When Did Classic Rock Die?

We have a local classic rock station on the radio where I live. It is very rare to hear anything beyond the 1990's played. So I am wondering, in your opinion,exactly what is the cutoff (what year) for radio approved classic rock?

 

Stop. Take a breath.

 

You should get out more.

 

Can't.... I'm in quarantine

 

Afraid to... might catch covid

 

I don't know, but I can imagine the early 90s. Songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Alive, Enter Sandman & Under The Bridge must be classic rock. I can't think of any heavy rock songs from after those with that kind of longevity and stature. I'm in the UK though, it could be different in the US.

 

The Classic Rock station pretty much killed off Rock music outside of Guns 'n Roses and maybe Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. So there isn't a cut-off. Rock just died, by now all those songs are considered Classics.

 

Isn't this the same thread that came up last week?
The week before?
How about the week before that?
My mistake, then.

 

Is Seven Nation Army being played on classic rock radio yet?

 

I think the death of rock is somewhat exaggerated.
It may not be the dominant force anymore, but there is plenty of it around.

I'm not sure music that is referred to as classic ever really dies anyway, because someone is obviously carrying it in their heart.

Chronic radio programming contributed the most to its decline in popularity, but rock is such a broad term ... just think of the artists labeled under rock, and how diverse the music is.... even when we get down to subgenres the diversity is huge...
Rock isn't dead, it's just that the majority of youth moved on to something else, so it stopped being in the headlights. Just reading through threads on the forum though, you'll find a lot of young/er people that still value it as music ..... so, no, it isn't dead

 

I forgot about that. Some Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters songs too.

 

I'll just repost this here (from the other 'is rock dead' thread, from last week):

Right now I'm listening to Lucifer, Blood Ceremony, Jess and The Ancient Ones, Dead Lord, Luciferian Light Orchestra, The Oath, Salem's Pot, Green Lung, Hitten, Savage Master, Psychedelic Witchcraft, and The Hypnagogics - to name but a few.

All of these bands emerged within the last ten years (some as late as last year).
All have albums available to buy on vinyl, digital, streaming.
All are, broadly speaking, rock (or a sub-genre thereof).

 

46 threads so far this month, gotta be a record.

 

I didn't realize a question could only be asked 1, 2, 3 times on this forum. Who is keeping count? How would anyone else know?

 

Didn't realize there was a limit to how many questions could be asked.

 

Ask away ... but you may not get the response you were looking for (since this thread had has come up numerous times recently).

 

June 14, 1987 at 2:00pm.

 

When that terrestrial radio format no longer carried enough value with commercial accounts to buy air time. Why purchase those catalogs if you can't sell enough advertising on them? This will happen in another 15-20 years when grunge becomes totally culturally inconsequential.

 

I have noticed, for example, that the only songs played on my local station by The Black Crowes are from their first album - 'She Talks To Angels', usually. I just wonder who decided nothing from albums 2 through whatever made the grade as classic rock. Surely a few tracks from The Southern Harmony... are classic rock

 

Based on what my local FM "classic rock" station plays, around 1978. Music for people who've stopped growing, seemingly ...

 

I would imagine your classic rock station is being programed like many others.
Rock is not the dominant genre any longer but there is still a lot of good rock music being made. You just have to search a little bit.

Long live rock!

 

When computers enabled exploitation of tightly defined demographic audiences and showed how there was more money to be made in grabbing the right audience over the biggest one, then not only Classic Rock, but all forms of previously dominant popular culture died. Tens of millions of Americans no longer shared cultural experiences communally. The mechanism that had fostered the development of Classic Rock was ironically data showing that a limited playlist of older songs would lead to greater listener retention and advertising sales [the reason radio existed]. See Lee Abrams. He's the guy you can blame. As these systems of analytical study became more refined, they also [ironically] sowed the seeds of the irrelevancy of Classic Rock. As well as the removal of Lee Abrams from positions of power by a new generation of bloodless moneymen such as to make him look like an artist in comparison. Hearing Abrams whine about "suits killing rock" after he drew first blood gives me zero sympathy for him.

 

I tend to agree with this. In my mind, Guns & Roses was the last “classic rock” band. The Grunge bands that followed were something different.

 

It would probably help if there were actual DJ's picking and choosing what to play, like WKRP, instead of a programmed list generated by an algorithm