THIS TIME AROUND, the question on Quora was, “Why do I miss the oldies station on the radio and hate the stupid classic rock one when I like classic rock more?” My answer was brief and hopefully helpful (although a week later and there’s not a single upvote).
Diversity does add spice to anyone’s life and the type of diversity of music played on AM radio in the ’50s and ’60s (pop, rock & roll, rhythm & blues, soul, country, easy-listening, even comedic novelty records) has been gone since the ’70s.
Give this oldie a listen and then walk around the rest of the day singing to yourself, “Nothing can stop me now ’cause I’m the Duke of Earl!”
Not only will you smile all day, you’ll probably forget you’re addicted to your smartphone for a few hours . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnfooEED8Y
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
i call classic rock “generic rock”
J
That’s good!
And accurate.
Wish I’d thought of it.
N
Generally speaking, the quality of the musicianship on the 60’s recordings was better. You can argue with some justification that in the classic rock era, technological advances in recording process allowed artists to create a sonically enhanced product. The 1960’s and early 1970’s was the era of the session musician and the hit single.
Conversely, the period that is commonly referred to as “Classic Rock” was the singer/songwriter and LP era, and many of these groups insisted on performing their own material. It would be my opinion that many of these artists, some of whom it could be charitably said were of modest talent, lacked the instrumental prowess that session players brought to the recording process.
That was why Motown, Stax and Fame were so successful. You had mostly the some group of musicians playing on the records overseen by producers who knew what they were doing, and ensured that a quality product resulted. I’m not sure the same ethos was followed in the creation of what we call classic rock.