• mindbleach
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    8 months ago

    Classic rock is a specific fucking genre! Eminem will never count. Slayer will never count. Black Sabbath will never count. Miles Davis will never count. Age has nothing to do with it.

    Aerosmith’s output circa 2000 is classic rock, but it was classic rock at the time. It was classic rock when it was new.

    This is aggravating only because it’s the same stupidity as using “new wave” or “modernism” to refer to, just, whatever’s recent. It is a complete failure to understand how labels work. Linkin Park can’t be classic rock for the same reason it can’t be traditional blues, folk music, or classical. These words do not just mean… old.

    The only reasons people say this shit are (1) simple mistaken ignorance, (2) stupid trolling, or (3) radio stations insisting the only categories of music are “classic rock,” “R&B,” and “country.” Like ClearChannel trapped them in a timeless expanse by playing “the best of the 80s, 90s… and today.” Today being the last twenty years.

    • restingboredface
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      8 months ago

      Preach, friend. Got in an argument with my husband about this. He kept saying that it’s a part of getting older but I refused to believe that.

      I feel the same way about classic/ old school rap. It’s a defined style of music, not just music your parents listened to.

      • mindbleach
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        8 months ago

        Right: calling Prodigy “dad music” is a deep and vicious jab. Calling Prodigy “classic rock” is a category error.

    • thecrotch
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      8 months ago

      In the 70s lynard skynard was southern rock. The Beatles were British invasion. The byrds were psychedelic. Pink Floyd was prog. By the 80s-90s they were all classic rock. What makes you think the same thing won’t happen to prodigy and Linkin park?

      This post is giving strong “old man yells at cloud” vibes.

      • mindbleach
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        8 months ago

        Correct: all those rock subgenres from a certain era got lumped together as ‘rock circa this era.’ Things not resembling rock from that era do not qualify. Including things from that era, not resembling rock.

        The label having a synonym for old is not carte blanche to slap it on whatever is old, now. By the 80s-90s, classic rock still did not include disco. Or country. Or spacey electronic nonsense. And it never should. Time paved over the fuzzy distinction between early heavy metal and rock & roll, but even that enlumpening didn’t just shove both under an existing label. At some point, the term “classic rock” was new.

        Calling Linkin Park classic rock is like insisting Imagine Dragons is nu-metal… because it’s new, and metal. It’s wrong on three counts.

    • mindbleach
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      8 months ago

      To make this abundantly clear: nu-metal will always be nu-metal, even though it is long since “nu.” That is the warning label it will bear forevermore.