I’m sure it does. Creedence has 26.8mil monthly listeners and I’m sure that includes some in the 16-26 age demo (though Fogerty as a solo artist has 1.3mil, far below the 3.9mil cutoff for Top 2,500 artists).
I think a lot of it is younger people knowing a few choice tunes from movies, video games, etc and being willing to opportunistically see a local show or wear a t-shirt with a cool design but aren’t actually making these artists a regular part of their listening habits. Heck, I’d see Cheap Trick if they were performing a stone’s throw from me but I probably haven’t played a Cheap Trick song (much less an album) in the last several years. People see that some kid knows most of the words to Surrender and thinks “Wow, kids today must really be into Cheap Trick” and meanwhile they’re at #1,969 for monthly listeners on the largest streaming service (4.9mil monthly listeners out of 515mil Spotify listeners; i.e. less than 1% of Spotify listeners were playing Cheap Trick in the past 30 days)
So I guess it depends on what your criteria for “popular” is.
Another possibility for the staying power of classic rock is a similar phenomenon to what killed General Aviation: Maintenance standards on aircraft are so high that used aircraft retain their value almost forever. So back in the day when Cessnas came out for the first time, they had little competition and sold like hotcakes. Today, every new Cessna has to compete with 50 years of older Cessnas that look and fly pretty much the same.
In the case of music, the early classic rock was just very different from anything that came before. Not just the type of music, but the quality of the recordings, stereo, etc. Also innovations in synthesizers and advances in recording techniques like multitrack mastering made new music of the time sound very different and much more ‘modern’ than the older standards from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s.
But today, if anything standards have regressed. And digital recording and storage means that music from 30 years ago sounds as good as the day it was made. And teh availability of streaming services and digital players means that people aren’t locked into the formats of radio stations or the whims of DJs.
The result is that any new song that comes along has to compete with the best songs over the past 50 years. Maybe the surprise should be that new music has as much of a following as it does, given what it’s up against.
I’m more than a little jealous of “Kids These Days”. I grew up with one 40-song playlist, listened to on a crappy AM radio in Mom ‘n’ Dad’s station wagon. My kids have a world of new and old music and really old music to listen to (and, hopefully, be changed by).
Like I tell my students (quoting some classical music NPR host):
One thing to realize: it’s very common for a band with a decent but unremarkable following to draw a huge crowd at a concert. I go to a lot of live music shows and I’ve seen it over and over.
I don’t know about anyone else, but for me I eventually get tired of listening to songs I’ve heard a lot, and want to find new music. So although I love the classics, I’m constantly on the lookout for new stuff I like.
For the youngsters, that old music is just as new as new music. Immigrant Song comes down during Thor Ragnarok, it’s probably the first time many kids watching that movie have ever heard it, and it’s a great sound, used perfectly in the context of the movie, and they think it’s fresh and new while us old people are being nostalgic.
Not if they have already seen School of Rock (2003) or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). “Immigrant Song” gets a bump in pop culture every decade or so. “Bohemian Rhapsody” gets a bump every season of American Idol.
I always liked Elton a little more, but felt Billy was in that “space”… My 7-yr old niece loves Billy Joel, especially “Piano Man”.
I hope they checked out some of the early Fleetwood Mac, with so many different line-ups, and songs like “The Green Manalishi”, “Man of the World” and other Green/Kirwan stuff… Or “Woman of 1000 Years” and some Bob Welch songs, like “Future Games”. Christine had the really good “Prove Your Love”. “I’m So Afraid” might be my favorite Buckingham/Nicks song with “The Chain”, and their album together has some good songs.
I’ve told this story here before, but my then-small son once said “Damn, half my favorite bands are dead.” And went on with “The Who, Stones, Beatles, Allmans, Nirvana… none of them have all the original guys. Not to mention the Ramones…”
I should’ve consoled him, but couldn’t resist being impressed: “Excellent choice of music. Somebody must’ve raised you right!”
when I was in school, many kids had shirts by The Dead and a common response was, “I don’t listen to the music, I just like the acid bears” (middle school, but then again, I remember two girls sitting next to me on LSD in 8th grade, so…)