Posted on 02/19/2006 9:24:23 PM PST by Mr. Blonde
Like countless parents before him, Steven Tyler is shocked at the music that's been blaring out of his fifteen-year-old son's bedroom lately. But the Aerosmith frontman can hardly disapprove. "I walk by at night and my son is listening to Zeppelin stuff, like 'Black Dog,'" Tyler says. "He's turned all his friends on to Cream, and they're all into [Aerosmith's] Toys in the Attic. I told him, 'I can't believe you're listening to this.'" Though classic rock is in no danger of edging out emo and hip-hop on most teenagers' playlists, a growing number of kids are also making room for Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles. At the same time, electric-guitar sales are soaring, with the cheapest models nearly doubling in sales from 2003 to 2004. "Kids go through hard rock, hip-hop and pop very quickly, and then they're hungry for something else," says E Street Band guitarist and garage-rock DJ Steven Van Zandt -- who gets hundreds of e-mails from teens thanking him for introducing them to bands like the Kinks. "They always end up coming to [classic] rock & roll."
Nine percent of kids ages twelve to seventeen listened to classic-rock radio in any given week in 2005 -- marking a small but significant increase during the past three years -- with a total of 2.3 million teens tuning in each week, according to the radio-ratings company Arbitron. And some markets have seen more dramatic growth: Teen listenership at New York's Q104.3, the nation's largest classic-rock station, has jumped twenty percent since fall 2002. "It really started in the past five years," says Q104.3 DJ Maria Milito. "You get these boys calling to request Hendrix whose voices haven't changed yet." Van Zandt's Underground Garage, heard on 140 radio stations across the country on Sunday nights, draws a third of its audience from listeners under twenty-five.
For teens, not all classic rock is created equal. According to the market-research firm NPD, kids ages thirteen to seventeen bought twenty percent of all Floyd and Zeppelin albums sold from 2002 to 2005, and seventeen percent of Hendrix and Queen discs but accounted for just three percent of Creedence Clearwater Revival sales, six percent of Rolling Stones sales and a paltry one percent of Cat Stevens sales. "There's such a force and power to a band like Zeppelin," says Rhino Records marketing vice president Mike Engstrom, adding that young buyers drove sales for the label's 2003 DVD collection of live Zep.
Young fans' enthusiasm helps evergreen discs such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and AC/DC's Back in Black sell thousands of copies a week. "Week after week, a whole new group of people are discovering these albums," says Jeff Jones, executive vice president of Sony BMG's reissue label Legacy Recordings.
Veteran artists are also seeing a surprising number of young faces at their concerts; at one Tom Petty show at New York's Jones Beach last June, kids as young as fourteen showed up in packs and sang along fervently. "I don't know how to explain it," Petty says.
"We're now seeing an audience that goes from sixteen to sixty," says Allman Brothers manager Bert Holman. "Kids feel they're seeing something legendary and special." Classic-rock mainstay George Thorogood, meanwhile, has had to change his set lists to accommodate the growing number of kids at his shows. "I've had to clean it up a little bit," he says. "It's like, 'Cocaine Blues'? Maybe not."
Why would kids born in the Nineties turn to timeworn guitar anthems? For all of the vibrant rock recorded in the past ten years -- from pop punk to neogarage to dance rock -- no new, dominant sound has emerged since grunge in the early Nineties. "I can't think of a record recently that blew people's minds," says Jeff Peretz, a Manhattan producer and guitar teacher. "And there aren't really any guitar heroes around anymore. Kids don't come in and say, 'I want to play like John Mayer.'"
"There is such a drought that kids are going back and rediscovering the Who and Sabbath," says Paul Green, who runs the Paul Green School of Rock Music, which has expanded from a single Philadelphia branch in 1998 to schools in twelve other cities.
At the same time, the Internet has made forty-year-old hits as accessible as current chart-toppers. "I started to see this as a real trend when Napster started around 1999," says Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, who has two teenage sons. Last year, teens even started believin' again in Journey's power ballads: They pushed the band's 1981 song "Don't Stop Believin' " into iTunes' Top Ten after it popped up during a romantic moment on MTV's wildly popular reality show, Laguna Beach. It has since sold more than 200,000 digital singles. "It makes me so happy that a new generation would embrace something we believed in," says former Journey singer Steve Perry. "Back when we were first successful, we were dissed -- but time has told a different story."
Old rock has become fashionable, too. The years-old couture and thrift-shop vogue for vintage rock T-shirts recently trickled down to mall retailers catering to teens, with Doors and Rolling Stones shirts selling fast at stores such as Hot Topic.
"It's almost a cyclical thing -- as music ages, it can become cool again," says Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis, who covers the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care" on her new solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat. But Lewis also sees a simpler reason for the trend: "It's called classic rock for a reason -- it's classic. It's just really great music."
"Adults" were busy pushing Harry Belefonte and other acts while the Beatles were withheld from an American audience.
The suits are clueless.
The lack of exposure to good/new/young music does not mean it doesn't exist.
Does that include James Brown?
There is most definitely some good music out there that doesn't get mainstream exposure. Radio is too highly formatted for some music to get a chance because it doesn't fit with in narrowly defined groups, and MTV rarely shows videos anymore and when it does it's even harder to find a rock band. The Drive By Truckers are a prime example of not fitting into a format, but being deserving of wide exposure and not getting it.
I prefer "In the Lap of the Gods" on the same album.
Are You Experienced?....ditto,Hendrix,plus he was Army Airborne
Abbey Road by Beatles....pretty good,Rubber Soul and Revolver were better
Sticky Fingers...their last great work
Rumours by Fleetwood Mac...Bare Trees and Heroes are Hard To Find were better (Christine McVie!!!)
Tea For The Tillerman by Cat Stevens...One great,great song on this (Sad Lisa)
Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles...memories!
Cream Wheels Of Fire...The British Invasion at its best.
The Kinks : Ultimate Collection....ditto,the Kinks
Buffalo Springfield Retrospective....appallingly under-rated group.
Creedence Clearwater Revival Essential Album: Chronicle..one of the great American groups of the 60's
Blonde On Blonde Bob Dylan...Dylan's one of the great writers of the folk/rock era,his first few albums were classics.
For those who want to hear what Little Steven's show is all about (schedule/stations list as well as archives)
http://www.littlestevensundergroundgarage.com/
You are as likely to hear the High Dials, Sugar Shack, Detroit Cobras, or Dirtbombs as you are to hear "classic rock" on this show though (and his 60s playlist includes the Creation and the Pretty Things, unlike traditional "Classic Rock"). Actually I find that to be a good thing.
The classic rock station in my area (WCBS FM 101.1 ) USED to play alot of 1950s rock tunes (along with 60s and 70s rock), But then all of the sudden decided that they weren't going to play 1950s tunes anymore (I cant recall the reason). Then they dumped the oldies format:
as they said in Spinal Tap
I'll turn it ahhhlll the way up.all the way up , all the way up..
I've got an amp that goes to 11....it's for when you go all the way up to 10 and you just need that little extra push... yep, that's what the 11 is for...hahahahahaha
I first heard "Nights in White Satin" at 2 or 3 in the morning on KONO in San Antonio...
I think it was 860 on the AM dial.... it freaked me out cause the part that woke me up was the guy talking about
"Breathe deep the gathering gloom,
Watch lights fade from every room.
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy is spent.
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one;
Lonely man cries for love and has none;
New mother picks up and suckles her son;
Senior citizens wish they were young.
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight,
Red is grey is yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
...then creepy violin music...
freaked me OUT!! Cause I thought some guy had crept into my room or something...hahahaha
that's very strange... if you rent Fandango, you'll here two of the most beautiful Pat Metheny songs of ALL time... on the "As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls"
.... look at the movie and you'll instantly notice them..."It's For You" and September Fifteenth - (dedicated to Bill Evans) ... two very GREAT SONGS...wow another Pat Metheny fan.... it's a great day in the Lone Star State!!
What goes around, comes around. Guitars were big when I was a teenager (late 80's, early 90's). Then, they went out of style. Now, I guess they're coming back. We've got a 15-year-old kid in our worship band at church who can play Zeppelin licks almost as well as I can. My boss's 16-year-old son borrows my Floyd & Queen collections. Heck, my 9-year-old son loves the Beatles, Queen, Floyd, Cream, and Creedence. His current favorite albums are McCartney's "Ram" and Brian Wilson's "Gettin' In Over My Head."
There is a lot of disposable pop out there, but the old stuff is what still endures. There's a reason the Beatles were the top selling artists of 1996 and 2001...
Drat, I couldn't figure out a way to plug Glenn Tilbrook and Squeeze in that rant. Wait, I just did!
I was more of a Jerry Jeff, Linda Ronstadt, Commander Cody, Pointer Sisters, Jackson Browne, Emy Lou Harris, Charlie Daniels, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Lynard Skynard, Allman Brothers, Doug Kershaw kind of guy.
BTW, before you guys pick on Linda, I know what she looks like now, but to a nineteen year old kid standing right under the front of the stage at Armadillo World Headquarters, well, you just had to be there:
BTW, no I didn't take these photos. They're from other concerts done about the same time. However, when THAT girl looked directly down at me, with THESE EYES
and sang,
"And if you want me to beg, I'll fall down on my knees,
And ask you to come back, I'll be begging you to come back,
Pleading for you to come back to me.
I nearly died. She grinned as she looked at other concert goers. Another victim of those eyes. She knocked me down and layed me out with just a look.
No, I'm closer to being a member of the Beach Boys (which I'm not) than the Beastie Boys. That whole beard thing.
Anyway, Zeppelin used to be on Yahoo's launchcast. Now, I think they only let you hear the BBC album. I heard there were negotiations to put the Beatles on some internet service, but I haven't heard any details in a while. Either way, I can guarantee Apple Computers will not distribute the Beatles' music...
hey, hey, hey.... we were at a wedding, at a ranch that involved firearms, alcohol, rabbits, trucks, javalinas, cactus spines, and hungry ranch dogs.....
all while dressed in portions of the afformentioned "powder blue" tuxedoes that were popular back then..... at 2 in the morning....
by then nobody could operate a camera at the time but I'm sure the photos woulda been GREAT!!!...Jerry Jeff Walker in the Background...maybe a little ZZ Top "Mexican Blackbird"...or George Strait
a buddy of mine fell UNDER the stage and it took him 30 minutes to find his way back out..... By then we'd all found some snuff queens that were 6 pack "gorgeous" and the night lives in infamy as a 300 mile roadtrip to this day that started our post graduate studies....
Speed limit 75, drinking age 18 and we were all bullet proof...hahaahahahahaha
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