exist). But, when I was younger than that I listened to the oldies station, when oldies stations still played almost exclusively 50s and 60s pop rock and soul, which I loved. So radio did have some effect on me.
I don’t like satellite radio because it sounds bad. But I might get it for NPR and the BBC if I ever get an oil job like I hope too because boy will I need that in North Dakota or wherever I end up.
