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Do young people like classic rock?

Sinatra was a hoax. Teen idol. Decent actor but terrible singer (and person). Needed big band backup to drown out his lousy music pitch.
Your opinion. I think he sounds great. One other person I've heard from online agrees with you and thinks the orchestras are just there to make him sound good. I say the orchestras are good music on their own.
 
Interesting take on the evolving definition of 'Classic Rock'.

Agreed. I think the original question asked in this thread needs to be considered in terms of "it depends on how 'young people' define the format".

And the fact that Classic Rock has always been more of a station descriptor for the ratings services than it has an on-air positioner.
 

Interesting take on the evolving definition of 'Classic Rock'.
Still largely '70s and '80s classic rock on our local, WHDQ Claremont, NH. but a few of the young whippersnappers are making their way into the playlist. And, as other stations have done according to the article, the word "classic" has been banished. It's now "The Valley's Best Rock," even though there's a mainstream current rocker in nearby Hanover, NH -- WFRD -- that calls itself "99 Rock."

Last hour's playlist on WHDQ:


 
Agreed. I think the original question asked in this thread needs to be considered in terms of "it depends on how 'young people' define the format".

And the fact that Classic Rock has always been more of a station descriptor for the ratings services than it has an on-air positioner.
Don't forget that the reason why the ratings services collect station names is because agencies want that data. Most national and regional agencies buy may markets and the planners and buyers generally have no familiarity with the individual stations that might be eligible for a buy they are working on.

So Nielsen / Arbitron has always collected each station's format, using a shorter list of possible formats which each station can select from. And agency buyers can make the proper decisions on the mix of station formats they add to their market buy.

Of course, this gets us back to the fact that stations buy ratings principally for sales purposes.
 
So Mr. Buble can't actually sing, or at least carry a tune in a bucket?
He can actually sing (look his his early live Canadian TV footage). From what I've heard, he actually likes the AutoTune effect on his voice. Sort of like how Millennials who grew up with iPods actually prefer the sound of MP3 files over uncompressed CD audio.
 
I'll tell you in a few weeks.. i'm doing a remote ay WyoTech, a votech school for automobiles and it'll be on our classic rock station, Vintage Vinyl 98.7

So, overall, the response to our classic rock station is older people..but its not your typical classic rock station. its a ting of oldies and classic hits throw in, live cuts and deep cuts... and stuff youd have played when you payed vinyl. do we have younger listeners? Yes, but it seems to be more older lsteners.... im not saying young kids dont like it... younger car guys,younger farm types mght.

Out of our 4 statoions, 98.7 is the 2nd most streamed signal by far.
 
Young people listening to classic rock is nothing new. Rolling Stone even published an article 20 years ago on this and is talked about here: Teens Save Classic Rock - The Big Picture

There is even a Psychology article from 2014 that attempts to break down the reasons Why Do Young People Listen to Really Old Rock Music? The last point "Selectivity in what gets airplay" is of course the advantage gold-based formats have. If you look up a list of songs that reached number one on the mainstream rock charts in the 80s and 90s, many of them have become obscure over time. Album sales rather than chart performance seem to define most rock acts popularity.

From observation it does seem like the 80s are still the "center lane" on most stations. The 90s may be remembered most for grunge but it was actually a very diverse period for rock music. A lot of older bands still had hit records in the first half of the decade which are played on classic rock radio. Once the Alternative format became more commercial you had everything from punk revivals Green Day and The Offspring to Weezer to jam bands (Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors) to female singer-songwriters (Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Alanis Morrisette) to pop bands like Matchbox Twenty, Gin Blossoms, Third Eye Blind, No Doubt, Garbage, and many one hit wonders. Album rock stations became increasingly gold-based in the later half of the decade possibly as a result of the 1996 Telecommunications Act which led to broadcasting companies buying all the rock formatted stations in a market and ceding most current music to alternative while formats like Modern AC only further fragmented things. Classic rock formats typically follow what became popular on AOR stations and since that format waned in the late 90s that seems to be where the timeline ends on most. But some of the most popular bands of the 2000s are Nickelback and Creed which have notoriously become loathed by much of the rock audience and are now more likely to be heard on AC stations rather than rock. So the pickings beyond the grunge era seem limited. The fact that so much music from the 70s and 80s and some 90s remain widely popular are what likely keeps this format going for the foreseeable future.
 
I'm in my 20s, so I'll give you my take personally. While I like a lot of music from the earlier part of the classic rock years (I mostly listen to pre-1980 tunes, though I do listen to select newer genres/artists), I'm not really a big fan of classic rock itself these days.

There's the attitude and snobbery for one that's a turn-off. It's really not (for the most part) a particularly complex form of music in spite of what the rock critics and hardcore rock fans seem to think and pontificate on. I'll take the Association over Black Sabbath any day of the week. Those harmonies, man...

Shredding tends to bore me, especially over the same couple chords in one key. If I want shredding, I'll listen to jazz where there's key changes and tempo changes.

The anger and angst? I'm over that as I've left my teenage years behind me. I'd rather listen to music I find joy in!

I did enjoy classic rock growing up. I was in a few rock bands playing keyboards and it was fun. I was in the Rock School program and we did all the standards for groups like that. Classic rock was played around the house as a kid, & there was a lot of it in my parents cassette collection that I inherited.

But I found myself drawn to the three-part harmonies of Peter Paul & Mary. The rawness of Gordon Lightfoot. The guitar virtuoso of Glen Campbell and Roy Clark. The jazz renditions of then-current pop tunes from Ramsey Lewis & Wes Montgomery. The meticulously layered harmonies of the Carpenters (and Les Paul & Mary Ford, for that matter). The smooth crooning of Nat "King" Cole (along with his piano prowess with the King Cole Trio). The stellar guitar tone of Buck Owens along with the great steel guitar work on his records. The Bossa-nova rhythms of Sergio Mendes, or the flugelhorn finesse of Chuck Mangione. The soulful funk of the Meters. The great Hammond B3 sound of Booker T. Jones in Booker T & the MGs. Or Lionel Hampton's tickling of the vibes...

Country rock? Oh yeah, The Dillard's Wheatstraw Suite spends a lot of time on my turntable. I listen to a good bit of country rock.

Early rock & roll? Check that box, too. The rawness of Chuck Berry, the strings on Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore"...

But the stuff that would qualify for "classic rock"? I still dig Led Zep's debut album, Boston's debut album (aside from "More Than a Feeling," which I've just heard too many times). And the Doors? Their albums still spend time on my turntable (I was way into the Doors back in high school). But overall, it's just pretty tired music that I think has dominated for far too long. It was not the best the era had to offer and it saddens me that 95% of the music from the 60s/70s still on the radio is classic rock at this point. I listen to it once in a while but not primarily by a long shot.

I think some of the "classic rock" cannon is still popular among my generation but not in the way it was for previous generations. There's a big, beautiful musical world out there that's not one of the 500 or 1000 songs the classic rock station plays and the rock folks are still yackin' about 50 years on.

I do still enjoy it once in a while but as someone upthread said, part of a far, far larger diet. It's but a drop in my musical ocean.

That's my experience. I realize everyone here will have a different experience and I'm not trying to say "classic rock sucks" so please don't take my post that way.
Anything from "Motown" ?
 


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