Classic Rock: Evolve or Die!

Here's what David Eduardo said about the Classic Rock format: " Classic rock is the next Beautiful Music, Smooth Jazz, Oldies and Standards format... it is aging severely and will soon be too old for success. Either it morphs, as did Oldies, or it dies. But starting a new one today is not going to be high on any owner's list of choices." How long do you think it will be before "Classic Rock" needs to do something and what will that be? "Active Rock" is basically a niche format and has been for quite awhile, so I question if the format can be pushed forward in time very much, if at all. This should really bring people out of the woodwork, when it finally happens. If you think dropping 60s Oldies stirred them up...!

Much like Classic Hits has pretty much dropped the 60s and and more toward an 80's focus, Classic Rock should move away away from the 60s, play select 70s and focus on the 80s.

eriedj said:

Much like Classic Hits has pretty much dropped the 60s and and more toward an 80's focus, Classic Rock should move away away from the 60s, play select 70s and focus on the 80s.

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Moving away from the 60s without adding additional songs doesn't seem like the answer. The only way to focus more on the 80s would be to play fewer 70s, but they can't really add more 80s, because they're already playing all the right 80s songs now. Adding 90s would seem out of place and there weren't that many popular songs to begin with. How much "grunge" can you run, before blowing off your core?

ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Classic Rock is to rock what Classical Music is to music. It is timeless. What that format needs most is to get people involved in programming stations who appreciate and understand the music. Classic Rock (or Classic Country or Classic Anything) is about a particular musical sound, not a span of time. There are new recordings of rock music being made all the time that have the timeless, classic sound.

There was a lot of "grunge" (aka "alternative") recorded in the 90's, but there was also quite a bit of classic rock. The classic sounding rock didn't get the airplay it deserved, since the suits didn't understand music, but it was there. There continued to be new classic rock recorded all through the 2000's.

There are plenty of date-based radio formats out there. Considering how many stations are on the air, there's no reason why every single one of them has to be programmed based on recording or release dates. Surely there's room for a few that are programmed based on the sound of the music.

Two possibilities.

One classic rock station where I live absolutely refused to play anything like Metallica, or anything alternative (this was before grunge).

These days, there is 90s style grunge played occasionally, and Metallica too.

Another possibility is what happened in Myrtle Beach. They still have a classic rock station, and a somewhat wimpy alternative station which people who post here say is actually more active-leaning than most alternative rockers. But the third rock station there calls itself "the only station that really rocks". There is some harder rock from years since 1990, what we might call grunge as well as metal, and there are the classic-sounding tunes from the 70s that really seem out of place next to those.

The 90s also had artists like Collective Soul, Gin Blossoms, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz and others that would fit under a Classic Rock label.

eriedj said:

The 90s also had artists like Collective Soul, Gin Blossoms, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz and others that would fit under a Classic Rock label.

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That's semi-correct. The real determining factor for "Classic Rock" is the song, not the artist. More than a few artists who are labeled "classic rock" actually recorded songs that were not classic rock at all. And, more than a few artists who are not stuffed into the classic rock pigeonhole actually did record some classic rock songs.

landtuna said:

What will happen with hard core music fans is they will drop radio in all its traditional forms and establish personal libraries or listen to niche streams via the Net. Music radio will become a skeleton of its former self.

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Not exactly. Just because you don' like current music doesn't mean everyone feels the same way. A huge part of radio listening now is to current music formats, like country, CHR, and Urban.

Also, as I posted under the 60s, 70s, 80s format, another court today ruled against Sirius in the Turtles lawsuit. It's going to end up killing the airing of pre-1972 music on any digital service, including Sirius, Pandora, and more.

landtuna said:

I thought the subject was Classic Rock. In any event that is the genre I was addressing.

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I understand that. But there a hardcore music fans who also love current stuff.

landtuna said:

Does it mean, if upheld, it does not apply to analog radio but would apply to their HD signals?

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No. HD still uses the analogue spectrum, so this would not apply.

TheBigA said:

I understand that. But there a hardcore music fans who also love current stuff.

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I'm a hardcore classic rock fan, and I also love current stuff. Most of the "current stuff" I love is current classic rock. It's just that I cannot hear it on the radio, which is bothersome because radio used to be a great medium for learning of the existence of new, current classic rock. Now, I have to find it through alternative means.

This is a relatively new classic rock song that I doubt I'd ever hear on the radio. This is from the metal/prog-rock sub-genre of classic rock.

Avid Listener said:

ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

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My sentiments exactly. I scream every time I see you post.

Classic Rock is to rock what Classical Music is to music. It is timeless. What that format needs most is to get people involved in programming stations who appreciate and understand the music.

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Are there any commercial Classical stations left? I think the only one is WRR-FM in Dallas, and it is owned by the city government.

K.M. Richards said:

My sentiments exactly. I scream every time I see you post.

Are there any commercial Classical stations left? I think the only one is WRR-FM in Dallas, and it is owned by the city government.

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There are none in range of my radio. I don't listen to radio stations I cannot pick up. And, I don't give a damn whether or not classical music is a viable radio format. It is a damn fine example of a genre of music that isn't defined by the year it was written. That's all I said about it, so whether or not it is a viable format for commercial radio stations means nothing in the context of my post. But the fact that you cannot grasp anything beyond whether or not it's a good commercial radio format demonstrates just what a narrow little tiny field of vision you have.

Avid Listener said:

But the fact that you cannot grasp anything beyond whether or not it's a good commercial radio format demonstrates just what a narrow little tiny field of vision you have.

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You were the one who made the comparisons. I'm just responding.

It may surprise you to learn that back in 1976-77, part of my job at the station I worked for was to produce, board op, and fill-in for the host during his annual vacation for a nightly five-hour classical music program. I have the distinction of having lasted the longest in that position of anyone during the station's history (they were sold in 1982 and the classical music was cancelled). The station made about 25% of its total revenue from that program, so I know it was a good commercial format at that point in history. But times change ... L.A. lost its commercial Classical station way back in 1989.

This thread is about whether or not the Classic Rock format can survive. I agree with you that it is every bit as timeless for its genre. The problem is that, just as new compositions became rarer and rarer in classical music, there are significantly fewer songs in recent years that can be considered "classics" in the rock genre.

K.M. Richards said:

You were the one who made the comparisons. I'm just responding.

It may surprise you to learn that back in 1976-77, part of my job at the station I worked for was to produce, board op, and fill-in for the host during his annual vacation for a nightly five-hour classical music program. I have the distinction of having lasted the longest in that position of anyone during the station's history (they were sold in 1982 and the classical music was cancelled). The station made about 25% of its total revenue from that program, so I know it was a good commercial format at that point in history. But times change ... L.A. lost its commercial Classical station way back in 1989.

This thread is about whether or not the Classic Rock format can survive. I agree with you that it is every bit as timeless for its genre. The problem is that, just as new compositions became rarer and rarer in classical music, there are significantly fewer songs in recent years that can be considered "classics" in the rock genre.

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Interesting. Mostly irrelevant, but interesting. And the fact that there are fewer new classic rock songs being recorded lately than there were decades ago is no excuse or reason to not include new classic rock on the playlists of classic rock stations. I see no need for a station to have any sort of quota system for the age of the songs it plays. If there are 10, 20, 30, or 100 vintage classic rock songs available to be played for every new classic rock song, fine. Make the ratio of new classic rock songs to old classic rock songs, 10, 20, 30 or 100 to 1. No good sounding classic rock song should be kept off of the air just because there aren't enough other classic rock songs from the same year.

Avid Listener said:

I'm a hardcore classic rock fan, and I also love current stuff. Most of the "current stuff" I love is current classic rock. It's just that I cannot hear it on the radio, which is bothersome because radio used to be a great medium for learning of the existence of new, current classic rock. Now, I have to find it through alternative means.

This is a relatively new classic rock song that I doubt I'd ever hear on the radio. This is from the metal/prog-rock sub-genre of classic rock.

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I've heard Within Temptation (love them and Tarja and Nightwish too) on Planet Rock out of the UK. Personally I wish more US stations were more like it. For one thing they will play NEW music from , say, Def Leppard or Whitesnake. I know some classic rock stations here do, just not the ones near me :-(

rocknrollnightmare said:

I've heard Within Temptation (love them and Tarja and Nightwish too) on Planet Rock out of the UK. Personally I wish more US stations were more like it. For one thing they will play NEW music from , say, Def Leppard or Whitesnake. I know some classic rock stations here do, just not the ones near me :-(

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I truly believe that if more stations in the US would play music like you and I have described, they'd attract a bigger audience and classic rock, as a radio format, would remain viable and would not die. I am also positive that there isn't room in any market for more than one true classic rock station. That's all the audience that there is. One really good classic rock station, that played a broad range of great classic rock, could carve out a very, very profitable niche for itself. But when a classic rock station attempts to also be a CHR and oldies station at the same time, or uses the same testing practices and procedures as currents based stations, then they'll fail.

Avid Listener said:

I truly believe that if more stations in the US would play music like you and I have described, they'd attract a bigger audience and classic rock, as a radio format, would remain viable and would not die.

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Maybe. It depends on the age of the audience. Talk radio has a big audience, but it's mainly older men. Some stations are changing from political talk to other issues. But the audience is still older men. That's a bigger problem than the size of the audience.

There are variations on classic rock, like AAA and Americana. That's where classic rockers like Robert Plant and Levon Helm are releasing current music. The audience is older and much smaller.

I agree that Classic Rock is timeless. I find many younger than the music tend to either like the era of Classic Rock or respect it. It certainly is a major influence on many current artists.

At the big stations I understand several things are happening: you're too busy to seek out new material that may work, do not get serviced with the music, have been given defined parameters for you to work within (your GM will be asking tough questions if you add a non-core classic rock song even if it tests well) and if the station is going well, you don't fix what is not broken. Obviously it is the goal to do your job well and as your bosses want it done. You realize programming the station has nothing to do with you and that your job is not to convince people to change their tastes but to be sure your reflect the listening desires of the greatest number in your coverage area, specifically within your target audience.

In one situation with a rather 'captive' audience, we recognized a few characteristics of the audience: they were influenced by the regional music scene and had a tendency to add newer artists to their music libraries. In that situation, we added some artists that performed in the region and were well known and we added a few songs that met the test of whether or not they sounded as if the could have come out in the years when classic rock's core songs were current. Our non-classic rock mix became about 20% and it worked for us because we had only a handful of stations clearly received and none of the formats truly overlapped each other. I sure wouldn't have tried this in a large market but in the right market it worked. Ironically, we got the reputation of not being a station 'old' people listened to and we won the ears of many in the workplace. I might add that due to the market size and need to appeal to as many as possible, we left some classic rock songs for after 5pm and we did mix a small bit of Top 40 oldies that generally weren't played on the Album Rock stations in the day...about 2 an hour. We might have Cat Stevens "Peace Train" and Tommy James & The Shondells "Sweet Cherry Wine" for oldies, say a track from the new Tom Petty, a Jackson Browne sounding track from Country Artist Gretchen Wilson and maybe a couple of songs that would be best classified as regional favorites or artists from the region that play local venues. We certainly were not 'classic hits' versus 'classic rock'. The market has 10 stations.