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Carly Simon is classic rock?

michael hagerty said:
Kelly, the winner was Semoochie and about ten other people on pages one and two. Getting someone to agree with you on page 11 doesn't cut it, especially in the face of facts.

The tapes exist and are listenable with the click of a mouse. A nearly complete archive of Radio & Records (thank you, David!) is online and viewable.

Carly Simon was a legitimate artist on FM rock radio through at least 1975. I'm gonna guess "Nobody Does It Better" was the point of no return.
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You Carly Simon apologists need to make up your mind. Are we talking about radio formats, history, or an opinion related to the original question of whether Carly Simon could be considered rock? You can post ancient playlists all you want to justify an opinion, nor does the quantity of the same opinion one way or the other change my, or other intelligent folks thoughts on the subject. The last presidential administration was a great example of 'alternative facts'.
Remember too, this is a discussion board, not an agreement board.
 
Kelly A said:
You Carly Simon apologists need to make up your mind. Are we talking about radio formats, history, or an opinion related to the original question of whether Carly Simon could be considered rock? You can post ancient playlists all you want to justify an opinion, nor does the quantity of the same opinion one way or the other change my, or other intelligent folks thoughts on the subject.
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If you were living in a major market in the 1970s you were likely to have access to a vibrant music scene on both FM and AM, with many varieties of what would broadly be considered “Rock”. Carly Simon fit into some of those formats, while in others she did not. It’s one of those “you had to have been there” scenarios in order to understand the subtleties involved. Personally I miss those days and the variety that was available, but time moves on and the music industry has changed greatly.
 
Kelly A said:
You Carly Simon apologists need to make up your mind. Are we talking about radio formats, history, or an opinion related to the original question of whether Carly Simon could be considered rock? You can post ancient playlists all you want to justify an opinion, nor does the quantity of the same opinion one way or the other change my, or other intelligent folks thoughts on the subject. The last presidential administration was a great example of 'alternative facts'.
Remember too, this is a discussion board, not an agreement board.
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I know you know better, but…

The question was “could someone consider Carly Simon (specifically “You’re So Vain”) classic rock?”

Given that Carly was played on the very FM rock stations whose music and image Classic Rock (the format) was based on, it is not unreasonable for a person who listened to those stations at that time (at least through 1975) to do that.

The playlists and airchecks simply negate cries of “didn’t happen” or “didn’t happen much”.

Nobody’s trying to change your opinion, Kelly. I’m only still doing this because I’m tired of you being dismissive of ten or more other people who answered honestly and correctly but didn’t know where to find the facts as quickly as I could.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
If you were living in a major market in the 1970s you were likely to have access to a vibrant music scene on both FM and AM, with many varieties of what would broadly be considered “Rock”. Carly Simon fit into some of those formats, while in others she did not. It’s one of those “you had to have been there” scenarios in order to understand the subtleties involved. Personally I miss those days and the variety that was available, but time moves on and the music industry has changed greatly.
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Okay help me understand where your personal Rock boundaries are.
Is:
Tony Orlando and Dawn considered rock?
How about Michael Jackson?
Jackson Five?
What about John Denver?
Aretha Franklin?
James Taylor?
Cory Hart?
Carpenters?
Abba?
Michael McDonald?
 
What about Bobby Goldsboro, Cher, Tom Jones, Glen Campbell, and Frank Sinatra?
 
I don't consider Carly Simon a rock artist but I first heard Carly Simon on the Album Oriented Rock station I listened to and purchased the album well before Anticipation was released as a single and became a top 40 hit. My point is album rock radio back in the 1971-72 era played a huge variety of music, not all rock. The same station was playing Diamond Girl by Seals and Crofts just as Summer Breeze was getting top 40 airplay.
 
Kelly A said:
The bottom line is Mike; I still don't think Carly Simon is rock. It's ancient pop or Top40. Same with James Taylor, America, or similar around the same era.
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Pop is just another branch of Rock & Roll(which came from Blues, Folk, etc) Mike has provided proof of station playlists that featured a wide variety of styles. Yeah, we get it. Today, Carly Simon would be on an Oldies or Classic Hits radio format, not Classic Rock.
That's perfectly fine. All of those formats play Pop/Rock artists...
 
Cordelia Chase said:
OMG, the above list came from a station that was classified as Rock & Roll?!?
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Not "a station" but the average of may R&R reporting stations.
Cordelia Chase said:
This situation reminds me of a thread on this forum about the 2021 Hall of Fame nominees. That discussion concerned the evolution of what "Rock & Roll" meant in the '50s when Alan Freed coined the term, to what it means today. I didn't remember, or deliberately forgot, much of what came in between.
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Alan Freed did not "coin the term". It was actually a phrase used for "something more intimate" in the African American community long before Freed started using it in Cleveland.

And remember, there was a big difference between a station that played "Rock & Roll" in 1955 and one that played "rock" in 1975.
 
tbolt909 said:
Tightly programmed radio formats have nothing to do with what motivates musicians. True artists will roam into different territory. They are influenced by many styles...
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Not uniformly or universally true. There are artists who like to have hits and once they do, they follow that general formula that got them there.

Some artists start with a formula, and then go off on tangents and angles: witness the four split up Beatles.

Other artists, such as Niel Sedaka, would thrive on popularity and look for the next hit, not "something different". And there were artists, such as the majority of Motown stars or the Phil Spector-mentored "wall of sound ones, who followed a producer or mentor's guidance (and there are many who stopped being "guided" and became musical road kill).

Another example: Barry Manilow. He did commercial jingles and did not think of himself as a mass-appeal singer. He liked preparing clever stuff to sell products, and fell into being a hit artist. Now, he thrives and enjoys doing his stage shows because he likes making his audiences have a great experience. I was never a Manilow fan when he had all the hits, but I saw two of his shows at our local venue as part of my membership subscription and realized how much he liked putting on the show for us... from dress to staging to the songs he was "into" making the audience happy.

So to say that musicians are not motivated by anything but art is very oversimplified. Any artist back in the 70's who broke into the Top 10 on WABC or KHJ or WLS was going to be pretty excited and thrilled that so many people were hearing their song.
 
michael hagerty said:
What happened was the Platinum age of albums started in 1976, when acts like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller Band, Peter Frampton, Stevie Wonder, Boston...all started having these albums that went multi-platinum...way above what other acts were selling and way beyond what their own albums had done before.

That commercial success, more than anything, prompted a young programmer-turned-consultant named Lee Abrams to whip up an album rock format that focused on the biggest acts only...he called it "Superstars". And given that by this point, most major cities had more than one FM rock station, someone was always number two (or three) and looking for a quick fix---so Lee signed a lot of stations up.
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To Abrams credit, he discovered what would be a trend... big cuts off of big albums... when still in North Carolina around 1973 (Note: I mistakenly wrote 1983 here... this is a correction thanks to your later post). So the concept of "Superstars"... playing just the "hit cuts" by big acts rather than exploring deep cuts live on the air for the hell of it... took off because it had enough variety not to be Top 40 but also played really good songs.

Sidebar: one of those deep album rock stations was in LA and declined to the point where a whole new format had to be created out of "nothing at all". Thus was born KTWV from the ashes of KMET.
 
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michael hagerty said:
Which you have made clear several times.
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I don't want to be a cheerleader to a food fight, but...

... "all" the rock stations in that era thought Carly fit the rock format in that moment of time. Therefore, in, let's say, 1971, Carly was a rock artist.

In the early years (late 60's and earliest 70's) "rock" stations were more about playing stuff that Top 40 did not play and sounding less "motor mouth" in the presentation. When Top 40 started playing Carly, we note that rock stations stopped. That was not a coincidence
 
Kelly A said:
Okay help me understand where your personal Rock boundaries are.
Is:
Tony Orlando and Dawn considered rock?
How about Michael Jackson?
Jackson Five?
What about John Denver?
Aretha Franklin?
James Taylor?
Cory Hart?
Carpenters?
Abba?
Michael McDonald?
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I know the question was for Mediafrog, but...

The topic isn't any of those artists. No one suggested any of those artists were "classic rock". Denver and Aretha got airplay on FM rock stations, but for both of them, it was largely over by '72.

James Taylor did get both contemporary FM rock airplay in the 70s and classic rock (the format) airplay in the 80s and beyond. In fact, his 2020 tour had sponsorships from classic rock stations in the cities where he played.
 
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