Villa Jr. 8 years old and rocking out to the Ramones. I have never been so proud in my life.
You sound like my grandfather talking about 50s bubblegum pop. 
Everyone thinks the music made when they were 15-25 was unique and magical and will never be recreated, and it’s true in the sense that music is always evolving and changing, but there was nothing particularly distinguishing about classic rock. The people who love it like you do love it for the same reason that my generation loves the Seattle grunge music like Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots; we’re nostalgic for the time we were young.
The Small One’s 2 and a half and her two favourite songs are AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and the Hip’s “Twist My Arm.” She’s a rockin’ toddler.
Popular music used to exist for one reason and one reason only – to piss off your parents. It started with jazz and southern blues, followed by Elvis the Pelvis, the Beatles (and their shockingly long hair!), drug-addicted acid rock, Satanic heavy metal, shock-rock a la Marilyn Manson, and violent, pornographic gansta rap.
Now the kids who grew up listening to Satanic metal and pornographic rap have grown up and have kids of their own, so parents these days aren’t phased by any kind of music that’s shocking and disturbing – they’ve heard it all before. As a result, kids these days are listening to music because they actually like it!
At least, that’s my theory. 
I think there is. Classic Rock is similar enough to today’s music and attitudes that it won’t completely alienate kids, and it’s different enough from modern rock that those with a natural propensity toward “classic rock” will gravitate toward the rock made from 1962-1982 rather than the punk-influenced stuff from 1975-today, with a couple exceptions such as My Chemical Romance and Coheed and Cambria, which play classic-rock influenced stuff without wearing it on their sleeves to the extent that you don’t have to call them modern-day Classic Rock.
Since there were a lot fewer popular Classic Rock artists than modern rock, naturally those that like Classic Rock will make those pre-MTV, pre-“alternative” artists HUGE because there are so fewer of them. That’s why it seems so popular. I mostly listen to modern rock but I have at least one album by every Top 10 Classic Rock artist I can think of, and few by classic rock artists not in the top 50.
With the increase in media outlets, artists don’t have to the chance to become as mega-huge anymore, and kids can get exposed to the old stuff. Just, not as old as, say, 50’s crooner pop, which is sufficiently different from today’s rock and worldview that they won’t naturally gravitate toward it.
Perhaps, but a lot of what I’m loving these days is stuff I’m newly discovering. I didn’t even really know The Beatles until my college years, and until a couple of years ago, I’ve only heard one song by Cream.
Every time I have to go to Hot Topic to buy something for my nephew I want to grab that snotty little jerk behind the counter and scream "Listen you little fuckers, I got beat up all the goddamned time so that you could safely go to the mall and buy blue hair dye and fancy skateboards and a $30 Black Flag shirt so all of you can safely kiss my middle aged ass and stop looking at me like Grandpa Simpson wandered in here instead of Bath and Body Works. To this day I’m more “punk rock” than you and all your friends put together. "
I scared my parents because this was new and scary. You scare us because you took what was fought for and Good Charlotted all over it. 
I had a similar experience, Cluricaun when I was in a mall in between meetings, wearing a suit, and wandered into some CD shop. I was looking for Stiff Little Fingers, and got sneered at by the teen behind the counter.
Yep, matter of fact is, basically, all pop music was made between Elvis Presley and Sex Pistols; '55 to '77. All else is variation, and not very interesting interpretations either.
Hip-hop says hi.
I’m with you, man. I’ve got my own kid in high school now, and he has no inkling of how utterly reviled we were back in the day for dressing “punk”. People would actually kick your ass because of the way you looked, and I grew up in an extremely liberal area of the country. Now all these goth kids and mohawked teens with Operation Ivy and Anarchy patches on their leather jackets listening to mall punk look at us as if we’re the ones who are closed-minded because we’re “old”. I guess since nobody gives a shit anymore, they have to perceive some kind of oppressor in order to feel they’re rebelling. I used to hate listening to the fucking baby Boomers always going on about the glorious 60s, but more and more I’m glad I grew up when I did and not now.
I’m reminded of a scene from the short-lived That 80’s Show. A guy is having a conversation with a girl who’s decked out in the stereotypical punk get-up: multi-colored mohawk, ripped and torn clothes, the works.
Oh, I don’t doubt it still happens - there are always going to be bullying and/or psychopathic teens - but at my son’s school (in the same area I went to high school), he’s never hassled because of his appearance, while when I was his age it seemed like an almost weekly occurrence (not for me in particular, but there was almost always some kid at the “skaters’ table” with a black eye or a cut lip from being jumped).
To get back on track with the OP though I think it’s because the 2000’s or whatever we’ll end up calling this decade has been one of utter musical stagnation. There’s no threatening new subculture on the rise who listens to music that bothers or offends older folks. It’s all Hanna Montana and American Idol and rap music that makes the Baby Chuck D cry. It’s the mid 70’s all over again. Kids today with enough brains to not buy into the giant commercial reach around that’s music today don’t have much to fall back on except the stuff we had when we were younger. I can’t wait for the next Beatles or Black Sabbath or Clash or Dead Kennedys or Metallica or whatever it is that’s going to turn the world on it’s collective ear and feast on what’s been allowed to grow fat.
No, the music died in 1984 when David Lee Roth left Van Halen. I think Don McLean wrote a song about it even.
I disagree. There’s plenty of great music around today - it’s just (as it has been since the 70s) that it’s mostly “underground” or “indie” or whatever term they’re using this week (and that includes hip hop). I can’t imagine many old people not being bothered by Animal Collective, say, or Deerhoof, or Fuck Buttons. The stuff to turn parents off is out there, it’s just not necessarily based around loud, distorted electric guitars anymore, since that’s pretty much old hat by now.
Having gone and listened to these three on MySpace (a demonstration of my earlier comment), I can’t see that these really fill the role of parent-annoying music. While there’s a few interesting things going on at times, 50-year-olds today grew up with Pink Floyd, and were still in their 20s when hip-hop emerged. A few weird electronic sounds and some funny-sounding vocals isn’t going to puzzle them - they may well already own a couple of Bjork albums. (Yeah, that was an awful joke, I know.)
James Brown, DJ Kool Herc, and a lot of others are saying hi right back at ya.
Well you know, if you’re gonna discuss the death of music (which seems odd, quoting me, who never brought that up), I’d be a little more generous than that, allowing yet another three years, declaring 1987, when Whitesnake went poodle to conquer America.
I don’t think the irony came through here either.