# The truth about "Classic Rock" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 8, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905 "2011-08-08T02:46:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/201 "2011-08-09T13:03:58Z")
I still like how he pairs Keith Richards with SRV. I honestly can’t come up with a bigger sign that someone knows nothing about music. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/202 "2011-08-09T13:22:27Z")
> [@punch\_line\_loser](#): > > \ I’ve been arguing my point at least semi-coherently \ No - actually, you haven’t. You haven’t said much of anything other than: - I don’t like how Classic Rock is packaged and shoved at me. - I don’t need to listen to that old Boomer music. - You can’t tell me what is good music. And understanding the context and history of music adds nothing to appreciating the music. - I can tell you what I know is good. - Everyone I don’t like musically are wankers that are part of the Boomer-Musical-Industrial Complex - they aren’t worthy of evaluating the quality of their music on their own merits > [@](#): > > Also, I’m not 12 years old You argue like one. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/203 "2011-08-09T14:13:05Z")
> [@punch\_line\_loser](#): > > Wow, you guys have really let me have it! I like you, you’re silly. I am not sure if you are playing along or if my satire has become indistinguishable from reality, but either way this post made me laugh. > [@](#): > > See, this is the double standard I don’t understand. No one’s calling this guy out for making objective statements about music, and “everyone who wants to pretend they like music has a hard on for Slint” is blatantly judgmental of Slint fans, but why is no one jumping down his throat? On a serious note, I am a Slint fan. I own Spiderland and I have seen them play live when they got back together in the early 00s (playing with Pinback, who also kick ass you should check them out, and I want to say Broken Social Scene or some other equally unlikely pairing. It was a bizarre show with almost no overlapping fan base other than me and a couple of friends) But when you bring up Slint in this kind of argument, particularly when you pair it with Fugazi and other similar bands you are essentially pulling out your musical appreciation dick and asking it to be measured by the group. I figured you knew that or I wouldn’t have brought up the Aquabats in my post. And hey, props for copping to Third Eye Blind love, not many people will admit to that, but like I said they are way better than they get credit for being. Blink can still go lick my left nut. > [@](#): > > Look, it’s stupid to take everything I said at face value, or to assume that just because I didn’t use such-and-such qualifiers before stating my opinion that I think I have the last word on anything, [snip] > > For the last fucking time, there IS no objective way to measure music, and I never claimed to have one, or to be any kind of authority on the subject. [snip] Also, I’m not 12 years old, I’m not gay, I don’t listen to Buckethead, I don’t have a rich family, I don’t wear box-frame glasses, and I don’t speak for anyone other than myself. I also don’t need to be patronized by a bunch of insecure dumbasses who don’t hold themselves to the same standards as they have for people who disagree with them. I never said a lot of that, and I know you aren’t replying only directly to me but I think people who are making those judgments are off base. You aren’t an immature kid with crap taste in music, you are a hipster with a mild superiority complex. You know how you can tell it’s true, because it pisses you off when you are called on it. But like I said, you are funny, so that’s cool. > [@](#): > > And don’t tell me you can “talk me through appreciating the Beatles,” because that has to be _ **the most condescending bullshit I’ve ever heard** _. emphasis mine You picked up on that did you? Huh. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/204 "2011-08-09T14:16:59Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > You aren’t an immature kid with crap taste in music, you are a hipster with a mild superiority complex. You know how you can tell it’s true, because it pisses you off when you are called on it. +1 ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/205 "2011-08-09T15:17:13Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > , you are a hipster with a mild superiority complex. Is there any other kind? ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/206 "2011-08-09T15:23:24Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Is there any other kind? Severe superiority complexes aren’t uncommon. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SomeWhen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SomeWhen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeWhen)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/207 "2011-08-09T15:24:37Z")
Half of the sound from a speaker goes back into the loudspeaker box and bounces around, gets out of phase various ways, and then impinges on the other speakers in the box, or comes out the “bass reflex” hole. If the inside of the loudspeaker box is very well padded, that internal sound, half of the sound energy from the speakers, is wasted, but does not interfere with what’s heard. The improved clarity makes the loudspeaker sound louder at lower volume settings. The moral is that turning up the rhetorical “volume” of one’s communications is less effective than being clear. Trying to decode the OP, I think the foundational problem expressed concerning classic rock has to do with a misperception of ex(tinct) hippies. Now even Wikipedia gives a very establishment description of the hippie so-called movement. In any culture there can be persons, even affluent, who can’t find what their looking for, and so become, for instance, bohemians or beatniks. The only real indication of beatnik culture to reach mainstream America was the disparaged character Maynard G. Krebs on the Early 60’s TV show Dobie Gillis. In the meantime, stereo FM, records and cassettes were advancing into the middle and working classes. Suddenly there was youth culture music from England, a country previously only much known from history books, and from American blacks, so much enghettoed as to be nearly from another country. And Vietnam, the war, began to hiss like the lit fuse to a third, nuclear, truly final, war. A rather weird mixture of folk music (looking wistfully to the past), protest music (so much to protest), and get high and forget it all music (not to look ahead at such a dark future) easily spread out and mixed in with Elvis, Motown, and the British invasion. All music is message music. If you don’t understand the message, you may not get the music. The hippie _counter_ culture, if I may so pontificate as to speak for that, expressed a disenfranchisement from an establishment which even if not so bad, indeed quite good, in some respects, seemed to be so hypnotized everywhere by an _un_consciousness of commercialism that it was allowing itself, and America, and the world, to be sucked into an abyss. Thereupon followed an impossible mixing, or mating, of opposites, indeed enemies, as the music of Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Beetles, and the Supremes was joined by “Turn, Turn, Turn”, “Eve of Destruction”, “War Pigs”, “Plastic Fantastic Lover”, “Hey You”, “Ohio”, and “The Soft Parade”. At the time, rock and roll radio stations attracted audience by, even if occasionally, playing that music, along with “Louie Louie” and the like. Current “classic” rock stations prefer to forget about all that type of thing. Forget them too. So, does anybody here like Cee Lo Green, Lady Gaga, Hayes Carll, or Foster the People? “I know it’s only rock and roll, but I like it,” Rolling Stones. You see, I kind of have the same problem as the OP, but the other time line around. I was digging current music up until around the 90’s somewhere, and then came the 00’s (zeroes) and they were zero, to me, including the so-called classic rock stations. I don’t think it’s just that I don’t have as much time to listen; I can still turn the radio on in the car, and then I turn it off. I’ll listen to CD mixes. Recently I’ve been paying more attention to new music, and there is some I like a lot, but there is so much new music now it’s hard to find. I don’t believe in generation gaps about music. The classic rock stations play not everything from the past, but some old songs that were kind of popular, over and over, until they’re dead. On the current rock stations, if there even is one, there is so much to choose from that they seem to end up with a lot of crap, new crap, but crap. So it seems like, if I want to find “good” music, that is, good to me, either old or new, I need to hunt around on the Internet, or even the TV. “When the music’s over, turn out the lights,” the Doors. ---
**Author:** ![humanafterall](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/humanafterall/32/19654_2.png) [@humanafterall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/humanafterall)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/208 "2011-08-09T16:11:18Z")
**punch line loser** , fuck you and the horse you rode in on! ---
**Author:** ![SomeWhen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SomeWhen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeWhen)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/209 "2011-08-09T17:17:30Z")
Ed Sullivan used to have new groups, young performers, on the show. The radio played those performers, and others. Now the classic rock and (old) easy listening stations outnumber the new/youth rock stations about seven to one. It’s kind of like the new generation of “old guys” doesn’t want to give youth music of now the same chance they had. But if that is what punch line loser means, he doesn’t express it very well. I liked it better when there was just one “oldies” station (50’s to early 60’s), and the other rock stations and soft rock/easy listening stations mixed it up from the 60’s to the _present_. It’s all rock and roll to me. ---
**Author:** ![SomeWhen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SomeWhen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeWhen)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/210 "2011-08-09T17:23:04Z")
Generation gaps are for assholes. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/211 "2011-08-09T17:28:39Z")
If I have any beef with classic rock, it’s with the programming at classic rock radio stations. They ignore the literally hundreds of thousands of hours of music that fits the genre to focus on the same 15 hours or so of “classic hits.” They all seem to think that say, Aerosmith only has 3 songs and 2 of them are “Sweet Emotion.” I like Aerosmith and I like “Sweet Emotion” but for chrissakes play something fucking else! ---
**Author:** ![OneMissedPost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@OneMissedPost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneMissedPost)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/212 "2011-08-09T17:42:31Z")
When I’m at the bar, I do hate it when people sing along to over-played classic rock songs (i.e. “don’t stop believing” by Journey). It’s a good song and I love listening to it on my own, but I hate when people sing it. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/213 "2011-08-09T17:57:11Z")
> [@SomeWhen](#): > > It’s kind of like the new generation of “old guys” doesn’t want to give youth music of now the same chance they had. Radio stations plays music that appeals to the demographic with the most disposable income. As long as “Classic Rock” brings in the dollars, the format will thrive. If the Classic Rock haters want some other kind of music on the radio, they need to start spending more money. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/214 "2011-08-09T18:43:43Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Which two would those be? I’ll just go back to grumbling about kids and listening to SLF. Television and Fugazi. Calling My Bloody Valentine, Slint and Sonic Youth punk rock stretches the term ‘punk rock’ to mean ‘music I like’. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/215 "2011-08-09T18:49:30Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > If I have any beef with classic rock, it’s with the programming at classic rock radio stations. They ignore the literally hundreds of thousands of hours of music that fits the genre to focus on the same 15 hours or so of “classic hits.” They all seem to think that say, Aerosmith only has 3 songs and 2 of them are “Sweet Emotion.” I like Aerosmith and I like “Sweet Emotion” but for chrissakes play something fucking else! I think AOR/classic rock stations are programmed by using a “turn it up!” litmus test. An iPod is plugged into a jobsite radio at a large auto body or repair shop where about 50 people are hard at work. If someone yells “Turn it up!” when a song is played, it goes on the air. Think about it … _… I leave the giants stranded at the riverside! Race back to the farm, to dream with my uncle at the fireside!_ ♫♪♪♫♪♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪♪♪♫♪♪ _yawn (drill drill) (clank)_ ♫♪♪♫♪♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪♪♪♫♪♪ _Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet emoooooooooooootion! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet emoooooooooooootion! You talk about things that nobody cares! ♪♪♫♪♪♪♪♫♪♪_ _TURN IT UP, MAN! FUCKING A!_ ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/216 "2011-08-09T20:31:37Z")
I like punk too, but it is very un-punk to make a thread like this, caring what other people listen to is pretty much the definition of conformity. I like some of the OP’s music but I wouldn’t make a thread like this. That said some of the same people in here calling the OP stupid are the same types (and possibly actually the same posters, can’t remember) who made some of the most moronic comments ever in a prior metal thread… in other words, the people yelling at OP saying music is subjective actually believe their music is objectively better than the younger generations’ music, which makes me amused at how worked up they are that some people think their rock sucks. I like Boston, The Eagles, Jimi, Zepp, Frank Zappa and other classic rock. I also like lots of music that plenty of SDMB posters have said is only for self-indulgent teenagers (I’m 26). I couldn’t care less what other people listen to since I very rarely am FORCED to listen to anything I don’t like and plenty of music I like is being produced. But you old people’s classic rock is nothing special and it is not any more timeless than anything else, you’re not special and neither are people my age, 250 years from now no one will know who Queen or Slayer was except for historians. I detect a lot of baby boomer exceptionalism in this thead. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/217 "2011-08-09T21:15:13Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I like Boston Loser. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/218 "2011-08-09T21:16:31Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Television and Fugazi. Calling My Bloody Valentine, Slint and Sonic Youth punk rock stretches the term ‘punk rock’ to mean ‘music I like’. Meh. I’m old (and cranky) enough that when I hear of Fugazi I think of Marillion’s second album. When I hear the name Phish I still think of Marillion too. Never heard of Television, but I imagine they can get the hell off my lawn. I likes me punk old and original. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/219 "2011-08-09T21:26:01Z")
Television’s recording history, in their original incarnation, was 1975-1978. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905/220 "2011-08-09T21:31:23Z")
Maybe I should take a listen then. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-truth-about-classic-rock/591905.md?page=12)