This is not classic rock.

An series of iPod mishaps has driven me back to radio.

Salt Lake City has some decent pickins: NPR, KRCL, plenty of hootin’ and hollerin’ from the Tabernacle.

And then there’s classic rock.

We have but one station that claims any such era. I tuned in just hoping to sing along with some familiar songs. Songs my parents played while doing housework. Saturday-afternoon-beer-drinking songs.

I stayed for what has become a study in Are You Kidding Me.

I can’t seem to change my dial. Like the car wreck you can’t not stare at. I just. Keep. Listening.

Now, after a month of drum machines, childhood flashbacks and frantic evaluations of my crows’ feet, I feel it’s time to impart some friendly guidelines to the 15-year-olds who select this station’s music.

Listen up, kiddies.

1. The 1988 remake of “The Locomotion” is not classic rock.

2. Music from the 90s is not classic rock.

3. If you have to include the 90s, let’s hear some Radiohead. That may, one day, be considered classic rock.

4. According to my math, “Don’t Stop Believing” accounts for less than 85 percent of all classic rock.

5. Between 1960 and 1970 were written several songs in addition to “Build Me Up Buttercup.” Some of them might be classic rock.

6. You can keep playing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” more often than everything from Honky Chateau, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road combined. But it still won’t be classic rock.

7. More than 18 hours should pass between playings of “Heart of Glass.” Which can only charitably be described as classic rock. Like, if you don’t know English very well. Or what a solo sounds like.

“Heart of Glass” is really not classic rock.

8. If, after keeping you on my dial for a month, I’ve memorized every word of “R.O.C.K. in the USA,” but have yet to catch a single measure of Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground, The Band, Joe Cocker or any songs from The White Album, and I only heard the Stones once, and that was on a Home Depot commercial, you should not call yourself classic anything.

Share this post

Booo, music | Erin Alberty | July 30, 2009 8:44 am

14 Comments

By Garrett, July 30, 2009 @ 9:17 am

I haven’t had access to an urban classic rock station in six years, but no Led Zeppelin or Hendrix? I thought every classic rock station was still obliged to play them every half-hour. Let’s see how far my stations have fallen.

KSLX (Phoenix): The playlist on their Web site is blank, but the top of the page boasts photos of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones. No change there.

KEGX (Tri-Cities, WA): http://www.yes.com/#KEGX?log

There’s still plenty of Stones, Kansas, ZZ Top, etc., not to mention the Led Zeppelin three-fer at 10 p.m. But there’s a creeping 80s pop-metal presence that wasn’t there before (Def Leppard, Judas Priest, the Scorpions, Bon Jovi). Still no 90s aside from the Black Crowes and Tom Petty.

Oh, and “R.O.C.K.” makes an appearance.

[Reply]
By Garrett, July 30, 2009 @ 9:36 am

Pearl Jam’s going to crack classic rock playlists before Radiohead – they had a lot of Jimi, Neil Young, etc. in their sound already.

I wonder when modern rock stations will finally cut the 90s off. From what I can tell, half of their playlists are still Seattle grunge, RATM, RHCP, Beastie Boys and Sublime.

[Reply]
By Garrett, July 30, 2009 @ 9:40 am

Haha. Great timing. From @SergDun on Twitter: “90’s hiphop parties/djs make me think of classic rock djs, you motherfuckers turned Tribe into the Eagles, thanks assholes”

[Reply]
rassles Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
That. Is. Fucking. Awesome.

[Reply]
By rassles, July 30, 2009 @ 2:13 pm

And Erin, I’ve decided, officially, that I hate classic rock. I can’t help but get frustrated with people who group Led Zeppelin with Def Leppard, because I don’t give a shit if their names sound similar when you’re hammered.

So I don’t talk about classic rock anymore. But there’s just so many…okay, there’s rock and roll, pop rock, root rock, prog rock, punk rock, heavy metal, hair metal, Metal, soft rock, ballad rock, hard rock, hard punk rock, garage rock, glam rock, new wave rock, funk rock, funk pop, avant rock, anthem rock…

I mean, and then you can take all of those words and cross reference them with each other and bullshit. It’s all so hard to classify. Classic.

[Reply]
Erin Alberty Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 2:36 pm

I don’t think of classic rock as a genre or a way to describe sound. I think of it as more of a time period combined with quality. So if you’re going to listen to a “classic rock” station, you’re should hear something that was memorable enough to survive a generation. Anything from the 90s does not qualify.

But what’s worse is the constant replaying of songs. You give yourselves 4 decades to work with, and you can’t go a day without playing “Magic Man” twice?

Dumb.

[Reply]
By rassles, July 30, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

Oh, I don’t mean I hate Zep, or anything. I mean I hate the term “classic rock.”

[Reply]
Garrett Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
.38 Special has more songs in the classic rock pantheon than the Velvet Underground, the Stooges and the MC5 combined. That says it all.

[Reply]
Garrett Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I take it back. This says it all:
http://redmeat.com/redmeat/1999-09-27/index.html

[Reply]
By Chris's Dad, July 30, 2009 @ 9:36 pm

At least you’re not living in the Salt Lake of the 70s. We spent Christmas there in 1971 with my oldest brother. PBS was too liberal for TV, so we had two channels to pick from one was owned and operated by the Church, the other just owned and controlled by them. The difference was subtle. I was derided as a disgusting “hippie” because I had bell bottom jeans (don’t laugh)and my hair came down over my ears. Everything was censored back then, radio, television, and newspapers by the Church.
On top of that the President of the Church died while we were there so everything was taken off TV and all that was broadcast was a kind of poster like scene of the Temple surrounded by black bunting. A long series of songs by the Tabernacle choir was played over and over just to lighten up the tone.

[Reply]
By soul-fusion, August 4, 2009 @ 1:03 pm

When I was in high school, Salt Lake had the best classic rock station – Z93. It was pretty much all I listened to and they played the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Neil Young, Tom Petty and many other classics I was then obsessed with (and now love for the nostalgia). The first email my youngest brother ever sent me was at the end of my freshman year of college (probably 1994) and he emailed to tell me Z93 had switched formatting to country and I nearly cried. They even had a classic rock music festival each summer complete with tie-dye promotional t-shirts. I saw Steven Stills, the Doobie Brothers, CCR and a long list of aging classic rockers I can’t recall at the moment that played at the fair ground with hippies young and old – it was called Livestock. Salt Lake never managed to get a classic rock station that lived up to Z93……

[Reply]
By Tanna, August 5, 2009 @ 11:17 am

Hi Erin,

Just found your blog, so I’m catching up with your posts… love it, thanks for sharing, even if you had to disable your blog-counter.

My experience is that true classic rock stations don’t last long. I wish the local station, long since gone, played the Doors LESS. Oh electronic organs, how I could do without you! I’m moving to upstate NY next summer and can’t find ANY good radio stations.

[Reply]
By Kevin, September 4, 2009 @ 6:37 pm

Erin,

This post had me laughing all the way through. Well said!

[Reply]