Has "classic rock" always been called "classic rock"?

[Renew Deal]

I know classic rock is generally rock music from a certain period of time (late 60's-mid 70's). But has classic rock always gone by that name or was that a name created later (like oldies)?

[RandomThoughts]

1. Great question.

When was 'Rock' added to music label and why.


I always thought 'rolling stone' was actually a reference to the resurrection.

And stone is a comment on spirits, while wood is comment on living.

Hence why stone masons work with stone, and why the rock is a foundation, and many other things.

[Joe Fields]

2. When demographics changed.

In the early 70's it was called AOR, or album oriented rock. The music stations in Kansas City played everything from the Yardbirds to ELP. The range was generally from 1966 to 1974 or five. It wasn't until after the disco and punk era that I first heard the term "classic rock," which was around 1980 or so.

Maybe some DUers out there have heard the term used earlier.

[RandomThoughts]

3. So, the question would be how did the name get there.

You could say stone masons were building things with rock.

Or you could say some considered it rocky ground.

Maybe it was like one of the disciples.

Maybe it was meant to be a foundation for something later on.

Maybe it was something the entire community could throw without hurting someone.

Maybe it was a kind action to relax on the porch.

Or maybe it was what people do at the wailing wall

Or maybe something else.



I notice this guy rocks back and forth.
Nirvana - Lake Of Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS487ipkaI4


And for a bit of fun, Kurt is Truk backwards, the biggest Rising Sun base in the Pacific pre WW2.

[jobycom]

5. That's about what I remember. There was Southern and British Rock

at first to distinguish between the old blues-based sound like CCR or The Band, and the newer Beatles sound that eventually became the Led Zepplin sound. Then in the mid 70s as different forms of rock began to define themselves--metal, hard rock, prog rock, etc--"Southern Rock" changed meanings and became a specific genre focused on bands like Skynyrd. There's still ambiguity over the term "Southern Rock" because of that, with some people including acts like CCR and The Grateful Dead, and other people limiting it narrowly to Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Wet Willie, and other bands actually from the South with a specific guitar sound. Others land between the two and include Tom Petty, who is southern, and who fits the old definition of Southern Rock but barely misses the more narrow definition.

But I started hearing "Classic Rock" around the very end of the 70s and early 80s.

[tigereye]

19. yeah, I don't think they called it "classic rock" in the 70s - it was just the

current rock! :D

[DBoon]

36. I'd agree with that

I also recall "alternative rock" being used in the late '60s/early '70s, to distinguish from '50s rock-and-roll and various pop-influenced rock genres that graced top 40 radio.

[jobycom]

4. Knew a preacher who called it "Music from the Pit."

It was just rock or rock and roll. Usually rock and roll referred to the pre-Sgt. Pepper stuff that still sounded like Bill Haley or Buddy Holly. Rock referred to the stuff that sounded like Led Zepplin or Van Halen.

There were a lot of sub-genres, but none of them were called Classic. I first started hearing that term in the late 70s to refer to the Beatles, then in the late 80s to refer to Zepplin. Classic Rock always referred to stuff from 10 to 15 years earlier. In the late 90s it even referred to Motley Crew. I guess in the last ten years it began to refer mostly to the 70s and 60s stuff, although I still hear it used in a broader context.

Just my memories. :)

[Kat45]

23. I agree with you on the rock/ rock and roll distinction back then.

That's how I always thought of it. And yeah, the term classic rock came later.

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. It COULDN'T have been classic rock until some time had passed...

.
.
.
... and I remember it as simply referred to as "rock" or "rock music". "Rock and roll"
was still used but by the late 60's it was more a reference to 50's music.
.
.
.
I had a history prof in college who was unbelievably knowledgeable about the subject.
We could hit him with all sorts of spin-off questions about details and he had an
answer EVERY time -- except when he said that Gothic architecture was named that
by LATER architects to imply old or primitive compared to what they were doing.
.
When I asked him what the "Gothic architects" had called their own works, he was
stumped for the very first (and in my experience, ONLY) time. You could tell that
he couldn't WAIT to find out THAT little oddball fact, though. He was truly doing
what he loved to do.
.
.
.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Just a marketing term. As valid as "Olive Garden" or "New Age"

Which is to say, not.

[old mark]

8. It used to be called "Old Shit", but that didn't sell well....thanks to marketing

40 year old music as "Classic", Led Zep's Jimmy Page once said that there was no way they would ever record new music because they could not compete with themselves from 1970! People were so conditioned to the old stuff they would not accept anything new.


mark

[Dr Morbius]

9. One thing is certain: the meaning of "classic rock" has changed.

It varies not only from market to market but within markets.

"Classic rock" once referred, as stated above, to English/American rock from a period ranging from 1966-1974 (or so). Then it expanded to include all of the seventies, and even some material from the 80's. It also was once, rather exclusively, ROCK. Artists like Billy Joel or Elton John were "pop" while bands like Blondie or the Clash were "new wave", at a time when "classic rock" meant Led Zeppelin or Queen, or the Allman Brothers. Now that's all classic rock, and somehow classic rock has even come to include Motown.

It's just a marketing thing to distinguish this class of oldies from that which an earlier generation might call "oldies", to wit, stuff from the beginning of rock until the end of the sixties.

[SteppingRazor]

12. Hell, at this point it even includes stuff from the late 80s and early 90s.

My local classic rock station in South Florida is pretty heavy on Guns n' Roses, for example.

[bif]

10. In the late 60s it was called "underground" music

[eShirl]

11. In the 70s it was just called "rock" or "rock & roll;" 50s rock & roll was "oldies."

[Iggo]

13. Classic Rock radio stations made it up in the 80's.

Specifically KLSX in Los Angeles. (Get it? KLSX? Klassix? Classics?)

I was born in the 60's and went to high school in the 70's. Believe me, it was never called Classic Rock before that.

[melman]

27. This is the right answer

It started as a radio format.

[meegbear]

14. It's a label, like the 90's being "alternative" and the 80's being "totally fucking shitty"

[EOTE]

17. Not all of the 80s was shit.

I recall a lot of good stuff from Elvis Costello, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Pixies and The Talking Heads, just off the top of my head. But yeah, the great bulk of it was.

[mkultra]

15. at one point.....it was called Rock

[EOTE]

16. I'm seeing more and more later rock being labelled "Classic Rock"

So I don't believe that's the case. I hear songs from the early 90s by bands like U2 and REM being labeled classic rock and it just makes me feel incredibly old. That being said, the rock made in the late 60s to the late 70s was pretty much the best rock ever.

[tigereye]

18. well, there was album-oriented rock - AOR and there was simply

rock and roll at the time.

Prior to the late 40s-50s, there really wasn't any rock and roll, I don't think.


Well, nope, looks like it was much, much earlier, according to this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_rock_and_roll_record

[DBoon]

37. Cool thing about AOR Radio Stations

is that they would announce what album they would play end-to-end well in advance. Of course no DJ chattering and no commercial breaks.

I would gear up my cassette recorder, plug it into my FM radio, and get an album for free.

This was decades before Napster and Limewire.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. In my neck of the woods, in the '60s

mainstream American rock was called "rock-n-roll", the psychadelic stuff was called "hippie rock", and anything British was called "Beatles music".

[kwassa]

21. "Classic rock" is an oxymoron

Rock was never meant to be classic anything. Anti-classic, perhaps.

[WinkyDink]

22. Made-up-later name.

[6000eliot]

26. You mean like "classical" music?

The labels are sometimes given after the fact. The "Romantic" poets didn't think of themselves as "Romantics." That term was applied to them later.

[Quantess]

24. "FREEDOM ROCK"

Remember the late 1980's - early 1990's? The first infomercials were music collections. The one "freedom rock" infomercial I remember (call NOW to order!!! 1-800-666-6666) featured about 5 or 6 CDs full of Classic American Rock & Roll circa 60s & 70s.

"Sweet Hitchhiker" by Creedence Clearwater and "American Woman" by The Guess Who (yes we all know they're Canadian) were on that FREEDOM ROCK commercial.

[Iggo]

28. Turn it up, Dude!

(Whoa! That picture was big!)

[Quantess]

30. Hell yeah!

I remember high school friends saying "it's freedom rock!" and throwing peace signs in the air while pretending to rock out.

It ain't me...it ain't me...I'm not the fortunate son

Those were our parents' or our older siblings' songs. For me, anyway. I'm nearly 40 and I'm remembering infomercials circa 1990. Sweet!

[Iggo]

32. I'm about 10 years older than you and I remember that commercial well.

I have a cousin who talked like one of the dudes in that commercial, and to this day we still call him "Freedom."

[myrna minx]

38. My friends and I *still* reference this commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGWW8KOQio

:rofl:

[orleans]

25. i think the name "classic rock" came about as a necessity

to differentiate it from "punk rock"

[eridani]

29. In the late 50s and early 60s, the term "oldies"

--referred to songs that were one to five years old.

[Iggo]

31. Thanks. I was wondering when that caught on.

By the time I really started paying attention in the late 60's**, the term "Oldies" was already a well established term used to classify Rock And Roll and Doo Wop from the 50's (and maybe before).

**You'll forgive me for not paying attention earlier than that. I was busy dirtying my cloth diapers...lol.

[Odin2005]

33. To me Classic Rock means anything pre-Grunge but after the British Invasion.

Before that is "Oldies"

[Dr Morbius]

35. For mer personally, the classic rock era ended in 1975...

With Earth, Wind and Fire's Shining Star. After Shining Star, music - and one's expectations of it - changed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwc0AW67CmA

[Taverner]

34. Not in the 70's or 80's

"Oldies" back then were 50's and early 60's

Wasn't until about 1987 that a radio station came on as a "Classic Rock" station