Identity Crisis

I like Classic Rock music. I like Classic Rock music a lot. Over the years, I have often found myself tuning in to the local Classic Rock stations while I drive down the road. It is familiar and comfortable and you always know what you are in for when you turn it on. Right? Well, that doesn't quite seem to be the case anymore.

Back in the day, when I would tune in to a Classic Rock station, I knew what to expect. I would hear rock music from the 1960's and 1970's, with the occasional early 1980's song thrown in from a band that had been around since the 1960's or 1970's. I could expect to hear some Led Zeppelin, early Aerosmith, Beatles, Eagles, Doors, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Queen, Rolling Stones, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Boston, and the like. Sure, they might play Start Me Up (from 1980) by the Rolling Stones...but they weren't playing any of the music from the 1980's by bands who weren't part of the Classic Rock Canon.

A few years ago, that started to change a bit. I believe it was in 2003 that I noticed one of the Classic Rock radio stations around here begin to play music from the early to mid 1980's by bands who would not have previously been considered to be CLASSIC ROCK. Suddenly, they were playing some of the music that I grew up on...early U2 and Bon Jovi music, maybe a few of the hits from some of the 1980's hair metal bands. That initially threw me for a loop. I wasn't so sure I was ready for the music that I grew up on to be considered to be Classic Rock. Granted, times change...and at that point, most of that music had been around for more than 20 years. They still weren't playing even music from U2's Joshua Tree album or Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet...it was still music from the very early parts of their careers...not even from when they hit their peak, commercially. I eventually got to where I could accept that those things could be considered Classic Rock, even though it was music from my generation. Especially when I considered the fact that the Oldies station my Mom tends to listen to had shifted from playing music solely from the 1950's and 1960's to include some of the 1970's. Suddenly, they were playing Disco. If Disco was on the Oldies station, I suppose that early U2 and Bon Jovi can be considered to be Classic Rock.

Well, it wasn't even three years later when that started to change again. I guess they decided they liked being able to play some of that music, and they wanted to change the boundaries of Classic Rock yet again. All of a sudden, they flew through the entire decade of the 1980's and broke into the 1990's. They were playing stuff from late 1980's and early 1990's Guns 'N Roses and U2 and Bon Jovi. But that wasn't the end of it. Music from the Grunge era was suddenly getting airplay on Classic Rock radio. Pearl Jam and Nirvana on Classic Rock radio? Seriously? What on earth? They were playing music that was barely 10 years old. That started to disturb me. I stopped listening to that station, because I felt that they were becoming confused about their own identity.

But I tuned in again recently. It didn't jar me too much when I heard Pearl Jam shoved up between Stairway to Heaven and Sweet Child o Mine. But then a few songs later, I stopped dead in my tracks. They were playing U2's Beautiful Day. Yeah, I know they've played U2 before...they've been playing U2 now for about four years. But this...this was from 2000! Beautiful Day was only released seven years ago!!! Come on now people. How on earth can that be considered to be Classic Rock??? Not only that, but then I noticed my Mom's Oldies station playing music from the 1980's. Yes, they were playing Michael Jackson's Thriller. Seriously. That bothered me. How can music that is from my generation be considered an Oldie? I am not yet 30 years old, so I am not old!!! Either is that music. Sure, call it Retro. Call it a blast into the past. Something like that. But do not call it an Oldie.

I have decided that Classic Rock is in the middle of an identity crisis. Either that, or I am. I'm not entirely sure which.